The question Analogs answers

Which new products could launch on a past product's demand history, does the case for each pair hold, and which pairs are already in place? Analogs is a Product page of the families and attributes engine. It is on the Tightly Pro rail; on Essentials and Essentials+ the rail marks it for sale with Pro; Lite does not carry it. The reads behind it are included with Essentials+ and Pro, so a read the plan does not include is refused with one sentence that names Essentials+:

This organisation's plan does not include Analogs. It is sold with Essentials+.

An analog is never a forecast

An analog is a past product whose selling shape stands in for a new product's until the new one has sales of its own. A pair is per sales channel. What each state feeds:

• Proposed. Where no analog is declared for the channel, proposals you have not dismissed are the comparable past styles a never-sold product's borrowed forecast can blend; see Forecasts for products that have never sold.
• In place. Your declared source takes precedence over automatic proposals for that channel; other channels keep their own selection. The buy reads the new product's demand from its analog, and says from an analog. Choosing a source does not retire it or stop its forecast. On Essentials+ and Pro, the account grade reads an account's sell-out of the analog first.

Proposals refresh nightly at 04:30 UTC where Analogs is enabled. Accepted and dismissed decisions are preserved.

What you see on Analogs

Use Forecast sources, Waiting on you or In place, search titles and SKUs, or Declare an analog.

Waiting on you is one row per proposal, strongest match first: New product, Proposed analog, Channel (Channel not named where none is), Confidence and Evidence. Each side shows its title, variant and SKU.

In place lists the pairs declared: New product, Launches on, Channel. Both views page a hundred rows: {shown} of {total} · Page {n}.

The evidence and the confidence words

The engine weighs six pieces of evidence, in this order: Same product type, Same vendor, Attributes line up, Your own fields agree, Priced the same, They look alike. The Evidence column counts only what was compared, {held} of {compared} checked, or Nothing compared.

Confidence counts the five text checks, never the image: four or five agree is High, three is Medium, fewer is Low. Medium and Low carry these sentences on hover:

Enough agrees to be worth a look; check the pair before accepting.

Thin evidence. Accept only if you know these two behave alike.

The pair drawer

Open a proposal with a click or Enter. The new product and its proposed analog each show an image, a title linking to the product page, and a SKU linking to the variant room. The badge reads {High} confidence, with the channel beside it. The evidence table lists the six, each Agreed, Disagreed or Not compared; a disagreed one is struck through.

What to do on Analogs

• Use as the analog (A) puts the pair in place. The strip reads "{new product} now launches on {analog}'s demand history." with Undo.
• Not this one (N) maps nothing and the pair is never proposed again: "{new product} will not be proposed with {analog} again." No Undo.
• The arrows move between proposals.
• On In place, a row's menu confirms "{new product} goes back to its own demand history." with Keep it or Break this link.
• Declare an analog takes New products and a Channel, then an explicit past SKU for each selected new SKU. Every selected SKU needs a source of the matching size; the batch saves together. The receipt distinguishes queued, running or unavailable recalculation from the saved mappings. Open forecast keeps the new SKUs and channel selected so you can check the result.

A new product has one analog per channel: declaring a second is refused until the first is broken. A refusal reads Not accepted, Not dismissed, Not broken or Not declared with the served reason. A replaced proposal reads "Not accepted. This proposal was replaced; the list has been read again." A viewer reads Analogs; a member or an admin changes it. On Pro, the Commitments desk takes, rejects and clears the same pairs.

When Analogs is empty or failed

Empty views say No pending analogs or No analogs. Unmatched searches offer Clear search; failed reads offer Try again.

Import pairs from CSV

Choose Import analog CSV. The template uses old_sku,new_sku,channel: exact SKUs and channel names or IDs, up to 1,000 pairs.

Preview pairs flags missing, ambiguous, duplicate, excluded or conflicting rows. Correct blocked rows before Approve and apply, which saves all channels together. Source-archived donors remain eligible unless explicitly excluded in Tightly.

Export report includes resolved IDs and row results. Forecast refresh has a separate status; failure leaves mappings saved. Sales history and selling dates stay unchanged; use Assign selling periods separately.

Ask can preview and apply the same CSV after your later-turn confirmation. Viewers cannot apply.

Products and variants archived in Tightly are excluded from analog proposals, manual donor selection and borrowed demand calculations. Existing links and historical sales remain available for review; restoring the local archive makes them eligible again. A product archived only in its source system can still provide historical donor evidence.

Forecast sources shows each SKU/channel’s source, forecast availability and dates. Commitment scope is preserved. Missing assessments stay unknown.