About packages

Users can utilize packages to execute parameterized process chains that include data management tasks among the Planning and Consolidation applications, financial tasks such as running allocation and currency translation, and system tasks such as archiving. Therefore, by default the following groups of Data Manager packages are delivered with ApShell:

An addition package group called Installation that contains the other Data Manager packages is executed during installation.

You can create new groups. You can also assign packages to and remove packages from the groups.

Packages are based on instructions containing prompt commands that form the basis of the user interface of a Data Manager package (see Defining Dynamic Script Instructions). The parameters specified in the instructions are available when creating a package and are transferred to the Planning and Consolidation process chain at runtime. Every process chain has one default instruction assigned.

More than one package can exist per process chain.

The process chain combines the different steps of a user task or business logic.

About process chains

Data Manager packages reference Planning and Consolidation process chains. A Planning and Consolidation process chain is an SAP NetWeaver process chain that you can execute in a Planning and Consolidation system or through Data Manager packages only. It contains a sequence of processes that complete a certain task. Planning and Consolidation process chains are divided into the groups Example and System, and are delivered with the system. You can create more process chains as needed.

Planning and Consolidation process chains have one instruction assigned that is the basis for the Data Manager package definition.