You can create three types of forecasts in Equinox:

• Forecasts based on your existing portfolio only
• Forecasts based on future new filings only
• Forecasts based on both your existing portfolio and future new filings

Create new forecasts from your existing portfolio

To create new forecasts based on cases currently in your portfolio:

1. Go to the Forecasts

2. Click the Create New button in the 'Forecasts' box on the top left of the page
   

3. This opens the Forecast popup 
   

4. Fill out the details in the Details box on the top left of the screen

5. Enter a name for your forecast in the Name textbox

6. Choose a colour to assign to this report in your forecast chart.
   To choose the colour:

   • Click the coloured block on the left of the 'Colour' textbox. This opens a pop-up where you can move the arrows around to select the exact colour you want.

     Or

   • If you know the exact hex code for the colour you want, enter it in the text box to the right of the 'Colour'. In this example our hex code is #39CACC
     

7. When you've entered the name and colour you want, click the Save to button to save your changes or click the X button to discard your changes and exit the popup. 

8. Next, fill in the required information for the Current Portfolio Filters box on the top right of the screen. 

9. Click the Add button on the top right of this box to add your current portfolio to the forecast.
   

10. Choose to add cases by one of these fields in the top dropdown menu:

    • Case Category

    • Case

    • Family

    • Client

    • Who Pays the Bill

    • Country

    • All Cases
      
      Note: For all options other than 'Add Cases': Select the relevant field from the bottom dropdown menu. The contents of this menu depend on the filter you choose for the top dropdown menu.
      
      

11. When you return to the Forecasts screen you see New Report in the Forecasts box on the top left of the screen. The data from this forecast will be displayed graphically in the chart on the top right of the screen.
    

    
    Below this is a table containing the numerical data from the forecast.
    

Include future costs in a forecast

In this example we want a forecast of existing and future costs for patent filings in 2024.  

We know we're going to file 30 patents in Germany this year, so we can make sure Equinox includes those 30 German patents in our cost forecast. To do this:

1. Fill in the Details and Current Portfolio boxes as in the above example. In this case we'll call the report 'Patent Filings' and set the Current Portfolio Filters to 'Category is Patent'.

2. Scroll down to the New Filings box at the bottom of the page 
   

3. Click the Add button on the top right of the New Filings box

4. From here we can edit the information we want to include in these categories:

   • Filings

   • Category

   • Frequency

   • Country

   • Start Date

   • Number of Periods

5. We know that we want to include the 30 German patents we're going to be filing in the coming year, so we'll set these fields to contain that information.

6. Click the Create button on the top right 
   

7. The 30 German patent applications we wanted to include are now included in our forecast.
   
   Note: Due to the large amounts of data being handled, calculations can take up to 15 minutes. The Forecast name will show an exclamation mark next to the forecast whilst the costs are still being calculated.

8. When you've successfully updated a forecast, Equinox displays returns you to the Forecasts  screen and displays a 'Successfully updated forecast' message in the bottom right corner. 

9. You can now see your forecast data on the chart on the right-hand side of the page. 
   
   Your costs are also displayed numerically in the table at the bottom of the page.