Defining Planning Interfaces
Use
Planning interfaces describe the transfer of planning data to applications outside Merchandise and Assortment Planning.
To use an interface, information about the source of data (article, site, site group and quantity data) required for creating a promotion or allocation table must be provided. Information about the assignment of articles and assortments when listing conditions are generated is also required. Article and site group dimensions have to be assigned to an interface for promotions and allocation tables. Depending on whether or not you plan with aggregated data, you must identify these dimensions in the interface as characteristics or break down.
Interfaces are defined in Customizing for Merchandise and Assortment Planning for a planning step:
The source of quantities is controlled by assigning only one quantity key figure to the interface.
The source of article, site or site group data is controlled by assigning characteristics and entering a dimension for each assigned characteristic. For more information, see
If planning data is only available at aggregated level (for example, merchandise category level), data is still required at a lower level (for example, article data). This enables a suitably defined grouping break down to be assigned to the interface. For more information, see
You can enter the planning version directly, flag the Use Active Planning Version indicator or simply not making any entries at all. If you do not make an entry, the system uses the version that is used in the current planning session. If the active planning version is specified, for example, in Customizing, but you want to create promotions using data from a different planning version, an error message will be displayed. Only one single planning version can be used if this interface is being used.
Under these circumstances, the destination used by the system to call Merchandise and Assortment Planning to provide information, must also be enter under Return Call Destination
Depending on the interface type being used, the following settings are required in Customizing for the planning interfaces:
Among other things, you can specify the following:
When you use this interface to create a promotion, a distribution chain must be sent to the promotion header and the store grouping for the promotion. This distribution chain can be used as a filter at the same time. This means that stores which do not belong to distribution channels are filtered out before the stores are accepted.
Site groups are required when a promotion is created. For more information, see
Among other things, you can specify the following:
Among other things, you can specify the following: