Overview of Backlog Management Processes

Backlog management involves a sequence of four activities:

1. Planning the backlog. Do this using plan run actions in the Backlog Analysis UI or with a scheduled process that can plan the backlog at a specific time.

   • You specify a demand priority rule on the basis of which the orders are prioritized.

   • You can plan your entire backlog or you can use filters to plan by specific items, categories, and organizations.

   • You can run the Backlog Management plan for a group or subset of organizations. This group could be all the facilities in a global region, a business unit, a line of business, or any other set of locations for which the plan needs to be scheduled together.

2. Reviewing backlog planning results. You can do this in two ways:

   • Using the Backlog Analysis UI, which tabulates results for each planned order. These results can be called using a range of search criteria.

   • Using the Backlog Analytics UI, which presents result statistical data in the form of graphs and infotiles.

3. Simulating and adjusting attribute values. After reviewing planned results, you can modify order attribute values and replan those orders to see how fulfillment prospects vary. Here's what all you can do:

   • Change the organization and shipping method

   • decommit lower priority demands

   • Plan the same orders using other demand priority rules

   • Override priority on specific orders

   • Remove constraining items from a shipment or arrival set

4. Releasing planning results to your order management system. Do this using release actions in the Backlog Analysis UI, or have the application do it through a scheduled process.

   Until you release your Planned values from Backlog Management, they remain as simulations within the application, and can't impact actual order scheduling.

   You can specify a subset of organizations for which the Backlog Planning Results are to be released.