What this page is for
This page walks through creating a scenario — the safe, isolated copy of your plan you use to test changes. For what a scenario is and how the comparison works, see Scenarios & what-if. Here we cover the create screen and the choices it asks you to make.The create screen
When you start a new scenario, you fill in a short form:| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Scenario name | Required. Give it a name you’ll recognize later, like “Port strike” or “Q4 promo pull-in.” |
| Freeze supply plan | A toggle that decides whether Spherecast re-recommends orders inside the scenario. See below. |
| Products | The scope of the copy. Defaults to All products; you can narrow it to specific ones. |
Freeze supply plan
The Freeze supply plan toggle is the most important choice.- Frozen (on): order and transfer recommendations are not refreshed for this scenario. Existing orders stay exactly where they are, so you isolate the effect of your own manual edits and nothing else moves underneath you.
- Unfrozen (off): the engine re-recommends as you go, so the plan reacts to your changes with fresh suggestions.
Products scope
The Products field defaults to All products. Narrowing it to specific products makes the copy faster to build and more focused — a good idea when your question only concerns a handful of SKUs (a SKU is a single sellable product).What happens when you create
Creating a scenario runs in the background, so a progress panel appears while the copy is built. It shows:- A per-group status for each part of the copy: Waiting, Copying, Done, or Failed.
- An overall completed / total count.
- A Cancel option if you change your mind.
Step by step: build a scenario
- Start a new scenario and type a Scenario name.
- Decide on Freeze supply plan — on to isolate your own edits, off to let the engine re-recommend.
- Set the Products scope — leave it on All products, or narrow it to the SKUs you care about for a faster copy.
- Create, and watch the progress panel move each group from Waiting to Copying to Done.
- Wait for “Scenario created successfully,” then open the scenario and make your what-if changes.
Example
A planner braces for a supplier delay. They create a “Port strike” scenario, turn Freeze supply plan on so recommendations won’t move on their own, and keep All products to catch every knock-on effect. Once it’s built, they push the key purchase orders out three weeks inside the scenario and open the comparison to see which stockout alerts appear versus the baseline — all without disturbing the live plan.Note: Freezing does not mean the scenario is read-only — you can still edit orders freely. It only stops Spherecast from generating new recommendations, so the only changes are the ones you make yourself. See Supply planning for where to make those edits.