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Integrated Planning-Advanced DSO for Planning

November 28, 2016 | 5,622 Views |

Rajeev Mishra
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SAP Integrated Business Planning

BW (SAP Business Warehouse) | Business Intelligence | bw on hana | sap integrated planning

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I was about to start work on the next Integrated Planning Project but before that I wanted to spend some
time exploring the new ADSO for planning. I could not find much on the web beyond the basic settings
to be made in the ADSO for planning. So I decided to spend some time researching and trying it out
myself.

I am positive that the usual things like creation of an aggregation level on the ADSO, the planning query
etc. will work as expected. What I wanted to check was whether it was possible to do a lookup using
ABAP in the plan data.

In this blog i will also describe why this small missing limitation was so needed for integrated planning
projects .

Welcome to the new world of the SAP HANA Studio:

First thing I realised is if you want to use the ADSO for planning then you have to use the new HANA
Studio based BI Modelling perspective. Now in the old SAP GUI menu there is no menu option to create
an ADSO so don’t waste time trying to create one in the old RSA1. To use the HANA studio or create an
ADSO you should be on version 7.4 or higher. I had already been using HANA Studio for some time for
following the Open SAP Native HANA Software Development courses (Thomas Jung) and changing
some design studio SDKs that I picked up from the web to include in the dashboard I was working on.
So when I decided to explore the BW side of things I did not have much of a learning curve. I feel that
working on the HANA Studio is easier than it was with the SAP GUI. As i spent more time working with
the BI perspective i realised that multiple tabs are way easier to handle and refer back then multiple SAP
GUI sessions. Also creating queries in a new tab and not having to open the query designer also makes
life very simple. One inconvenience I faced when I worked with the earlier versions of the HANA Studio
was that you had to step out of HANA Studio and open the SAP GUI for creating transformations etc. It
is still not possible to create or edit a transformation in the HANA Studio. But now there is a new feature
whereby you can open the old GUI based BI system within the HANA Studio and so you can do your
transformations etc. without having to step out of HANA Studio. The overall BW Modelling perspective in
HANA Studio is still WIP but whenever it is ready it will be very nice to open one tool and work on it
rather than a separate SAP BI GUI, Query Designer etc.

ADSO for planning and Integrated Planning:

Before the advent of the planning ADSO planning could only be done on transactional cubes and in SAP
BI it was not possible to do a lookup using ABAP into the cubes. There was a function module
“RSDRI_INFOPROV_READ” which could do a lookup into the cube but it had very limited use.

So how was this a problem for Integrated planning projects anymore then it was for the usual
BW projects?

Consider a planning scenario where each yearly planning cycle consists of three versions V1 to V3.
When the users have finished entering their numbers for V1, the planning administrator via an
administrator workbench locks the version V1 and then he initialises V2 .In due time he does the same

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for V3 by locking V2 and initialising V3.As per requirements the administrator is not allowed to initialise
V2 before V1 is ready and locked for a particular year and he is not allowed to initialise V3 before V1
and V2 are ready and locked for a particular year.

What is V1, V2 and V3???

Versions can be used in many ways in planning. For e.g. In V1 the country managers enter the forecast
at the country level .In V2 the forecast is done by Country and state and in V3 by Country, state and city.

The planning scenarios are usually much more complex than what I have described here. But I think this
is sufficient to help you understand the problems faced when I describe them in the next part.

Now lets discuss the real problem..

So let’s assume the administrator wants to initialise V3 so that the users can go in and start entering
their numbers. So when the administrator presses the “Create New Active Version” button the system
first want to check if V1 and V2 for that year have been submitted and are locked. To do this check we
need to do a lookup into the plan cube data. So on pressing of the button the following steps are
executed

Step 1: On the press of the button execute a planning sequence which triggers a process chain.

Step 2: In the process chain we move the planning cube to load mode, empty DSO,Load data from cube
to DSO, activate data and move planning cube back to plan mode.

Step 3: We now execute a second planning sequence which calls a function module which does the
lookup and if V1 and V2 are locked the system it will initialise V3, else produce an error message.

Step 4: The user keeps refreshing the page to get an error message like “Version V2 is still open for
planning” or a success message “Version V3 is initialised”.

If you look closer you will realise that it was possible to do all of this without the process chain only if we
could do a lookup into the cube at the very first step. And even better all that was done in steps 1 to 4
could be accomplished with a single planning sequence.

To get over this limitation with cubes we ended up using workarounds. One way is to create a DSO for
each cube and load them with the planning cube data and then do a lookup into these DSO which is
what we see in steps 1 to 4 above. The second way was to set up a fancy way of managing flags by
writing into info objects or tables.

This led to the following problems

Problem 1: Bad design with redundant objects

A DSO for each cubes, planning sequences to trigger process chains, process chains themselves were
all objects that could have been avoided leading to a better, simpler design of the application.

Problem 2: The bigger problem -Bad user experience

1. Since we are using a process chain, the user had to wait till the chain completed or stopped at an
intermediate step for e.g. because the previous version was not locked. The relevant messages
would then appear on the admin workbench screen.
2. Sometimes the chain failed due to technical reasons but as there was no way to notify the user
the user keeps on waiting for the notification or just leaves the application assuming the step is
done.
3. We also had to build in checks so that the user does not trigger the chain multiple times by
pressing the button again and again.
4. The user had to keep refreshing the page for messages. This was very inconvenient for the
users.

But if a lookup was possible then we could do all of this without a process chain and with a single
planning sequence. One of the benefits of a planning sequence is that it would immediately give you the
result of the operation. This is what the user expects and this is also the kind of experience that the
design team wants to deliver.
So lets build a quick application and see if we can do a lookup into the plan data

In this blog I plan to create a simple planning layout on a ADSO for planning and see if that helps me get
over this problem.

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The planning DSO generated five tables .The first two are relevant to us. The inbound table contains the
plan data which has not yet been activated. Think of this as the yellow request in the planning cube.
This also includes any data that you may have loaded but not yet activated. The active data table has
the data which has been activated. In ADSO for planning the open planning request is always green.

So to see if a lookup using ABAP was possible I copied the same DSO and created a transformation
from the planning DSO to this DSO .In the end routine I introduced a look up with break points. I initially
committed the error of going only for the Active Data table but soon I realized I also had to include the
inbound table .The inbound table contains what was the yellow request of the old planning cubes. The
Active Data table contains the data that has been activated.

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On activating the request all data goes to the active table. Remember now just flipping the status of the
cube from plan to load and back will not do the trick. You have to activate the request if for any reason
you want to open a new planning request.

Conclusion

We can do a lookup into the plan data in the ADSO for planning .This means we don’t have to include a
process chain in design every time we want to do just check status of some data.

And this makes me very happy and if given a chance I would like to go back and redo the old planning
applications I worked on with the ADSO for planning.

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11 Comments
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Mukesh Towari

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February 10, 2017 at 7:14 am

Hi Rajeev,

Thanks for the nice post.

So you recommend ADSO instead of Cube to do your planning for BW versions =>7.4 SP 11? If you could compare Cube &
ADSO in terms of Pros & Cons of each, would help user community who are confused on which way to go.

Thanks Again

Mukesh

Vikas Antil

April 25, 2017 at 2:41 pm

Hi Rajeev,

I am trying to create ADSO for Planning in BW 7.4 SP15 but this special Type : Planning Mode is missing. Can you please
guide or help me.

Also if you can help me with the limitations of using ADSO

I am attaching the image of ADSO Special Type options available in our system.

Rajeev Mishra Post author

April 26, 2017 at 4:15 pm

Hi Vikas,

The planning option is not available in the ADSO in 7.4.

Regards,

Rajeev Mishra

Pavol Feranec

May 24, 2017 at 12:04 pm

Hi Rajeev,

I have BW 7.5 SP07 but I do not see this option. I can only use Eclipse Neon.3 with the latest SAP updates. Can it be that it is
only visible via HANA Studio?

Thanks and regards,

Pavol

Rajeev Mishra Post author

May 24, 2017 at 6:58 pm

Hi Pavol,

Yes,after installing Eclipse you have to install all the HANA related perspectives in Eclipse .And once you have
done that use the “BW Modelling” perspective.

Regards,

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Rajeev Mishra

Rajeev Mishra Post author

May 30, 2017 at 5:52 pm

And you may want to try out Sebastians solution give below i.e.

You need to add “BPC Embedded Model Active” to the customizing table RSPLS_HDB_ACT.

Consequently the planning option @ADSO is visible.

Sebastian T.

May 30, 2017 at 8:07 am

Hi Rajeev,

i got the following system active:

HANA Studio Version 2.3.22 with Eclipse Version 4.6.3

on HANA SPS12 and BW 7.5 Release 7

and up to date BW Modelling perspective.

I cant see the Planning Option. Do you have any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Best regards,

Sebastian

Sebastian T.

May 30, 2017 at 9:23 am

We found a solution:

You need to add “BPC Embedded Model Active” to the customizing table RSPLS_HDB_ACT.

Consequently the planning option @ADSO is visible.

Best regards

Sebastian

Pavol Feranec

May 31, 2017 at 7:22 am

Hi Sebastian,

Thanks for the proposed solution.

I found an OSS note 2456761 which fixes this error in other way without need to add BPC
functionality. SAP states there it is an error in its code so if you do not need BPC Embedded Model
then just install this OSS Note.

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As I am just external consultant I cannot propose my clients to activate features they do not use but
since we installed this OSS Note, I am able to create plannable aDSOs.

Cheers,

Pavol

Rama B

August 10, 2017 at 5:36 am

Hi Rajeev, that was a good post. thanks. After 7.5 on HANA do we still need to use RSPLAN transaction or the same functions
are available anywhere in HANA studio?

Rajeev Mishra Post author

August 28, 2017 at 1:31 pm

Hi Rama,

Thanks for liking my post .

The transaction for developing IP related objects is still RSPLAN. SAP is moving the development to the Eclipse
but for IP the objects are still built using RSPLAN.

BW/4 HANA does not have the IP functionality so you will not find RSPLAN.

Regards,

Rajeev Mishra

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