---
title: "About the Forecaster app"
description: ""
url: "https://docs.itrsgroup.com/docs/itrs-analytics/app/signal-forecaster/2.13.0/user-guide/about/index.html"
---
The Forecaster app creates forecasts based on historical usage on a metric of interest and then generates either of these signals:

- **Forecast signal** — if the threshold is predicted to be breached within a defined duration.
- **Static signal** — if the threshold has currently been breached.

You can create and view Forecaster configurations in the [Signals page](https://docs.itrsgroup.com/docs/itrs-analytics/app/signal-forecaster/2.13.0/user-guide/signals/index.html) on the Web Console.

![About](https://docscdn.itrsgroup.com/itrs-analytics-app-signal-forecaster/images/iax-forecaster-intro-1-0.png)

## App components

The app consists of the following components to cover a vast amount of time series for forecasting at run-time:


**Note**


As of the 2.2.0 version, the Forecaster app is capable of handling 20k entities / time series.



### Preprocessor

The preprocessor processes live metrics and selectively passes metrics of interest to be forecasted. An entity can be excluded for forecasting for the following reasons:

- data is too noisy to produce any meaningful forecasts
- there is no clear periodic pattern detected
- historical usage has not changed significantly
- historical usage has always been far away from reaching the defined threshold
- entity is inactive as the last updated time is too old

### Forecaster

The Forecaster app currently supports two forecast models. The app selects a most suitable model 
and makes predictions based on historical data.

### Signal generator

The signal generator processes forecasts and live metric data to create signals if the metric of interest is predicted to breach the threshold (**forecast signal**) or has already breached the threshold (**static signal**). For more information, see [Signals](https://docs.itrsgroup.com/docs/itrs-analytics/app/signal-forecaster/2.13.0/user-guide/signals/index.html).

Together, these app components form a funnel-like workflow.

![workflow](https://docscdn.itrsgroup.com/itrs-analytics-app-signal-forecaster/images/process-1-0.png)