APO Demand Planning weak points / Most common enhancements

[Former Member]

What are some of the weak points you saw in APO Demand Planning - Meaning some feature which you think is not working as you should work and some feature which Planners/users complained about.

What are some of the areas where you had to use ABAP development ( Implementation or continuous improvement/support phase) because SAP doesnt have that standard feature

It is ok to mention even though these changes are because of a specific business procedure followed by your client -But try to mention any generic ones which sort of applies to every client such as lets say you feel auto model selection 56 doesnt work correctly and you had a work around to make it work better

I know this is a loaded question but contribute as much as you can so that we all can deliver the best output and make APO DP more likeable to our clients

[SatishWaghmare · Accepted solution]

Hello Siva,

I believe Demand Planning is a great tool if configured and used properly otherwise it become just data entry tool within few months after implementation.

APO-DP common issues/concerns which I can think of  -

1. There is no event/audit log for changes done within Planning book.

2. Uploading data directly from Excel into Planning Book.
3. Forecast Modeling and Error measurement is not easy to understand for the planners.
4. Outlier Correction does not work as desired.
5. CVC creation is tedious job(especially for new product).
6. Exception Mgmt. by Alert Monitor can be simplified for end user experience.
7. DP BOM functionality and all the issues related to it.
8. Multi screen/transaction code kind of application makes it more less user friendly experience and requires team of skilled consultants(Functional/Technical/Admin) to maintain/support the applications. Unlike in the past there were application which had single screen and with single person controlling/maintaining the entire application.

Common enhancements which I can think of now.
1. Automate or simplify CVC creation process
2. Automatic update of Selection profiles

3. Security role/authorizations based on Master data for Planning Book etc.

4. Uploading excel data into APO-DP

I want to emphasize importance of end user training should be included as a part of overall project pan. It should definitely cover Statistics Modeling and various Demand Planning functionalities.Finally, Any application or software program(like APO-DP) cannot be held accountable for a user’s lack of theoretical and practical knowledge.

Hope this will help.

Thank you

Satish Waghmare

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Satish -  Another helpful reply , You are definitely addicted to scn , we dont want you to get off this addiction

Point 2 in issues and point 4 in enhancements : I think uploading from excel is a standard feature and we are using it - not extensively though .Any specific issues you came across

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If time permits can you give a simple example for enhancements Point 1 and point 2. . How can we simplify cvc creation process- we usually create cvcs from sales history and i think this is followed by most clients

[SatishWaghmare · Accepted solution]

Thanks Siva. Nothing else to do on this cold/rainy afternoon here.

Yes, Sales History is definitely one of the ways to create CVCs in APO-DP.  It doesn't not cover all the CVC requirements.  You require some alternative to create CVCs ahead of time before Material actually start selling. After all you want to start forecasting/planning beforehand, so you need CVCs.

#1.  Regarding simplification of CVC creation process.

CVCs can be created based on the file being uploaded by the user. I had implemented this in following manner in the past.

1. This was done by creating the program which will upload (predefined formatted and tab delimited) file into Application Server(AL11).

2. While uploading file, individuals records from the file were validated against the Master data(Info objects - /BIC/PXXX tables) in APO and also against the /sapapo/v_matloc table.

Erroneous or invalid records  were written into the log file and was shown on the screen. Only valid records used to be uploaded in a file on application server.

3. Then batch job used to run to pickup the file either it will upload it into the Infocube OR another option use the uploaded file in MC62 variant and create the CVCs using FILE from application server.

4. If Infocube option, then CVC will be created based on infocube by running standard /SAPAPO/TS_PLOB_MAINTAIN program.

5. Once CVCs are generated, the run /SAPAPO/TS_LCM_PLOB_DELTA_SYNC to do Adjust Time Series.

I believe this is much simpler approach, less development effort and also it leverages standard inherent SAP features.

#2   Selection profile update can be developed based on Z program referring/updating these tables /SAPAPO/TS_SELKO  and /SAPAPO/TS_SELPO.

Hope this will help.

Thank you

Satish Waghmare

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Satish - nicely laid out

Validation against /bic/pXXX table -- I think this is to check the validity of specific masterdata lets say in a cvc record customer enters  company as 1234 . If this is not preent in /bic/pcompany then that record will error out

Validation against /sapapo/v_matloc  - I think this checks whether Product location combination is valid

and the prerequisite is to cif all the product and locations daily

Am I right on both of these ?

[SatishWaghmare · Accepted solution]

Yes, Your understanding is correct.  This is to ensure we do not create any invalid CVCs.

Thank you

Satish Waghmare

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Satish - Is this different from checking the "check characteristic value /check SCM master Data /check BW master data"options  ?

[SatishWaghmare · Accepted solution]

Hello Siva,

I believe /bic/pXXX table check is same as 'Check BW Master Data' option from //MC62.  Here the logic which I had explained will be used to eliminate such erroneous records from getting uploaded into the file in AL11,  and report these erroneous records to planner/user and so that he/she can take necessary action on it.

I suggest you take F1 help on other two options from MC62.

Hope this will help.

Thank you

Satish Waghmare

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Satish - I have tested this in my system - Your explanation made it clearer

[SatishWaghmare · Accepted solution]

That's Perfect.

If there are no more queries, then as a good practice (as per The Rules of Engagement defined by SCN), then please mark the question as "Answered". or Else let us know if you need any additional information.

Thank you

Satish Waghmare

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Satish - Can I keep it open, just for couple of days - as this is a little open ended qn and might get few new points

I was thinking abt this but couldnot figure out --

"#2   Selection profile update can be developed based on Z program referring/updating these tables /SAPAPO/TS_SELKO  and /SAPAPO/TS_SELPO. "

what is the business advantage of this - just a one liner is enough

[SatishWaghmare · Accepted solution]

That's fine, I have no problem keeping any question open. In fact will be glad if people provide any additional inputs.

#2. This will be for some rare requirement.  Trying to explain with a hypothetical example  - let us say you rolled out solution to Canada Sales Org and now you want to update the existing selection profiles to include Canada Sales Org as well.

Assume earlier we had only Sales Organization = US01(America) and now using Z program you will be able to add CA01(Canada) condition as well. This is the utility.

This program can be made as reusable asset where you can specify planning area, planning book, dataview, may be also Selection Profile with Wildcard allowed option.  The program can be used for any APO client/projects.

Refer this link for additional information:

Ways to update Selection Profiles in APO | SCN

Hope this answer.

Thank you

Satish Waghmare

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Siva,

Expert Satish has done a fantastic job. Thanks Satish.

Here are some more for your displeasure. Over and above what Satish mentioned.

- Performance is a black hole in SAP APO and DP in particular. Without proactive system performance management, loading selections and drilling can take time till cows come home. Performance has many fathers. So I suggest leave it to the BASIS experts. They will say they are not experts on performance so depending on the bank balance of the client, you can suggest a performance optimization consultant for twice a year health check

-Macro workbench- The syntax check is pathetic. If you are using a function for the first time, you will probably be spending a week to discover the right syntax for doing something like C = A/B + D, A, B C being values at different levels of aggregation. The test bench is bogus

-Querying data in live cache - There is nothing you can do to list all products whose demand is between 500 and 600 in month M at this second.  You need to use infocube animals and run queries on that. That would be stale info in all likelihood.

- Adding (or removing) a new plan able characteristic to an existing POS - Well you need to rebuild the system

-The bogus concept of a fixed "input from" date in data view - Scientifically talking I expect a variable firming based on the selection loaded. I will explain this later. Simple theory is you should not be able to change some key figures in some horizon..

-CVC age analysis - no transparent way to know when a particular CVC was created for the first time and for how long it has been/not been planned

-CVC deletion by some criteria - You need to write your own program though SAP could have provide one

-Planning for discontinued Customers- System will continue to plan much after the customer is supposed to have been discontinued => over planning if you are unaware

-Life cycle planning -Mass management of phase in and phase out profiles .the maintenance and assignment of phase in and phase out profiles in different screens is a time consuming affair. Users can lose visibility of what was the validity date of the phase in and phase out profiles maintained e.g. a week back because truth then was different to today when the forecast is being run

Promotions Planning- I can only call this UGLY. The main screen of defining a promotion accepts all crap that a user can type in. e.g. In the name of a promotion and promotion attribute values, you can type any damn thing. The ugly box for promotion attribute values is no painful to scroll down that I often seem to exit the screen

Master Data Loss/ POS repair: Serious time series errors (COM errors) can occur if master data is deleted or becomes inactive in SID tables of info-objects. In such situations, planning object ID is not recognized, even though data and live cache anchors “exist” in the planning area. Since in almost all cases master data deletion is never intentional, it should be possible to load the data in planning area as long as CVC’s physically exist in the MPOS. May be technically unclean but some easy option is possible here.

There are many more... but those will be like more from solution productivity point of view and that can vary from client to client. If the client is dumb, you don't need to bother much.

Thanks

BS

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Excellent List - Most of us who have worked in DP might have faced these issues - I really should appreciate your note making skills and the way you laid them out one by one. Even though you know its tough to recall when some one asks

Adding (or removing) a new plan able characteristic to an existing POS - Well you need to rebuild the system

I can not forget the pain this caused me.