Defining Planning Interfaces (SAP Library

Defining Planning Interfaces

Use

Planning interfaces describe how to send planning data to applications that are not part of Merchandise and Assortment Planning (MAP).

Before using an interface, you need to know where the data (article, site, site group, quantities) for creating a promotion or allocation tables comes from. An article group dimension and a site group dimension must also be assigned to the interface. If you want to run your planning at an aggregated planning level, you may have to identify the dimensions in the interface as a characteristic or a break-down.

You can define interfaces for planning steps in Customizing for MAP:

Assigning key figures: The source of a quantity is controlled by assigning a quantity key figure to an interface.

Assigning characteristics: The source of an article, site or site group is controlled by assigning characteristics and by entering a dimension for each characteristic that is assigned. For more information about assigning characteristics, see Article and Site Group Dimensions.

Assigning grouping break-downs: If planning data is only available on an aggregated planning level (for example, merchandise category), you require data on a lower level (for example, article) so that a suitably-defined grouping break-down can be assigned to the interface. For more information about assigning grouping break-downs, see Defining Grouping Break-downs. Furthermore, a dimension is selected when assigning grouping break-downs. For more information, see Article and Site Group Dimensions.

Stating a plan version from which the interface takes data. If you want to specify a plan version, you can enter the plan version you want directly or you can set the 'Use active plan version' indicator. Alternatively, you do not have to enter any data at all. If you do not enter any data, the system uses the version that is used when you run your initial planning. If, for example, the active plan version is defaulted in Customizing but the MAP planner wants to create the promotion using data from a different planning version, an error message is generated. You can only enter one plan version if you use the interface.

Entering an RFC destination: If the application in question is run in a different system than the system used for your planning, you must specify an RFC destination. If this is the case, you must specify the destination used by the non-MAP system to send data to MAP.

Additional settings must be made in Customizing for planning interfaces, depending on the interface category that is used.

Promotion interface

In the promotion interface, you can define, for example:

Default value for the promotion type
If the distribution chain is to be used as a method for filtering data.

When you create a promotion using the promotions interface, you can enter a distribution chain as the promotion header and enter the store grouping for the promotion in question. The distribution chain you enter can also be used as a method for filtering data. Before data is sent to the stores, all stores that do not belong to the distribution chain in question are excluded.

Site grouping data

Site groupings are required for creating promotions. For more information, see Data for Site Groupings.

Allocation tables

In allocation tables, you can define:

Default values for allocation table header data (for example, allocation table type)
Default values for allocation table item data (for example, distribution center, allocation table strategy)