Siebel Consumer Sector Guide > Sales Volume Planning > Scenario for Sales Volume Planning >

Example Process Flow for Sales Volume Planning

The following sections describe the process flow for sales volume planning, performed by sales volume planning administrators and managers. Your company may follow a different process flow according to its business requirements.

Procedures can be divided into four groups:

• Administrator configuration procedures to set up workflows and business services for sales volume planning processes
• Initial administrator procedures to set up sales volume planning data
• Ongoing administrator procedures to update or maintain sales volume planning data
• End user procedures

Administrator Configuration Procedures

You need to perform these procedures to configure Consumer Sector applications for sales volume planning:

1. Set up Siebel Business Process Designer for sales volume planning.

   The Sales Volume Planning module uses Siebel Business Process Designer to perform actions in the sales volume planning process, such as Aggregate and Allocate. For more information, see Setting Up Siebel Workflow Policies for Consumer Sector.

2. Optional: Modify the Sales Volume Planning business service.

   You can modify the Sales Volume Planning business service. For example, you may want to have the business service send an email to alert the system administrator when the workflow process is complete. For instructions, see Modifying the Sales Volume Planning Business Service.

Initial Administrator Procedures for SVP

You need to perform these procedures initially to set up sales volume planning data:

1. Set up account hierarchy.

   To perform sales volume planning, you must establish an explicit and contiguous account hierarchy where every account in the hierarchy has a parent account except the root account (highest level account in an account hierarchy). Organizational entities that are part of sales volume plans must exist in this SVP account hierarchy. For instructions on setting up account hierarchies, see Setting Up Account Hierarchies.

2. Set up category-product hierarchy.

   You must establish an explicit category-product hierarchy before beginning the sales volume planning process. For more information, see Setting Up a Category-Product Hierarchy.

3. Define SVP hierarchy (account-category-product tree).

   Connecting the account hierarchy with the category-product hierarchy establishes the SVP hierarchy, also known as the account-product tree. This may be done manually (see Defining the SVP Hierarchy) or by performing the Aggregate action (see Performing the Initial Aggregation).

4. Create sales volume planning periods.

   You must create periods to represent the units of time you will be working with in the sales volume planning process. SVP supports period types of weeks or months. For information on creating periods, see Getting Started.

5. Import or copy sales volume planning data.

   You must import the data to use in the sales volume planning process. You import sales volume planning source data, such as baseline, target, shipment, or consumption data, using Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager (EIM). You can also copy sales volume planning data from existing products to populate records for similar new products. This data can then be used as the source records for your upcoming sales volume planning actions.

   For information on using EIM, see Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager Administration Guide.

   The Sales Volume Planning module uses predefined interface tables for importing source data. For more information, see Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager Administration Guide.

   NOTE:  Sales volume planning source data is recorded at the lowest level of your account and product hierarchies. Therefore, when importing sales volume planning source data, you must import this data at the lowest level of your hierarchies—for example, at the Ship To-SKU level.

   For more information on copying sales volume planning data from existing products to populate records for similar new products, see Generating Baseline Basis Quantities for New Products.

6. Optional: Reset account levels.

   If you want the Account Level field to auto-populate in Sales Volume Planning Administration views and forms, you must perform an account-level reset. For more information, see Resetting Account and Category Levels.

7. Perform initial aggregation.

   Aggregation executes and builds the account-category relationships defined earlier in the physical database. It also aggregates baseline data changes and rolls up incremental volume from the lowest levels of the hierarchy across the account-category-product hierarchy. For more information, see Performing the Initial Aggregation.

8. Populate locks.

   Setting up locks protects data from being edited by multiple users simultaneously and allows remote editing of forecast data. Additionally, to make forecasting data visible in the end-user Sales Volume Planning views, you must populate locks. For more information, see Populating Locks.

9. Establish a baseline basis.

   After importing the sales volume planning data, you copy it to the Baseline Basis Quantity field. For more information, see Establishing a Baseline Basis Quantity.

10. Copy baseline information to additional fields.
    1. Copy the baseline basis to the Baseline Planning Quantity field. You must copy the baseline basis to the Baseline Planning Quantity field. For more information, see Copying Baseline Basis Quantity to Baseline Planning Quantity.

       At this point, sales volume planning administrators release the imported sales volume planning data to their senior managers. These managers modify the data to reflect their particular markets and allocate the modified quantities down the account-product hierarchy. For more information, see Adjusting Sales Volume Planning Source Data.

    2. Copy the Baseline Planning Quantity field to the Baseline Quantity field. After senior managers have modified and allocated the baseline planning quantities, you copy the Baseline Planning Quantity field to the Baseline Quantity field. For more information, see Copying Baseline Planning Quantity to Baseline Quantity.
11. Optional: Manually enter sales volume planning data.

    Marketing administrators can manually enter sales volume planning data for the purposes of training or test. For more information, see Maintaining an SVP Hierarchy.

Ongoing Administrator Procedures for SVP

You need to perform these procedures on an ongoing basis to maintain sales volume planning data:

• Import or copy data.

  Depending upon your company's business requirements, you need to periodically import shipment, consumption, target, or baseline data on a recurring basis.

• Perform periodic Aggregate actions.

  You need to run the Aggregate process to incorporate account, category, or product changes into the SVP hierarchy. This also aggregates baseline data changes and rolls up incremental volume from the lowest levels of the hierarchy. For more information, see Performing Periodic Aggregations.

• Maintain the account-product tree.

  Marketing administrators maintain the account-product tree by resetting the levels and locks of the tree. For more information, see Maintaining an SVP Hierarchy.

End-User Procedures

End users perform these procedures for sales volume planning:

1. View sales volume planning data. For more information, see Viewing Sales Volume Planning Data.
2. Adjust the sales volume planning source data. For more information, see Adjusting Sales Volume Planning Source Data.
3. Modify the planning quantity. For more information, see Locking and Modifying the Planning Quantity.