Use the following procedures to work with Sales and Operations Planning.
Demantra Sales and Operations Planning uses a pre-seeded workflow to initiate the demand review process:
Start the Web Server.
Start the Workflow Manager.
From the View According to Schema Groups drop-down list box, choose Sales and Operations Planning.
The Workflow Manager filters workflows to only display those belonging to Sales and Operations Planning.
Locate the Demand Review Process in the Schema Name column, and click the corresponding Start button.
This workflow initiates the Demand Review process by resetting all prior demand review approvals, and sending task notifications to the appropriate S&OP planner.
One of the collaborative responsibilities of a sales or marketing manager is to review and adjust forecasts.
From the Collaborator Workbench, select the worksheet containing the forecast that you want to edit.
For example, choose Sales Forecast.
In the tree, select the combination for which you want to edit the forecast. By default, there are pre-seeded levels in worksheets such as Sales Forecast. If you review forecasts at different levels then make a copy of the worksheet and modify the pre-seeded level combination.
Editable series appear on the worksheet in white. Locate the series that you want to edit and enter a new value for the appropriate time bucket. For example, modify the Sales Baseline forecast by using the Sales Override column to make a quantity adjustment or by using the Sales % Change to Base column to make a percentage adjustment.
Note: You can only edit future values.
You can use negative values to specify a decrease in the forecast.
Save your changes to the forecast. From the Data menu, choose Save Data.
You can use the pre-seeded Consensus Forecast Product Category worksheet to create and approve a consensus forecast by time period range and product category.
Log in to the Collaborator Workbench as a user with S&OP approver privileges.
From the Collaborator Workbench, open the Consensus Forecast Product Category worksheet.
In the tree, choose the product category for which you want to create a consensus forecast.
Compare stakeholder forecasts – for example, the Final Forecast series from Demand Management with the Sales Forecast and Marketing Forecast in Sales and Operations Planning.
Forecast weights and override series for individual stakeholders are editable. Use the stakeholder accuracy as the basis for determining appropriate weights. For example, Abs % Error and Sales Abs % Error contain accuracy for Demand Management Analysts and Sales respectively.
To specify a stakeholder’s forecast weight, enter the weighting as a percentage in either the Sales Forecast % Weight or Marketing Forecast % Weight series.
Re-run the worksheet. From the Data menu, choose Rerun.
To approve the consensus forecast for a specific time period, choose Yes from the Consensus Forecast Approved series.
Note: You can approve forecasts for multiple time periods by multi-selecting worksheet rows and using Edit Cells option from the right-mouse menu.
When a forecast is approved, the corresponding weights and approval series become read-only.
When the Demand Review Process begins, the S&OP Manager is sent a task notification via the Collaborator Workbench. By completing the Demand Review process, the Demand Review workflow notifies S&OP Administrator that the Consensus Forecast is available for upload to EBS or other Advanced Planning applications.
Log in to the Collaborator Workbench as the S&OP Manager.
From the My Tasks section of the Collaborator Workbench, click the Done check box for the Complete Forecast Approval check box.
By default, bookings forecasts and simulations are not generated in Demantra Sales and Operations Planning. Some series (for example, History Override) are owned by Demantra Demand Management. Users can either run the forecast and simulation from within Demand Management, or alternately add the override series to the Sales and Operations Planning worksheets, so that simulations may be run.
Use the following procedure to configure the Simulation Engine for existing batch profiles:
Log in to the Business Modeler.
From the Parameters menu, select System Parameters.
The System Parameters dialog box appears.
Select the Engine tab.
Click the New button.
The Create Engine Profile dialog box appears.
Choose the existing batch profile on which you would like the simulation profile to be based.
The same engine parameters used in the batch profile will be used in the simulation profile. This includes the demand stream configuration.
In the Profile Name field, enter an Engine Profile name.
In the Init Params Table Name field, specify a table where the engine profile will be stored
Note: It is recommended that a new table be chosen to enable changes if necessary without affecting other engine profiles. To see which parameter tables are currently used, edit existing profiles and note which Init Params Tables are currently used. Best practice naming convention is init_params_<number>
Enable the Simulation Engine Profile check box.
Choose the batch engine profile this simulation profile will be associated with. Typically this will be the same batch profile used in step 5.
Click OK.
After you have created an engine profile to run simulations in Sales and Operations Planning, you need to create a series that displays the simulation results.
Determine which simulation engine profile the series will display.
From the ENGINE_PROFILES table, locate (and note) the PARENT_ID of the specific simulation engine profile whose results you want to view.
Note: The syntax to view PARENT_IDs is "select * from engine_profiles"
Log into the Business Modeler.
From the Configuration menu, select Configure Series.
Right click an existing simulation series (default name Simulation) and select Create As.
The Create Series As dialog box appears.
In the Series Name field, enter a series name.
In the Internal Name field, enter an internal identifier for the series. Internal names cannot contain spaces.
Click OK.
The Select Data Type dialog box appears.
Click the Cancel button.
From the Configuration Menu, choose Configure Series.
The Series Editor appears.
Modify the server expression to point to a new sim_val column. The syntax of the column is: sim_val_<number of parent id>. For example, if the PARENT ID is 45, then the column being pointed to would be sim_val_45.
Click Save.
When Demantra Sales and Operations Planning has completed loading scenario data, the status changes to “Detect Exceptions” and automatically runs the Supply Plan Exception Detection workflow. This pre-seeded workflow automatically checks the supply plan for the following conditions:
Low Demand Fill %
Overloaded Resource and Supplier Capacity
Poor Production/ Inventory Plan Adherence
Constrained Forecast < Budget
To view and work with exceptions:
Log in to the Collaborator Workbench as the S&OP Manager.
From the My Tasks section of the Collaborator Workbench, select the hyperlink to go directly to the exception worksheet.
Note: Task notifications include the specific supply plan scenario name in the message for which the exceptions appear.
Exception worksheets are configurable and you can revise the default level combinations, add data filters and change the time horizon if you are looking for exceptions in the short-term only.