SAP Extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A) can bring your people and plans together to increase agility and performance. But what does xP&A really mean? As Gartner have summarised: “Cloud xP&A consists of financial planning and analysis (FP&A) and multiple packaged operational planning solutions delivered on a single integrated, composable, data-harmonized vendor platform. It “extends” traditional FP&A solutions....
Last year, SAP released a feature to call custom forecasting algorithms running on external systems and receive the results in real-time in SAP IBP. This feature brings great help in integrating the results of your custom algorithms with SAP IBP in real time. Before this, planners had to manually download history from IBP, use it....
The theory of forecast consumption is explained here. In this blog, I wanted to share examples to show the effect of configuration parameters through different scenarios. This blog only focuses on Forecast Consumption for TS Supply Planning. Forecast Consumption for Order Based Planning would be shared in a separate post. While most of the forecast....
As of the February 2023 release for SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain (SAP IBP), you can replicate planning tasks from process management in SAP IBP to Microsoft Teams. Please see our short product video on this. In the previous blog post about the integration topic, we reviewed the advantages and disadvantages of the different modelling options that....
Introduction and Motivation Currently, there are different projects related to Integrated Business Planning ongoing. One motivation could be to have a successor for APO (Advanced Planning and Optimization). In case your system landscape contains a Business Warehouse system, you might be interested on how to utilize it in your IBP Projects. This question is exactly....
Realignment is one of the processes available in IBP to move/copy data. It is generally used to accommodate for changes in Master data within Supply Chain. Along with the change of Master Data, realignment also helps in copying key figure data from old planning objects to new ones. Realignment also provides option to get rid....
ABC & XYZ segmentation are used for grouping planning objects based on their revenue/sales generating capacity & ease of forecasting. Detailed documentation can be found here- ABC Segmentation | SAP Help Portal. While information provided at the link is easy to understand, the behavior of the system when the cumulative percentages do not exactly add up to the....
While the overall process of statistical forecasting is not that complicated (unless you get into advanced statistical models), there are some minor details in the “Manage Forecast Models” app which can be confusing. Here I am sharing a simple example to demonstrate the key technical features of the app for ease of understanding. Example: For....
Lifecycle planning is used to introduce, phase-in and phase-out products. As you might already be aware, a typical product’s life can be split across distinct phases from development to end of life. After a product is developed, it is then introduced in the market. Introduction is followed by growth phase where the product sees rise in sales eventually leading to a maturity phase where product sales mature....
The flexibility of bringing your own logic into your planning cycles encourages developers to work closely with planners and experiment different algorithms. This also raises a question — where do you like to run your external algorithms?. It is at the liberty of the customer or developer, which platform he or she chooses. In this blog, I....
We know that email or a pop up window could be used as a notification about an event. But if you are expecting a user reaction from that notification – you might consider adding a button or a link that can trigger the expected action. We also know that lot of these actions could be....
This blog will discuss the basics of Python and SAP IBP Integration using Odata services. Target Audiences – The primary target audience for this blog are SAP S/4 HANA Functional and Technical consultants those who want to integrate SAP IBP to the outside world. This blog is also relevant to Data Science enthusiast who want to....
I have been working in CPI-DS team for more than a year. My company is one of the renowned names in oil and gas industry and we use SAP-IBP for Sales and Operations Planning with CPI-DS being used for integrating data from SAP HANA and legacy systems. My CPI-DS team comprises of experienced CPI-DS professionals....
SAP recently introduced much awaited Transportation Load Building (TLB) functionality in SAP IBP. TLB helps planners to group planned distribution receipts into optimized transportation loads to utilize transportation equipment in the best possible way. The objective of this blog is to explain how TLB optimization generally works and the mathematical modeling behind it. We will....
There are some business requirements, which fit in following criteria Can be satisfied with simple mathematical formulas. Do not need to be stored in the SAP IBP System and are used by planners to verify some facts locally in the Excel along with other planning relevant data These can be achieved using local Key figures....
Master Data Types (MDT) database design is one of the fundamental building blocks of any IBP implementation, in my experience as an IBP consultant. Therefor, I would like to briefly illustrate two alternative ways to model a requirement which is often important for clients. Namely ability to limit/restrict the possibilities of a data entity based....
SAP introduced Transportation Load Building capability under Order-based Planning in IBP 2208. Those with SAP APO background will quickly realise the importance IBP closing the gap of APO SNP functionality TLB. Load Building was one of very early (2017) improvement request in SAP IBP but had decision stated as Not Planned. A later request on Load Consolidation acknowledged the....
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....
This demo provides an detailed usage and features of SAP IBP Analyze Data Volume in Calculations, which provides detailed data volume report and analysis of the complete calculation graphs of all key figures added to the planning view for a specific planning view template or favorite. This helps in investigating the reasons behind large numbers....
In the below blog you will be able to understand IBP_CALENDAR function in details. After reading this, you shall be able to do pre-configuration and use calendar function in a key figure. In addition to that, you shall be able to understand its prerequisites and used cases. 1. Assumptions: Reader understands and know the basics of configuration like....
Hello Community & Experts, Hope you all are keeping safe and healthy. After almost a year of delay, I ‘am happy this happens and I am posting this knowledge. I had a chance to explore the API’s exposed my SAP’s API Business Hub for Data integration with external systems for SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply....
Sometimes we wonder if pre-shipped algorithms are good for our use cases. Do they already consider all the attributes, signals or use cases for forecasting? SAP Integrated Business Planning comes with pre-build algorithms which consider a set of attributes that customers define as relevant for a planning area. However, it is curious to know how....
This video provides an overview and step by step guideline on how to use, model and configure Simulate Key Figure Calculation functionality in SAP IBP.
In time-series based integration of SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain (SAP IBP), SAP CI-DS is used as the integration tool to deal with the data integration between IBP and S/4HANA, ECC or other systems. CPI-DS can call SAP standard Extractors or custom Generic Extractors to extract data from S/4HANA. The blog series will....
In Part 1 of this blog series, I introduced how to use CI-DS to load full data from S/4HANA with Generic Extractor. This blog post is Part 2 to explain how to use CI-DS to load delta data from S/4HANA with Generic Extractor. Scenario We would like to use CI-DS to load delta Product master data from....
The SAP standard process map for SAP IBP Timeseries based Integration, talks more about end to end integration process from SAP S/4HANA or ERP to IBP. Introduction This blog will discuss, How the SAP IBP Timeseries data is fetched from the SAP S/4HANA Standard Tables to the SAP IBP Supply chain Add on tables and....
Its an essential blog post for those: Interested to know how API works How user management in SAP cloud application can be achieved with ease This blog post can be used for user management using API’s in both S4 Cloud and IBP Cloud system – By following steps you would be able to manage user....
As we all know that , we need to have historical data i.e. sales qty or consumption qty to get accurate forecast in supply chain planning. if we have any gap or any missing data in historical data, it will impact on accuracy of forecasting values. SAP IBP having functionality called “Substitution” which is part....
Normally, all the master and transaction data are read from source system staging table/extractor using CPI-DS Task and send to IBP. This blog post will help, how to execute an ECC Program by running CPI-DS task and retrieve Program output. Create a Task in CPI-DS under Project. Create a Data flow in the Task....
We have now come to a stage where a lot of lessons have been learned from SAP IBP implementation. With each successful and not so successful implementation, the implementation team goes through lots of gyrations and emotional stress. This blog is an attempt to look at various aspects of the implementation project and be ready....
Usually in a client implementation project, IBP consultants create many custom attributes to cater to multiple business requirements. The data in these attributes are reviewed by the consultants and end users in the “Master Data Workbook” option in IBP Excel UI. However, in a scenario where we have many attributes, it requires the users to....
Organisation changes at times have an impact on the planning data and a data realignment process needs to be carried in the planning tool. SAP Integrated Business Planning offers realignment capabilities to accommodate any such organization change. A realignment project needs to be run in IBP for adjusting planning data, such as planning objects, master....
When I activated and imported the Business Content for Integrated Business Planning for SAP Analytics Cloud, I had some minor problems – so I decided to make a new query and import it manually I started by updating each of the Dimensions with master data from my source system. By opening the model, selecting the Dimension....
This video provides insight about the steps and process of integrating custom excel VBA codes with SAP IBP Master Data & Planning View Templates and how custom VBA codes can be leveraged to customize the look and feel of standard MD and Plannning View templates.
IBP MRO – Current State Capability and Direction Earlier in this blog, I shared how companies might consider their asset as a customer? Using SAP‘s latest innovations to predict, maintain and plan the spare parts inventory level. I shed the light on the global study we started with customers and my plan as I set industry....
Hello, How to create segments for fair-share option of Time series supply planning algorithms (For Finite heuristic). Thanks.
As SAP IBP is giving customers the flexibility to configure hundreds or thousands of key figures to support their respective business planning models, sometimes it is crucial to understand where these key figures are currently being used in the system. Moreover, if you are supporting customer’s SAP IBP system, aside from the documentation available, the....
Dear SAP Friends, In this blog we will try to understand about the features that comes under SAP IBP license that will help us to understand on which license can be best fit for a specific business. Let’s try to answer this question by analyzing these features SAP IBP can provides you the opportunity to....
Re-imagined with a focus on usability and driven by customer feedback, the new Built-In Support elevates the in-product support experience, providing effortless access to the top tasks, features and functions of SAP’s Product Support. The new Built-In Support provides 1-touch access to the major pillars of SAP’s Support, with a mission to reduce disruption....
Best Fit Forecasting is a method that compares different models (which are maintained in a specific Best Fit Forecast profile) against the data in the system and ranks the various models based on the forecast errors of the outputs. Using the standard IBP functionality, the Demand Planner can understand which algorithm has been chosen by....
SAP for Me is now the default solution for reviewing, managing, and activating SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain production system entitlements. With user-friendly dashboards providing up-to-the-minute statuses, SAP for Me makes it easier to trigger the provisioning of your production environment as and when you need it. All new customers of SAP Integrated....
If we have learnt nothing else over the past 15 months, it is how critical supply chains are to running our business and that digitization of our supply chains and operations are critical to enabling resilient, customer centric, and sustainable enterprises. And why is this? Because digitalized supply chains and operations handle disruptions better, faster, with....
In the blog post Get to Know the New Spaces Concept for SAP Fiori Launchpad you have learned about the new concept for SAP Fiori launchpad. The blog post Manage Spaces and Pages for SAP Fiori Launchpad describes how to put the capabilities associated with this concept into practice. At that time, we promised that there will be a....
As supply chains adjust to the uncertain new conditions imposed on them by the COVID-19 pandemic, SAP Integrated Business Planning is starting to take on greater importance than ever before. It creates a holistic viewpoint on demand, inventory, and optimizes forecasting. It creates visibility into logistics, and also integrates with production planning. We are extremely....
Here we are again – I’m very proud to present you today the latest news of this 20th version of the SAP Best Practices or SAP Integrated Business Planning, 2008. This means that since 5 years we provide on a regular base a very comprehensive, well tested, well documented package that helps to understand SAP Integrated Business....