Can we only use seasonal forecasting when we believe the YOY pattern will be same (which I believe is something Greg said in his training) / Observation: it seems like the platform should be able to combine both SMA and seasonal forecasting into one

With Aspect it had the ability to control inside of the forecast how important are long term and short term trends. Being able to adjust how much of the forecast was impacted by close in trends.

Ideally the platform would understand the seasonal nature of the environment, but be able to use recent trends to increase or decrease the seasonal forecast.

Example: Average monthly volume is 1000 calls. Seasonality shows that December is only 700 of that average but January is, on average, 1300. That is the base seasonal forecast, but based upon recent trends that volume would increase or decrease. December and January would still maintain roughly the same seasonal gap, but the actual forecast would be impacted by close in trends.