Demand Planning Add-In for Microsoft Excel

[Former Member]

Hi All

SAP has come up with a add-in for excel in 2014. All the  documentation is available in the link SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization, Demand Planning Add-In for Microsoft Excel 1.0 – SAP Help Po...

Kindly go though the  "Administrator’s Guide" and the "Application Help" ( market place log in needed ) .The below blog is just additional screen shots /tips /tricks/ which may help consultants.The screen shots are from a test system and for actual system the security aspects like firewall settings ,HTTPS should be considered.

The excel add in will work only on SCM7.0 EHP3 and on higher versions of EHP2.At the client side it supports Office 2010 and higher as explained in the guide

1.Open the transaction SICF. The Maintain service screen opens.

2.Click the Execute button or press F8.

3.Expand default_host in the service list.

4.Expand sap -> scmapo -> rest-> epm.

5.Double-click demand_plan_srv. The Create/Change a Service screen opens.

This is only available in  SCM7.0 EHP3 and on higher versions of EHP2 ( please refer the guide )

6.If the service is active, you can see Service (Active) written next to the service name. If you cannot see this text displayed, continue with the next step.

7.Click the Back button.

8.Right-click demand_plan_srv in the service list.

9.Select Activate Service from the context menu that appears.

10.Choose Yes in the dialog box that opens.

Now test the service

.A new window should open with a logon screen

The Url will be in the format http://[host]:[port]/sap/scmapo/rest/epm/demand_plan_srv/

If the window does not appear then few ICM setting are missing in RZ10 and this has to be checked by Basis team

The three ICM seting are shown below

At the client side

The excel add in  available  in marketplace and download access will be needed to get this file. It has multiple prerequisites like specific version of dotnet and MS office  as explained in the guide.

After installation , we can see a new add in in the excel

Click on  log on button

create a new connection for the required planning book and view as shown

Data in the planning book

Now based on the layout needed ,click the format and adjust the same

The row , column and page axis needs to be sent as per the requirement

After all this , the report should be able to pull data from planning book as shown below .

If planning book numbers need to changed from excel then active the below option

After this if numbers are changed in the excel and "upload data" button is clicked then numbers are changed in planning book as shown below

There are large number of options explained in the guide such as read only settings, color formatting in excel and formulas.They need to be configured as per business requirements.

Pros:

Most of the demand planners work in excel and will prefer to work in excel than planning book

Cons:

Supported only in SCM7EHP3 and higher versions of EHP2

Planners may expect all the data in excel and may try to avoid planning books altogether.

The impact of all the default/ start / level change /exit  macro's needs to be tested

The security aspects may be involved .If we compare this with BW-Bex report then it gives access only to read data but here it is read /write.

Performance issues with large selections need to be tested