When I started my SAP IBP journey, I realized that  alike myself, many SAP S/4 Functional and Technical Consultants struggle to understand the basic building blocks of SAP IBP.

This blog will discuss, the Basic building blocks of SAP Integrated Business Planner (SAP IBP).

Target Audience

The primary target audience of this blog are SAP S/4 HANA Functional and Technical consultants or those are new to SAP IBP. These readers are interested in learning basics about SAP IBP .

The graphical representation of Basic building blocks of SAP IBP is given below

Planning Area

The Planning area is the base Organization unit for SAP Integrated Business Planner(SAP IBP).

There can be different types of Planning areas depending on the functionality implemented.

• Supply and Operations
• Order Based Planning etc

For beginners, You can compare it to SAP S/4 Hana Company code or multiple company codes in one country.

Time Profile

The planning area will be attached to the Time Profile which will help in determination of the planning horizon and the levels or buckets in which you can plan and view the planning data.

You have an option of uploading custom calendar or custom time profile as per your requirement.

For beginners, this can be related to SAP ECC or S/4 Hana Factory calendar

Master data

The master data is synonyms to Master Data database tables in SAP S/4 Hana.

Material Master in SAP S/4 Hana is mapped to Product master data type in SAP IBP.

Customer in SAP S/4 Hana is mapped to Customer in SAP IBP

Production version in SAP S/4 Hana is mapped to Production Source in SAP IBP etc

Attributes

The Attributes correspond to the fields in the corresponding Master data Database tables in SAP S/4 Hana.

Types of Master data

• Simple Master data – Corresponds to single object or Master data eg
  • Product,
  • Location,
  • Customer
• Compound Master data – Corresponds to combination of two or more Simple Master data eg
  • Location Product – This is equivalent to MARC table in SAP S/4 Hana
  • Customer Product – Can be compared to Customer Material Info record is any in SAP S/4 Hana
• Reference Master data – refers to another master data it does not hold any master data eg Component Master data refers to Product Master data. This is more of type ref to declarations in ABAP OOP Classes
• Virtual Master data – it is built by joining simple or compound master data. This is synonyms to Database view in SE11 for S/4 Hana consultant.

Key Figures

Key figure in SAP IBP is synonymous to aggregated transactional data in S/4 Hana.

SAP Provides certain standard key figures which form as input to the SAP IBP Algorithms.

On can create custom key figures in the SAP IBP which will help you derive certain logic. These custom key figures can be used as input to calculate the SAP IBP standard Key figure.

Planning level of Key Figure – Key Figure is defined for a planning level  eg

• Calendar Week, Product, Location
• Month , Product Location

Planning level is sort of Primary key of the Key Figure in SAP S/4 Hana.

This is needed to identify unique Key Figure record

Further characteristics of Key Figure are

• Edit allowed – If the key figure is editable, if yes from when
  • There are certain key figures which you will get from Source System eg S/4 Hana
  • You have option to allow the user overwrite the existing value by setting the edit allowed
  • At times, as per the business requirement this value should be retained as per fetched from the source system. In that case the flag will be set as false.
• Covert using – if currency or UOM conversions are needed.
  • This is needed if you get input from different currencies or UOM.
  • If you are configuring a key figure which is a non currency or quantity field then this setting is irrelevant and can be set blank.
• Aggregation mode – various options available sum, min , max, avg
  • This is equivalent to aggregation option available in CDS views in SAP S/4 Hana.
• Dis-aggregation mode – Equal Distribution or Copy by value etc.
  • This option is used when the user enters the Key figure at higher time profile and now wants the system to calculated it at lower level of time profile eg Month–> Weeks or Weeks –>Days or Quarter –>Months.
  • Lets say – If the user enters the key figure at month level and then the system will distribute the amount at week level

Conclusion

To conclude, in this blog we have discussed, the basic building blocks of SAP IBP. These building blocks will help you start your journey into the world of SAP IBP.

Please like and comment, what you liked about the blog. If you have any doubts please post your questions.