Planning Object Structures

What This Article Covers

• What are Planning Object Structures?
• S&DP Administration
• Characteristics in SCM.

Planning Object Structures

Two of the most important areas within APO are the planning areas and the planning object structures (POS).

The POS configuration screen can be confusing. The transaction for creating a POS is. /SAPAPO/MSDP_ADMIN.Essentially we are trying to create a container for characteristics. Should be a minor thing, but SAP needs to give it a complicated name. For some reason they settled on the Planning Object Structure. This is a silly name, but there is a second problem with it. Unfortunately the Planning Object Structure is extremely close in sound to the Production Data Structure, which is completely different and has to do with the present and future replacement for the PPDS PPM.

After you create the initial POS, you must populate it with characteristics and dimensions. The first step is to select characteristics from the “Copyfr” to the right. Then assign a dimension to it. You can have multiple characteristics per dimension.

After you create a planning object structure it should appear as a new InfoCube.

After created you can select the POS and right mouseclick and select Char. Combinations – Create. This will bring you to this screen.The POSs setup what characteristics (properties that differentiate objects such as length, color, weight)(F1) are to be included for planning. Characteristics intersect with key figures to form the rows and columns of Planning Books that will be used for planning. To find out more about characteristics see this post.

Master Planning Object Structure

The master planning object structure is a table that is created via APO functionality but is actually stored in the BI environment. the master data stored is called characteristic value combinations. The POS stores every unique combination of CVCs. This will be used to help control disaggregation when data is manipulated at summary levels. It will be a primary input for your planing areas.(F2)

Therefore if you want to add new Key Figures or Characteristics you do so through the Data Warehouse Workbench.

While they are created in the Data Warehouse Workbench, they are used in many different places. For instance the Characteristics are added to the POS. Meanwhile Key Figures are added to the Planning Area. These two structures support the planning books as well as supporting the data setup of both DP and SNP.

Both the planning object structure and the planning area can be setup from the same transaction.

Path=

Supply Network Planning – Environment – Current Settings – Administration of Demand Planning and Supply Network Planning

Once you select this menu item you will be taken to the planning areas. These are all the configured planning areas in the system.

It also shows the status of each

This is also where you create both Planning Areas and Planning Object Structures.

The Planning Object Structure is created by selecting the correct Characteristics. (Some Characteristics are standard, however, they can be created with transaction RSA1) You can see here below we have selected four Characteristics. In addition we have selected SNP possible, so an extra 3 characteristics automatically populate our new Planning Object Structure.

Planning Object Structure

The next step is to go in and create and activate the POS. The POS is created by adding characteristics to it, and there are also several options. For instance we will select SNP possible as well as SNP Scheduling Agreement.

Then it will ask if you want to create an SNP standard planning level. We will accept this.

We will give the SNP planning level a name.

Now you can see the POS has been activated.

Now we want to assign a Planning Area to it.

Now the next step is to go over and check the activation of the Planning Book which is based upon this POS. As we can see it is still not activated.

This can be found here.

Characteristics in SCM

Its important to recognize that DP and SNP use different characteristics, and thus different planning areas and planning object structures are created for DP and SNP.

References

F1, F3 – SAP Glossary

F2 – SCM 225 Training Manual

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Tagged as: Master Data, Planning Area, Planning Book