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System Prerequisites
Most Fortune 100 companies use SAP APO as their global supply chain management application. A
majority of these implementations use SAP NetWeaver BW as the data warehousing and business
analytics application. Many companies also use SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) as the
transaction processing application due to its ease of integration with SAP APO and SAP NetWeaver BW.
In addition SAP NetWeaver BW queries and reports can be published on an Internet browser using SAP
NetWeaver Portal. Thus the SAP ecosystem at most major companies has SAP APO, SAP NetWeaver
BW, SAP NetWeaver Portal, and SAP ECC as core applications.
Most implementations of SAP APO use the DP module for forecasting. Sales history from SAP ECC is
imported to SAP APO DP and statistical models are run to generate a baseline statistical forecast.
Adjustment to the statistical forecast and addition of a promotional forecast is done to calculate the total
forecast to release to SNP. SNP is used by supply planners in many companies for distribution
requirements planning (DRP) to generate a distribution plan for plants and distribution centers. Purchase
requisitions and purchase orders for external vendors are also generated. Next, master production
scheduling (MPS) is done in SNP by rough cut capacity planning (RCCP) to generate a manufacturing
plan in the medium term.
Thus, SNP is used to calculate the distribution, purchasing, and manufacturing plan for a company to
meet customer demand and maintain the desired service level. It uses both heuristics and mathematical
optimization methods to create feasible manufacturing and distribution plans. The SNP interactive
planning book allows users to display and interactively modify planning data. The system processes any
changes directly via liveCache, but it is not user friendly to report on planning book data. Instead SNP
planning data such as inventory levels, planned orders, and purchase requisitions can be sent to SAP
NetWeaver BW for reporting. It is much easier to run reports in SAP NetWeaver BW, and it also does not
affect SAP APO performance.
SNP generates a DRP and MPS plan using algorithms such as location or network heuristics.
This SNP plan is stored in key figures of the type LC orders.
Copy the data from LC order key figures to LC time series key figures. Then extract the data from
the SNP planning area using extractors.
Import the data to SAP NetWeaver BW InfoCubes using the APO SNP extractor. Create a query
in SAP NetWeaver BW on the InfoCube created using the query designer. Publish the query to
SAP NetWeaver Portal after creating portal iViews so users can display the SNP planning data
using an Internet browser.
Figure 1
The link between SNP, SAP NetWeaver BW, and SAP NetWeaver Portal
Step 1. Check the SNP planning area for LC time series and order key figures
Step 3. Build InfoCubes in SAP APO to transform and store the data.
Step 4. Connect SAP APO to SAP NetWeaver BW and pull the data to SAP NetWeaver BW
Step 5. Build InfoCubes in SAP NetWeaver BW to store the data from SAP APO
Figure 2
Planning area display
Figure 3
Semantic for any key figure
The first two methods store data either as LC time series or LC orders in memory liveCache. The third
method of storing data in an InfoCube is used to back up SNP or DP planning data. You can also use
InfoCubes to load data from flat files and then transfer the data from InfoCubes to LC time series key
figures. In my scenario, I need to extract the data from an SNP planning area to SAP APO InfoCubes so I
can transfer it to SAP NetWeaver BW.
The next step is to add new LC time series key figures to the SNP planning area. These are used to copy
LC Order data as you cannot extract this data from the SNP planning area. To create a new key figure
InfoObject, go to transaction code RSD1 in APO DEV as shown in Figure 4. You can use Key Figure
ZK_EX1- KF Extra 1 as an LC time series key figure to copy the LC order key AAFCST data in Figure 2.
You then can extract data stored in key figure AAFCST.
Figure 4
Create a new key figure
To add the newly-created time series key figures, deinitialize the SNP planning area and add it with key
figure semantic 001 for LC time series or 000 for LC orders. Ensure that all the prerequisites such as CIF
queue stopping are done prior to deletion of this data.
You also need to add these key figures to the SNP planning book. Then write new macros to copy the
data in LC order key figures to LC time series key figures so you can extract this data. You can check the
new time series key figures to be added using transaction /n/SAPAPO/SDP94 or by following menu path
Advanced Planning and Optimization > Supply Network Planning > Interactive Planning (Figure 5).
Figure 5
Check the data in the SNP planning book
Figure 6
Create an extractor for the SNP planning area
To create the data sources, enter the name and select all the key figures to be extracted from the SNP
planning area. The system automatically generates a new extract structure. You can test this data source
to ensure that it is able to extract data and that all the time series key figures such as Z_EX1 created
before are being populated. Also check that all the time periods (such as 104 weeks in the future) are
extracted with data. If they are not, you need to check the data source for errors. Otherwise there will be
downstream errors in SAP APO and in SAP NetWeaver BW InfoCubes.
Figure 7
Create an SNP InfoCube
Figure 8
Replicate the SNP InfoCube data source in SAP NetWeaver BW
Figure 9
Create transformation rules for the SAP NetWeaver BW InfoCube
This imports the data stored in the SNP InfoCube to the SAP NetWeaver InfoCube and uses ETL rules for
mapping the data. Then you can build an SAP NetWeaver BW setup such as a data transfer process
(DTP) and InfoPackages to import the data into the SAP NetWeaver BW InfoCube. Process chains need
to run in SAP APO and SAP NetWeaver BW to ensure that all the steps are run in the right sequence to
import the data.
in BEx Analyzer or for Web-based analysis in BEx Web Analyzer. The data analysis is based on
InfoProviders from SAP NetWeaver BW.
Figure 10
Build a query using the query designer tool