The Ramped Rate family is, like the families of the Stepped Rate Projections and Constant Rate Projections categories, concerned with projecting amounts over time. Instead of having the rate change smoothly and progressively over time (constant rate), or with sharp staircase-like step-changes, ramped rates are where the rate changes like points on a plotted curve.

In terms of application, ramped rates are good for things like sales or production projections, where you want the ability effectively to 'draw a curve' of the most likely scenario (stepped rates are good for contractual things like rent and loans).

Currently there is only one function in this family, Ramp, but which can apply to a wide variety of situations. It takes a list of AnnualRates and Dates as the basic input points to the plotted curve. The question of how the points governing the annual rate should be joined together is dealt with by ConnectOpt. The default if omitted is a straight line connection, in other words if the rate in Jan 2004 was 100 and in Jan 2006 it was 200, then in Jan 2005 it would be 150. Other the straight line, you can choose a polynomial curve fit. This is especially useful because you can basically let the function worry about connecting the points to provide the best fit. You can either let the function choose the type of polynomial (recommended, ConnectOpt=0), or specify an order of polynomial you want fitted.