Order Forecast Monitor

The Order Forecast Monitor (OFM) is a function on the Web user interface (Web UI) of SAP Supply Network Collaboration (SAP SNC) that displays and compares the firm or planned net requirements of the customer and the supplier firm or planned receipts. The Order Forecast Monitor calculates the absolute and the percentage differences between the customer and supplier data, and, depending on the differences, highlights periods in color. Both the customer and the supplier have the same view of the planning situation and gain a quick overview of critical situations. This is the basis for a possible adjustment of planning to match supplier capacity as part of a Dynamic Replenishment scenario.

The customer uses electronic messages to transfer data from his or her back-end system to SAP SNC. The supplier can also transfer data electronically from his or her back-end system to SAP SNC.

The supplier can create planned receipts manually or by copying the customer planned requirements in the Order Forecast Monitor and send them to the customer's SAP APO. For more information about sending planned receipts to the customer's SAP APO system, see Integration of Planned Receipts with the Customer SAP APO System.

Integration

For information about integrating data from the customer back-end system and the supplier back-end system, see Key Figures in the Order Forecast Monitor.

Prerequisites

To run OFM using your own calculation rules and tolerance values, you need to configure the consensus finding framework. If you do not configure the consensus finding framework, SAP SNC uses default rules and profiles for the key figure calculations. For more information, see Consensus Finding.

For more information about setting up the consensus finding framework, see Customizing for Supply Network Collaboration under Start of the navigation path Basic Settings Next navigation step Consensus Finding End of the navigation path .

Features

Key Figures

The Order Forecast Monitor differentiates between planned data and firm data. Planned data is data that can still change; that is, data that is still provisional. This includes, for example, the customer forecast demands or the supplier planned receipts. Firm data includes, for example, the customer's purchase orders and scheduling agreement releases as well as the supplier's purchase order confirmations. For more information, see Key Figures in Order Forecast Monitor.

Order Forecast Monitor Screens

The key figures for the customer data, supplier data, and deviations between the data are displayed in both tabular and graphical format in the Order Forecast Details screen. You can configure the planning horizon and period division of the planning horizon specifically for the user. For more information, see Defining Time Bucket Profiles.

The Order Forecast Overview screen displays the plan difference status of the selected location products in the periods of the planning horizon. SAP SNC determines the plan difference status of a period by determining the percentage difference between the customer planned requirements and the supplier planned receipts. SAP SNC compares the percentage difference with tolerances and thresholds by using consensus finding, and highlights the period in the appropriate color.

Note Note

SAP SNC delivers standard settings for the color profiles, which the system displays on the OFM. For more information about the colors displayed, see the Alert and Color Profiles for the Order Forecast Monitor section.

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Alert and Color Profiles for the Order Forecast Monitor

You can define alert profiles for Order Forecast Monitor. Alert profiles define the alert levels the system issues for defined situations. You can define alert as information, warning, or errors. You can choose to switch alerting for OFM on or off entirely or for a specific situation only.

The system displays alerts related to OFM on the Demand Planning tab page in the Alert Monitor. For more information about alert profiles, see Customizing for SAP Supply Network Collaboration, under Start of the navigation path Demand Next navigation step Define Alert Profiles for CSF and OFM End of the navigation path .

You can define color profiles for OFM. Color profiles define the colors displayed in the time bucket cells of the relevant key figures on the Order Forecast Monitor - Product View and Order Forecast Overview screens. The colors indicate the tolerance, release, and manual status of a key figure calculation. For more information about color profiles, see Customizing for Supply Network Collaboration under Start of the navigation path Demand Next navigation step Define Color Profiles for CSF and OFM End of the navigation path .

Simulate and Create Supplier Planned Receipts

As a supplier, you can enter values for the Supplier Planned Receipts key figure in the detailed view. To do this, you need to have configured the following grid arrangements for the planning grid:

Overview - Transit Information - Multisourcing Mode
Send Planned Receipts to the Customer

To see the effect of your changes, use the Simulate function. This function recalculates deviations between the customer and supplier data, but does not save the modified data to the database. You can save the modified data, if required.

For more information about the grid arrangements on the Order Forecast Monitor, see Grid Arrangements in Order Forecast Monitor.

Audit Trail

The following table contains the key figures for which audit trail logs all changes as standard:

Key Figure	Time Series	Time Series Type
Customer Planned Requirements	ORDERFCST	DFC01
Supplier Planned Receipts	ORDERFCST	DFC01

For more information, see Audit Trail.

Partner-Specific Web UIs

In the standard system, the Partner-Dependent Location Product Filter (PDNF) selection mode controls the locations and products that can be seen by the customer and supplier in the Order Forecast Monitor. For more information, see the Customizing documentation for Supply Network Collaboration under Start of the navigation path Visibility Next navigation step Create Selection Modes End of the navigation path .

File Transfer

You can use the file transfer application to download a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file that contains data from the multiple location-product view of the Order Forecast Monitor Web screen. You can process the data that you download offline, and upload your modifications back into the system. For more information, see File Transfer.

Activities

You can call the Order Forecast Monitor as follows:

You call the Order Forecast Monitor in the SAP SNC Web menu under Order Forecast Monitor.
You can navigate to the Details or Product Details screens by choosing Details.

Note

If you select only one location product and choose Details, you navigate to the Product Details screen. If you select several location products and choose Details, you navigate to the Details screen.

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You can create notes for the fields in the planning grid. For more information, see Notes.