Overview of Plan Archival
Supply Chain Planning provides two archival types, one that a planner can run for a plan and another archive type that only an administrator with proper security privileges can set up for MAPE statistics.
For a planner, plan archival enables you to archive measures in a plan with plan context and save multiple versions of a plan's archived measures over time. When you archive a plan, you archive a set of measures contained in the measure catalog that you chose as the archive measure catalog for the plan.
Plan Archives
Plan archival enables you to save multiple versions of the plan where you archive the key measures at a point in time. The Waterfall Analysis and Trend Analysis tables and graphs use the plan archive to compare the current plan's data to past versions of the plan. When viewing past versions of the plan, you can see the impact of strategic and tactical changes made to the plan. You can also compare the individual archives to the plan by selecting from the Actions menu in a plan.
For example, you archive a plan in May and then market conditions in September cause adjustments to be made to the plan. You can analyze the impact of the adjustments on the plan by viewing the changes in the key performance indicators between the plan version archived in May and the current plan.
A supply chain planner can run the archiving process from an open plan by selecting the Archive option from the Actions menu. A planner can also run the archiving process by selecting the Archive plan check box on the Run Plan page. Alternatively, you can run the archive process independently of running the plan by selecting the Archive option from the Actions menu on the Manage Plans page.
Before you can archive a plan, you must enable the plan for archiving and set up the archiving parameters. The parameters that you configure determine the time hierarchy, time level, and the measure catalog to use for the archives. Set up the archiving parameters in the Scope: Advanced Options dialog box, which you navigate to from the Plan Options page, Scope tab.
It's good practice to back up your archive data by making a full copy of your plan that includes archives. You can access the backup plan data in the event of any temporary issue with the plan of record. On the other hand, if you want to create a standalone plan to simulate a business scenario, you probably don't need to include archived measures.
MAPE Archives
An administrator with the correct security privileges can create an archive for MAPE statistics by running the Build Plan Archive scheduled process from the Tools work area. Generally, a supply chain planner doesn't have the privileges to create a MAPE archive. However, an administrator with the required privileges can see the Enable for MAPE calculations check box in the Build Archive dialog box. The administrator can create archives at weekly, monthly, or quarterly time levels. The archive level pertains to the planning time level, so the administrator would archive a quarter-level plan at the quarter level.