1 Introduction

Oracle Retail Item Planning (IP) facilitates the translation of merchandise financial plans into execution level, item driven strategies to be followed throughout the life of a product. It represents the bottom-up planning process, complementing and working in concert with the top-down financial plans. By providing weekly visibility into item performance and financial targets, the item planning process increases the likelihood that merchandising strategies are successfully executed within the financial plan parameters. For a more detailed overview of the functionality within Item Planning, see the Oracle Retail Item Planning User Guide for the RPAS Classic Client or Oracle Retail Item Planning User Guide for the RPAS Fusion Client.

Contents of this Guide

This operations guide addresses the following topics:

• Chapter 1, "Introduction"—Overview of the Item Planning business workflow and skills needed for implementation.

• Chapter 2, "Implementation Considerations"—Explanation of the factors to take into consideration before performing the implementation.

• Chapter 3, "Build Scripts"—Information on building and patching the Item Planning domain.

• Chapter 4, "Data Flow"—Overview of the Item Planning data flow.

• Chapter 5, "Fashion Planning and ODI Integration"—Overview of the Fashion Planning Bundle data flow and the ODI enabled integration for the bundle.

• Chapter 6, "Script Integration"—Overview of the script integration used for the Fashion Planning Bundle.

• Chapter 7, "Batch Processing"—Explanation of batch scheduling and batch designs.

• Chapter 8, "Item Planning Configured for COE"—Information on the integration and batch processing.

Overview of the Fashion Planning Bundle

The Fashion Planning Bundle is the integration of Item Planning (IP), Clearance Optimization Engine (COE), Assortment Planning (AP), Merchandise Financial Planning (MFP), and Size Profile Optimization (SPO) as a full-suite planning solution for fashion retailers.

For details on the integration, see Chapter 5, "Fashion Planning and ODI Integration" and Chapter 6, "Script Integration".

Architecture of the Template Applications

Figure 1-1 shows the architecture of the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server (RPAS) template applications.

Figure 1-1 Architecture of the RPAS Template Applications

This diagram describes the RPAS template applications. In the truest sense, these templates are not applications in the same way that the RPAS client is an application since end-users are not presented a user interface specific to the template. The templates are pre-defined means by which to view specific types of data in the domain such that the RPAS client user interface is used to read and write to the domain.

The system administrator responsible for maintaining the RPAS Configuration Tools ensures that the appropriate templates are available. Each template has the following associated information to define its pre-defined attributes:

• Measures

• Special expressions

• Rules

• Workbook layout

A client requests to use one of the templates via the Configuration Tools. A number of XML files are then output which define the domain to be created. These XML files are used to build the specified domain incorporating all the attributes mentioned above that have been defined specifically.

Once the domain has been created, the end user is able to access the domain data via the RPAS client. Based on the template used, workbooks, measures, rules, and so on are available to the end user.

Business Process Flow

Figure 1-2 shows a typical workflow for Item Planning.

Figure 1-2 Business Process Workflow

Key Features of Item Planning

Item Planning provides the following features:

• Item planning at style and style-color level.

• Review of sales trends and plans.

• Update of unit sales, exit strategies, and receipts.

• Reconciliation to MFP.

Skills Needed for Implementation

The implementer needs an understanding of the following applications and technical concepts.

Applications

The implementer should understand interface requirements of the integrated applications and data sources for the master data, demand, and inventory history. For the Fashion Planning Bundle, the implementer needs this knowledge for the following applications:

• Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server (RPAS)

• Oracle Retail Assortment Planning (AP)

• Oracle Retail Item Planning (IP)

• Oracle Retail Clearance Optimization Engine (COE)

• Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning (MFP)

• Oracle Retail Size Profile Optimization (SPO)

• Oracle Retail Data Warehouse (RDW)

• Oracle Retail Merchandising System (RMS)

Note: RPAS stores hierarchy position names in lower case. The hierarchy load files in RPAS for IP-COE can be in mixed case; however, they are stored in lower case internally. The conversion on the IP side is handled by the convertDomain utility, and no manual loads need to be performed. COE, on the other hand, supports mixed case position names (that is, merchandise_key and location_key), both in load files and in database storage. Moreover, COE uses case-sensitive comparisons for position names (ids). As a result, you must load lower case position names (that is, merchandise_key and location_key) in COE.

Technical Concepts

The implementer should understand the following technical concepts:

• UNIX system administration, shell scripts, and job scheduling.

• Performance constraints based on the retailer's infrastructure.

• Technical architecture for Item Planning.

• Retailer's hierarchical (SKU/store/day) data.

• Item Planning batch processes.

• How to set up an RPAS domain.

• A basic understanding of RPAS configuration and how to use the RPAS Configuration Tools.

• Understanding of how RPAS rule language works.

• Understanding of measures and dimension constructs.