Issue with Creating Forecast Profiles/Forecasting

[Former Member]

Hello Experts,

We are facing an issue with creating forecast profiles.

We have two FYVs defined in our system, one with 52/53 fiscal weeks (Fiscal Variant W1) and the other with 12 fiscal months (FYV M1), Our storage buckets profile (STP) uses W1, since we have many dataviews that use W1 as the FYV in the attached Planning buckets profile(PBP). We also have dataviews that display in fiscal months (use FYV M1 in the attached PBP), data from Fiscal weeks will be aggregated and shown in Fiscal months . We need to do forecasting using FYV M1, that is forecast in Fiscal Months , but since the storage bucket profile has W1 which is used in the Planning Area config. We are unable to create any Forecast profiles with FYV M1 . Please note that we cannot use M1 in STP because when we used M1 in STP, we could not create dataviews in fiscal weeks (using W1)

1. Is there any way we can forecast using M1 while having assinged W1 to the Planning area/STP ?

2. OR we are willing to assing M1 to PA, provided we can use W1 in some of the dataviews, unfortunately we were unable to do this, though the vice versa is possible i,e. we could have W1 in STP and M1 in some of the related PBPs/ Weekly Dataviews.

Please let me know if any of these are possible or if there is any alternative way to do forecasting in Fisc Months.

Thanks

Tej

[Former Member]

Hi,

You are correct, the Storage bucket profile always has to be at a detailed level. Time bucket profile can be at higher levels like monthly, quarterly etc.,

Coming to the root of your problem, which is you are unable to forecast at a level other that what is specified in your Storage bucket profile, unfortunately the answer is no.

You can do a forecast only at the level at which the data is stored and not at the level at which the data is viewed.

One work around for this is to create an additional planning area with the same MPOS and this addl PA can contain only those bare minimum KF required for your forecast. After you generate your forecast, you can copy it to your Weeks based PA and then proceed from there. This copy of KF between PA is much faster as it will happen at LC level and should not cause time delays.

NOTE - You have to exercise caution when you are using 2 periodicities i.e., weeks and months, if you are using standard SAP calendar then you are good to go. If you are creating custom Fiscal variants pls ensure the start and end of a month is same in both the weekly and monthly variants. Failing which, there will be mismatch of data between the two dataviews.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Mani Suresh

[Former Member]

Thanks very much - Digambar and Mani Suresh for your responses.

Mani, The thought of seperate PA makes sense.

However, if we want to avoid having an other PA, and we decide to use existing PA with Fisc weeks for forecasting in batch.

Since we have a monthly S&OP cycle and plan to run forecast monthly. Does running forecast in fisc week buckets in the background , but only once a month as per our monthly S&OP cycle makes sense ? I am not seeing any issues , its just that we will have forecast generated in weekly buckets(as per FYV W1) and then also we would have the option to view it in monthly dataviews as per the FYV M1.

Just not sure if running in weekly buckets once a month is a correct approach ? Would like to know your opinion as well.

Thanks

Tej

[Former Member]

Tej,

What you say appears to be ok. However it depends on the forecasting models you will be using. For example if you are using Seasonal/pattern based forecasting, we need to ensure that the disaggregation of monthly data into weekly does not generate false seasonal patterns or trends. If that aspect is taken care, I do not see any other concerns in running a forecast at a weekly level at a monthly frequency.

Hope this is helpful.

Thanks

Mani Suresh

[digambar_narkhede]

Hi Tej ,

This is very specific issues when you are using Fiscal year variant with posting periods and need diff buckets for data views.

To address your issue - To facilitate the requirement of using STP as in M1 or W1 and same time data views in Fiscal weeks W1 as well as in M1 months , what you need to do it while defining the storage bucket profile, you need to select the check box for month and week in addition to the check box for Posting Period bucket and FYV,which will allow you to create data views in diff buckets using same SBF and also create forecasting profile as required.

In short you must include all the periodicities in which you intend to plan.

I have written a white paper on this exact requirement and I hope very soon it will be published on SDN.

Regards,

Digambar

[Former Member]

Hi Tej,

In APO-DP we need to define storage bucket profile and time bucket profile.

In Storage bucket profile we define how we need to store the data whether it should be stored in years,months, weeks or days. It is the primary step done before designing palnning area.

This storage bucket profile is assigned to our planning area.

Time bucket profile is the subset of storage bucket profile. It is assigned ot our data views.

In data view you can view the data as defined in the time bucket profile.

If your storage bucket profile consist of months & years then your time bucket profile can be of either months,years or both.

So in order to have timebucket profile to be have weeks & months you need to have storage bucket profile consisting of weeks & months.

As Digambar mentioned your problem can be sorted out if you choose both months & weeks in storage bucket profile.

Regards,

Chetana

[Former Member]

Digambar/Chetana,

Thanks for your responses, seems like I have not explained the question properly.

I totally understand the relation between STP and planning buckets in dataviews.

But just reiterating the scenario: The Months I want to use for Forecasting are not the (Calender) Months you see as one of the levels/periodicity in Storage bucket profile, rather Iam talking about "Fiscal months/Posting periods" based on the Fiscal year variant 'M1'. Which means these months can be selected only as a Posting period- P along with FYV M1. But as I mentioned earlier, i have already selected W1 as my FYV in STP and the corresponding Posting peiords are Fiscal weeks. And the fact is, we can select ONLY one FYV in the STP, I selected W1.

But in any case, as per your suggestion, I selected all the periodicities in my STP such as 'day', 'week', 'month', 'posting period - P' and 'FYV as W1' and 'Year' and then tried to create a Forecast profile with FYV M1, I was unable to do this. I am not sure we will be able to do forecasting on a different FYV (for example M1) than that used in the STP (Eg: W1). If you or anyone has been able to do this, it would be great to know how it is possible to do that and how it was done.

If my scenario is still not clear let me know.

Thanks

Tej

[digambar_narkhede]

Hi Tej ,

I think you want to use M1 as well as W1 for your planning in DV but fortunately /unfortunately one Planning area can have only one fiscal Year Variant.

So It is not possible to do this mapping for two FYV. But try if you can break the M1 posting periods further in to W1 posting periods in PBF.

Regards,

Digambar