Release and Upgrade Management 

Business Planning with SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence allows business experts to accelerate the decision-making process, predict future trends on the basis of historic analyses, and provide all decision makers with a central point of access to data and information.

To create and use planning scenarios or other applications, business planning with SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence offers the following planning tools:

●     BI integrated planning, a solution that is completely integrated into the BI system

●     BW-BPS (Business Planning and Simulation)

We recommend that you use the new BI integrated planning functionality when you implement new scenarios. For more information, see Business Planning.

Note the following in relation to the behavior of the two planning tools:

BW-BPS Versus BI Integrated Planning

In BI integrated planning, most of the BEx and OLAP analysis functions are also available for planning applications. In comparison with BW-BPS, you need a smaller number of objects (for example, by using the same variables in analysis and planning) and tools (Query Designer and Web Application Designer).

Since a large number of BW-BPS concepts are also used in BI integrated planning (such as planning levels, planning functions, planning sequences, characteristic relationships, data slices), these can, if necessary, be switched to BI integrated planning from BW-BPS with minimal effort.

BW-BPS Versus BI Integrated Planning in Parallel

Both planning tools use the same data basis and can be operated in parallel in one system. It is not necessary to migrate existing planning applications.

Some functions (such as, lock procedure and formulas) are used by both BW-BPS and BI integrated planning.