Automating the Creation of Life Cycle planning Profiles

[Former Member]

This Document will give an idea for developing programs to automate creation of profiles and maintaining mass assignment.

It becomes very time consuming and cumbersome to create the Time series ID, Like ID and then maintain the data in the mass assignment table.

The programs are created to upload the data in to the below tables with an option of Full upload and Delta upload. Here the file is placed in to the data loads the program picks up these file and updates the tables.

The main focus of the program is automation of the profiles maintenance so as to improve ease-of-use rather than changing the feature functions itself. 

The basic characteristics against which the maintenance will be occurring is product and location. Maintenance against other characteristics levels such as material
group, forecast area is not anticipated. Note that if changes and maintenance is anticipated at conceptually a “higher” level than product and location, then
system settings can be adjusted. However, the program assumes the maintenance at product location level.

The Program uses the input from the spreadsheets to generate the following profiles:

• Generate phase-in and/or phase-out profiles with a direct upload in to table.
• Generate like profiles
• Create, modify and delete assignments for product location combinations for the demand
  planning area with a direct upload in to mass assignment table.

• 3 separate program needs to be developed.

During the upload process, the system should perform several validation and consistency checks, and error and warning report need to be generated.

Example Formats of File to be maintained:

1. PHASE IN / OUT:

• Start date and end date should be in DD/MM/YYYY Format
• The Profile Name (Column B) should be in CAPITAL Letters.
• Phase In: Should be - "Before start date, apply constant factor" , the % part should be"ZERO"
• Phase out :- Should be " after end date, apply constant factor" and the % part should be"ZERO"
• Maximum Upload Limit = 60,000
• Total Characters: Time series column = 22 and Description = 40
• Upload to be is Full upload as Delta upload creates lot of inconsistency.
• Either % or Values for phase-inand phase-out profiles can be specified but not both. If both are specified,
  the program uses the values and ignores the % after generating an error/warning message during the upload step.

2. LIKE:

• The Like Profile (Column C) should be always in CAPITAL Letter.
• Can upload combination of reference values in one profile (in the like profile definition) Maximum is 10 reference values.
• Maximum Upload Limit = 60,000
• Total Characters: Like Profile  column = 10 and Description = 40

3. MASS ASSIGNMENT:

• During the upload to mass assignment table, its always better to clean the data first and then do a full upload. (There could be inconsistency during delta upload)
• From and to date should be the same as used in the Phase in_out file.
• Maximum upload limit = 60,000

Data gets uploaded in to the following tables:

Like Tables

/SAPAPO/T445LIKK – Header Table, Creates a LIKE ID

/SAPAPO/T445LIKE – LIKE ID Created Above is linked to the Like Profile

The link between these 2 tables is the GUID (LIKE ID)

Phase in out Tables: (These does not contain any GUID)

/SAPAPO/TIMETEXT – Header table.

/SAPAPO/TIMESERI – contains the Factors.

/SAPAPO/TSPOSVAL – Contains the Values

During Direct upload it is very important to read the created on and by and changed on and by in the table.

MASS ASSIGNMENT TABLE

/SAPAPO/FCST_LC1

Here you have the Like ID (GUID) assigned to the like profile.
The Program should link the LIKE ID with the LIKE GUID from the table
/SAPAPO/T445LIKK and write in to the mass assignment table.

1. Use FM /SAPAPO/TS_PLOB_LIST_GET to read CVC values from POS.
2. Map the Like ID from the /SAPAPO/T445LIKK Table while generating the
   mass assignment profile

Example of the screens of the programs:

1. PHASE IN AND OUT.

2. LIKE PROFILE

3. MASS ASSIGNMENT

Please note that you should run these programs in the following sequence.

STEP 1 – PHASE IN and OUT.

STEP 2 – LIKE PROFILE

STEP 3 – MASS ASSIGNMENT