The planning functions of the LIS information systems are integrated into the Sales & Operations Planning (SOP) component.

Sales & Operations Planning (SOP) is a flexible planning and forecasting tool with which sales, production, and other supply chain targets can be defined on the basis of historical, existing, and/or estimated future data. Rough planning can also determine the amounts of the capacities and other resources required to meet these targets.

This component focuses on flexible planning.

To use SOP in a distributed environment, you also need to select Application Link Enabling (ALE).

SOP features support both the high-level planning of complex planning hierarchies and the detailed planning of finished products. Therefore, both a top-down and a bottom-up approach to planning are possible. The system can be configured either so that the target key figures defined at one organizational level are distributed automatically and consistently to all the other organizational levels in the hierarchy, or so that each level is planned separately.

Sales & Operations Planning consists of two elements: Standard SOP and flexible planning.
The standard SOP comes largely pre-configured by SAP.
Flexible planning offers multiple options for customized settings. Planning in standard SOP is based on product group hierarchies and is always implemented level by level. Flexible planning is made for hierarchies containing any chosen organizational levels. Moreover, in flexible planning the content and layout of planning screens can be defined by the users.