A planning workbook is a predefined Excel workbook used in what-if analysis. Each planning workbook is associated with an analysis type and is designed to examine the effect of plan changes on a set of key metrics and assumptions.
A planning workbook is assembled from planning worksheets. A planning worksheet provides a view of modeling data in the Integrated Operational Planning database. Each planning worksheet displays a subset of the modeling data and can be included in more than one planning workbook, so its data can be used by different analysis types.
A planning workbook may also include report worksheets. A report worksheet is a predefined Excel worksheet that uses tabular reports and charts to display data in the Integrated Operational Planning database. The data displayed is defined using queries.
You navigate through a planning workbook as you would in any Excel workbook. The name of the active worksheet is displayed at the top left of the worksheet and on the bottom sheet tab. Switch worksheets by selecting the sheet tabs.
You can modify the following elements of a planning worksheet:
Layouts define a view into the underlying data. The layout defines which dimension members and measures are displayed. You define whether the layout is used for the current scenario or for all scenarios with a specific analysis type and whether the layout is used as the initial view.
Worksheet layouts are user-specific, private, sheet-specific, and analysis type-specific. You can create layouts for different working areas and store initial layouts for different sheets of the same analysis type.
Tip: | Users working in different geographies and with different products can bookmark their data area as their initial layout. |
Columns and rows in planning worksheets represent categories of business data called dimensions. Common dimensions in planning worksheets include Geography, Product, Customer, and Time. Dimensions provide indexes to specify the location of each data cell in a worksheet.
A dimension contains individual elements called members. For example, the Time dimension includes members that correspond to each week, month, quarter, or year.
The members of a dimension can be organized into hierarchies to represent parent-child relationships. For example, the Time dimension can have a hierarchy named Fiscal to represent the fiscal calendar and another hierarchy named Manufacturing to represent the manufacturing calendar.
A dimension hierarchy has hierarchy levels that represent levels in the hierarchy from top to bottom. For example, the Time dimension includes the hierarchy levels Year, Quarter, Month, and Week. The dimension members at the Quarter level are specific, individual quarters such as Q1 '04, Q2 '04, Q3 '04, and Q4 '04.
The dimension and hierarchy names in planning workbooks depend on how the worksheets are defined. Names can be customized. |
In a planning worksheet, the Time dimension is generally represented by a row. Other dimensions, such as Geography, Product, and Customer, are represented by columns.
Measures, the names of numerical data values in planning worksheets, are members of a special dimension, called the measure dimension. Examples of measures are Projected Sales, Booked Units, and Actual Average Selling Price.
Generally, measures are displayed in the rightmost dimension column, to the left of the vertical line that separates dimension columns from the data values in the worksheet. You can expand and collapse the column of measures, just as you can for other dimensions.
Measures in a planning worksheet depend on how the worksheet is defined for an analysis type. Each analysis type has predefined key metrics, which are measures of special interest for that analysis type. For example, the Supply Impact analysis type has the key metrics Excess Material Costs, Expedite Costs, and Scrap Metal Costs.
In an analysis, you make plan changes by modifying data values in a worksheet. Then you recalculate all data values, which include key metrics, to view the impact of the changes.
Measure values can be detailed or summarized, depending on whether dimension hierarchies in the worksheet are expanded or collapsed. When dimension hierarchies are collapsed, summarized measure values are displayed. When dimensions are expanded, more-detailed breakdowns of measure values are displayed.
For example, if the Time dimension for the measure Shipped Units is fully collapsed, the number of Shipped Units for all time is displayed. If the Time dimension is expanded by one level, the number of Shipped Units for each year is also displayed. If the Time dimension is fully expanded, the number of Shipped Units is detailed for each year, quarter, month, and week, depending on the worksheet.
Each measure value in a worksheet cell is located at an intersection of dimensions. If a dimension hierarchy is collapsed, then corresponding cells contain summarized measure values. If a dimension hierarchy is expanded, cells contain more-detailed measure values. When you review scenario impact, the locations of cells containing values for key metrics are displayed.
A cell location can be expressed as a combination of one member from each dimension, including the measure dimension. For example:
NA x All Customers x Fiscal/2005 Q2 x BDF x Booked Sales
The previous expression gives the cell location for the number of booked sales of product family BDF to all customers in North America in the second quarter of fiscal year 2005. In this expression:
The number of booked sales is a more-summarized value. If the Geography, Customer, Time, and Product dimensions are expanded further, more-detailed values for booked sales can be displayed. For example:
West x OEM x FY 2005/July x A234 x Booked Sales
When an exception occurs because of a constraint violation, the corresponding worksheet cells are highlighted in red. For example, if measure values for inventories of certain finished goods exceed thresholds for the week, corresponding worksheet cells are highlighted. A text comment is added to highlighted cells to describe the exception
You can add comments to individual cells by right-clicking the cell to communicate with other participants and to review their comments. Cells with comments are displayed with a red triangle in the upper right corner. When you move the cursor over a highlighted cell or one with a red triangle, the cell comment is displayed.
Some measures have predefined in-line reports that provide transaction-level or component-level details for measure values. For example, the measure Booked Sales might have an in-line report called Orders that displays sales order data for a measure value. The in-line reports available depend on how the worksheets are defined.