To run manual or automatic planning, you require a database table (info structure) for storing planning data and actual data. Before you start defining planning steps, create an info structure that contains the required characteristics and key figures for which you want to generate planning data.

You can the define which of the planning levels and key figures in the info structure represent plan characteristics (for example, purchasing organizations and merchandise categories) and planning key figures (for example, sales and sales quantities) in the planning step. Each plan characteristic represents a specific planning hierarchy level. The planning hierarchy for the planning levels is defined by the sequence of the planning characteristics in the planning steps.

Planning data is stored right down to the lowest planning level (planning characteristic) of the planning step. It is not stored automatically right down to the lowest planning level in the info structure.

You can assign more than one planning step to the database tables that you are using.