Excel 2016 will feature five new forecasting functions as part of the new Forecast Sheet functionality. Linear will make it possible to predict a linear set of values within the existing values in your data set. ETS applies exponential smoothing to obtain forecasted values. ETS Seasonality detects seasonality patterns for a specific time series in the data set. ETS Confint provides a confidence interval for the forecast. ETS Stat returns the forecast’s requested statistic. The Ceiling, Floor, and Forecast functions have been dropped to compatibility status.
Our take: We love these new Excel 2016 functions, since they’ll introduce many new users to time series forecasting. Of course, you can do a lot more with time series forecasting in XLMiner Pro or XLMiner Platform.
Read the full article here: Excel 2016 Function Changes