Planning Buckets Profile 

Definition

Information that is incorporated into the definition of the past or future time horizon of demand planning. The planning buckets profile defines the following:

·        Which time buckets are used for planning

·        How many periods of the individual time units are used

·        The sequence in which the time periods with the various time units appear in the planning table

Use

·        You can plan in monthly, weekly, daily or (combined with fiscal year variants) self-defined periods.

·        When you create a planning buckets profile, only use the periodicities or a subset of the periodicities that are also defined in the storage buckets profiles (see storage buckets profiles) on which the planning area is based. In a planning buckets profile, do not include a periodicity that is not in the storage buckets profile.

·        You can have multiple planning buckets profiles, and therefore multiple planning horizons, for one planning book. The planning buckets profile is attached to the data view within the planning book. You could have three data views for three users, for example, where a different planning buckets profile is valid for each view: Marketing plans in months, sales plans in months and weeks, and logistics plans in weeks and days.

·        To switch to a different planning buckets profile in interactive planning, you open the planning book wizard by changing to Design mode and choosing the Change Planning Book button. On the Data View tab page, enter a name and description for the new view as well as the required time bucket profiles and any other necessary data.

·        If you specify a historical planning horizon in the data view, the first historical time bucket starts on the day before the future planning horizon start date. The second historical period begins further back in the past, and so on. If you plan in weeks, the first day of the week is always Monday.

·        If you plan in weeks and the planning horizon start date as specified in the data view of the planning book is not a Monday, the first week of the planning horizon is predated to the previous Monday. For example, if the planning horizon start date as specified in the planning book is November 1, 2001 (a Thursday), the first week of the planning horizon begins on October 29, 2001 (a Monday).

·        If the planning buckets profile contains smaller and larger time buckets, for example weeks and months, the smaller time buckets take precedence if any conflict arises. If, for instance, you have specified that the first month is to be planned in weeks and the month does not start or end on a Monday, the system creates 5 time buckets of a week's duration. For example, you start planning on January 01, 2001 and specify that the first month (January) is to be planned in weeks. The first 5 time buckets from January 1 to February 4 are in weeks. The first month bucket is shortened and is from February 5 through February 28.

·        If you forecast using mass processing jobs, the length of the planning horizon is a vital prerequisite for being able to save corrected history and the corrected forecast. The historical planning horizon in the planning book must include the historical forecast horizon in the master forecast profile. It may also go further back into the past than the historical forecast horizon in the master forecast profile. It must not be shorter than in the master forecast profile. Similarly, the future planning horizon in the planning book must include the future forecast horizon that is defined in the master forecast profile. It may also extend further into the future than the future forecast horizon in the master forecast profile. It must not be shorter than in the master forecast profile. This restriction is necessary for performance reasons. It does not apply if you forecast in interactive demand planning.

·        To read the data for the online release of the demand plan to SNP, you can use a planning buckets profile. For more information, see Release of the Demand Plan to SNP.

·        To release the demand plan to Supply Network Planning in daily buckets, you use a daily buckets profile, that is a planning buckets profile containing daily buckets only. The use of a time buckets profile to release data to Supply Network Planning is optional. See also Release of the Demand Plan to SNP and Release from an InfoProvider to SNP.

·        To see the start and end dates of a period in a planning book or in the demand planning table, double-click with the right mouse button on the column heading. In this dialog box, you can also configure what information you want to see in the column heading.

·        The buckets in which the data is stored in the system are known as storage buckets or technical periods. You define these technical periods when you create a storage buckets profile. For information on how technical periods affect disaggregation and rounding, see Example of Disaggregation and Rounding.

Structure

After you have created the planning buckets profile, use it for the definition of the future planning horizon and of the past horizon by entering them in a planning book: one horizon as future planning horizon and one as past horizon. The system displays the horizons in interactive demand and supply planning starting with the smallest time bucket and finishing with the largest time bucket. The future horizon starts with the smallest time bucket, on the planning horizon start date, and works forwards, finishing with the largest time bucket. The past horizon starts with the smallest time bucket the day before the start of the future horizon and works backwards, finishing with the largest time bucket:

Example

Number of periods	Basic periodicity	Fiscal year variant of basic periodicity (optional)	Display periodicity	Fiscal year variant of display periodicity (optional)
2			Y
1	Y		M
2	M		W

In the above example, the time horizon spans two years. Of these two years, the first year is displayed in months. The first two months of this year are displayed in weeks.

The first row defines the entire length of the time horizon. The following rows define the different sections of the horizon. You make entries in the columns Number and Display periodicity. The content of the other columns is displayed automatically when you press Enter. To see exactly which buckets will be displayed, choose Period list.