SCP DemandPlanningScalability R13

Configuring Demand Planning
for Scalability in Oracle

Planning Central Cloud and
Oracle Demand Management
Cloud
An Oracle White Paper
September 2018
Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 3
Plan Size Limits .................................................................................................. 3
Demand Plan Aggregation Recommendations ............................................. 4
Aggregate Non Key-Customer Data............................................................... 4
Plan Option Recommendations ...................................................................... 8
Forecasting Profiles Recommendations .......................................................14
Use Default Empty Layout.............................................................................17
Summary............................................................................................................19
Table of Figures
Figure 1 Illustration of Non-Key Customer Aggregation ........................................................................... 4
Figure 2 Customer Hierarchy Example .......................................................................................................... 6
Figure 3 Hierarchy Information in Key Customer Options Import Template ....................................... 7
Figure 4 Example of Identifying Specific Key Customers .......................................................................... 7
Figure 5 Example of Customer Hierarchy with Key Customers ................................................................ 8
Figure 6 Plan Options ....................................................................................................................................... 9
Figure 7 Select Organization Members ........................................................................................................10
Figure 8 Select Plan Item Members ..............................................................................................................10
Figure 9 Plan Horizon and Planning Time Level........................................................................................11
Figure 10 Scope Tab - Advanced Options...................................................................................................11
Figure 11 Archive Options .............................................................................................................................12
Figure 12 Forecasting Time Level Option ...................................................................................................12
Figure 13 Demand History Days Option .....................................................................................................13
Figure 14 Demand Tab - Advanced Options ..............................................................................................14
Figure 15 Manage Forecasting Profiles UI...................................................................................................15
Figure 16 Selecting Forecasting Methods for User-Defined Forecast Profile ........................................15
Figure 17 Selecting Decomposition Groups for User-Defined Forecast Profile ...................................16
Figure 18 Include Decomposition Analysis in Plan Run or Simulation ..................................................16
Figure 19 Running a Simulation ....................................................................................................................17
Figure 20 Simulation Selections .....................................................................................................................17
Figure 21 Demand Plan Summary Layout ...................................................................................................18
Figure 22 Managing Page Layouts .................................................................................................................18
Figure 23 Setting the Default Page Layout ..................................................................................................19
Figure 24 Plan Opened with an Empty Layout...........................................................................................19
Configuring Demand Planning for Scalability in Oracle Planning Central Cloud and Oracle Demand Management Cloud Page 2
Introduction
To achieve optimal performance when working with Demand Plans, it is important to structure your
plans so that they contain manageable data volumes and to select the relevant options for running
and viewing plans. This whitepaper will highlight the key recommendations for reducing plan data
volumes and improving plan run times. Unless otherwise stated, the recommendations apply to
both Oracle Planning Central Cloud and Oracle Demand Management Cloud.
Topics covered include:
• Using the “Aggregate Non Key-Customer Data” feature to minimize the amount of
customer-specific data residing in a plan.
• Defining plan scope by Organization and Product to control combinations within the plan.
• Using the “Store Plan Data at Aggregate Time Levels” feature to reduce plan data volumes
by maintaining plan data at the time level that you plan at as opposed to at a lower level.
• Defining the historical and forecast time ranges for a plan to control data volume.
• Defining a subset of measures required for archiving.
• Improving the run time of the statistical forecasting engine by turning off the default option
of using price as a causal factor and by only using the forecast decomposition options when
needed.
• Using an empty default layout in order to quickly open a plan.
Plan Size Limits

A key factor in plan size is the number of combinations for which demand exists. Since historical
demand is typically loaded and stored by item, organization, customer site, demand class, and sales
representative, we will consider each unique combination of these. The total number of
combinations will then be the unique count of item / organization / customer site / demand class /
sales representative combinations for which demand exists.
For Plans where the Planning Time Level is “Day”, the maximum number of combinations that is
recommended in a single plan is 50,000 combinations.
For Plans where the Planning Time Level is an aggregate level above “Day” (such as “Week”,
“Month”, or “Period”), the maximum number of combinations that can be supported in a single
plan is 250,000 combinations.
If you need to plan for more combinations than recommended, then you will need to create multiple
plans where each individual plan is within the stated limits. You can control the scope of plans
using either Organization or Product selections as described in the “Defining Plan Scope by
Organization and Product to Control Combinations within the Plan” section of this document.
Demand Plan Aggregation Recommendations

Historical demand stream data for Shipments History and Bookings History is stored at Product-
Organization-Customer Site-Demand Class-Time granularity. In earlier versions of Demand
Management and Planning Central, this data was stored in daily buckets in both shared data tables
and plan data tables irrespective of the forecasting granularity, which exploded the size of these
tables and restricted the plan size. Aggregate planning options in a demand plan allow larger plan
sizes in terms of number of combinations that could be included, and help improve performance of
batch processes like collections, plan runs and UI components.
We will cover the following configurations elements in more detail:
• Aggregate Non-Key Customers
• Store Plan Data at Aggregate Time Levels
• Plan Time Horizon
Aggregate Non Key-Customer Data

As mentioned earlier, historical data is collected and stored at the lowest Customer Site level in the
Customer dimension, which may not be relevant in most implementations. The forecast is
generated at Item-Organization dimensions using the provided forecast tree and then disaggregated
to the Item-Organization-Customer Site-Demand Class granularity. While certain customers and
customer sites may be relevant for most manufacturing and retail/distribution implementations,
most customer site data may not be relevant and only adds to the volume of data in the plan. With
this enhancement, which is turned on by default, you can define key customers, and choose to
aggregate non-key customers as All Other, to reduce the number of Customers/Customer Sites
stored in the plan.
Figure 1 Illustration of Non-Key Customer Aggregation
This feature is available in Oracle Demand Management Cloud, Oracle Sales and Operation
Planning Cloud, and Oracle Planning Central Cloud when using a Fusion or Legacy data source for
collecting historical data.
Setup and Recommendations

You use the ScpKeyCustomerOptionsImportTemplate.xlsm upload template to identify key
customers by hierarchy and hierarchy level. This is a master list of key customers that can be applied
across all demand plans. Specify the Aggregation Level (details below) to determine whether
individual customer data is retained. When creating a plan, select the Aggregate non-key customer data to
All Other level member option check box in Plan Options. No customer data is aggregated for a plan if
the option is not selected.
No action is needed to specify there are no key customers. By default, all customers are considered
as non-key and aggregated to All Other unless the template is used.
The template can be accessed in the Oracle documentation for Supply Chain Planning under the
“Books” link. You will find the File-Based Data Import for Oracle Supply Chain Planning Cloud
templates available in the Development category of the SCM Books.
ScpKeyCustomerOptionsImportTemplate.xlsm Details
Key customers are identified in the KeyCusOptnHeader tab of the template by entering the name of
a valid customer hierarchy in the Hierarchy Name column, and entering a valid level of that
hierarchy in the Level Name column. All customers in this level are identified as key customers. To
have only certain customers identified as key customers, enter the specific customer names in the
KeyCusOptnMembers detail tab. If the detail tab is empty, all child members of the hierarchy level
chosen in the Header tab are flagged as key customers.
Set the aggregation level values for both key and non-key customers, and upload the template. For
non-key customers, the aggregation level that you define in the import template determines whether
the detail customer data must be retained and/or aggregated. The aggregation level meanings are:
1. Level 1 = Retain all customer site data, and also aggregate non-key customer sites. In
addition to key customer data being available, non-key customer data is retained for plans
that require data that is not aggregated together. However, aggregated customer data is also
available for plans that require aggregated non-key customer data. If the Hierarchy Name
and Level Name columns are blank, all customers are aggregated to an All Other site by
zone member.
2. Level 2 = Aggregate non-key customer sites. Customers that are not identified as key
customers are aggregated to an All Other site by zone. If the Hierarchy Name and Level
Name columns are blank, all customers are aggregated to an All Other site by zone member.
3. Level 3 = No aggregation of customer sites occurs. All data is available at customer site
level. If key customers were previously identified and accessed in existing plan, those plans
using the Key Customer feature become invalid and have to be run again.
Here’s an example of a Customer hierarchy. The hierarchy name is “Customer” which has 3 levels;
the zone assignment for each site is also shown.
Customer Accounts
Customer
Customer Site
Figure 2 Customer Hierarchy Example
Three members at the Customer level, Tech Store, PC Whse, and Bigmart are to be designated as
key customers. All other customers will be non-key customers, and their data will be aggregated and
accessed using a member named All Other.
The ScpKeyCustomerOptionsImportTemplate.xlsm is completed by specifying the hierarchy, level

and members that will be used to identify the key customers. In the example below, the hierarchy
name is “Customer”, and the level name is also “Customer”. The Aggregation Level is “1” which
means non-key customers will be aggregated to an All Other member, and all key and non-key
customer data will still be available for existing plans that require detail data for all customers.
Figure 3 Hierarchy Information in Key Customer Options Import Template
The next example illustrates how only specific customers are identified as key customers; notice
Tech Store, PC Whse and Bigmart are the only customers listed on the 3rd tab of the template. The
rest of the customers will be aggregated to All Other.
Figure 4 Example of Identifying Specific Key Customers
Below is an example of the dimension after loading the data and running a plan with the option
Aggregate non-key customer data to an All Other level member selected: Both the Customer hierarchy and
Customer Zone hierarchy are shown.
The detail customer site data will also be available in a separate table for access by existing plans that
do not use key customer, and/or for new plans that require all customer site data.
Figure 5 Example of Customer Hierarchy with Key Customers
Implementation considerations are:
• Determine which customers are key customers; these customers populate the upload
template that identifies the key customers.
• Customers not identified as key customers will be aggregated into an All Other
category. Data for individual non-key customers will not be visible at the customer
site level in plans where this feature is enabled.
• Populate and load the ScpKeyCustomerOptionsImportTemplate.xlsm with the identified

key customers; also determine whether customer site level data will be available for plans by
specifying the aggregation level. Information on loading data via templates can be found in
Oracle Documentation: http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=cloud&id=OEFSC
• Enable individual plans to use the feature in Plan Options by selecting the option
Aggregate non-key customer data to an All Other level member on the Demand tab.
• When a demand schedule is from a demand plan with the Aggregate non-key customer
data to an All Other level member selected, the Supply Planning and Planning Central
plan option “Ship-to Consumption Level” will not have values of “Customer” or “Customer
site. Accordingly when this option is enabled, the Forecast Processing Engine does not
support Customer/Customer-Site level consumption.
Plan Option Recommendations

When creating a plan, there are options that affect the amount of data and size of the plan in Plan
Options on the Scope tab and Demand tab. These have an impact on performance. These options
are discussed below.
Scope Tab Options
Defining Plan Scope by Organization and Product to Control Combinations within the Plan
The first Scope tab options that we will discuss are in the middle portion of the tab which includes
the Plan Organizations and Plan Items. Then we will discuss the Plan Parameters.
Figure 6 Plan Options
First the hierarchy and hierarchy level for Organization are selected. You pick your Plan
Organization hierarchy from the Hierarchy field’s list of values; then pick a Level of the
hierarchy.
In the example above, the Enterprise hierarchy is selected and the Level of the hierarchy selected is
Organization. The hierarchy level is used to populate the level members available for selection in
the Level Members field under the Source System field. You select the organization members to
include by clicking on the Level Members pencil on the right side of the tab. The Source System
field above it is where the level members exist. A source system must be selected first from the
Source System list of values before the pencil icon is enabled.
Figure 7 Select Organization Members
The Organization Level members selected and their children, if any, will be available in your plan.
Avoid selecting organizations not needed for planning as they will unnecessarily increase the volume
of data.
Next select the Hierarchy and Hierarchy Level to use for your Plan Items. These choices
determine the Level Members available for selection when you click the pencil icon beside Level
Members.
Figure 8 Select Plan Item Members
The Product Level members selected and their children, if any, will be available in your plan. Avoid
selecting categories or items not needed for planning as they will unnecessarily increase the volume
of data.
The next options on the Scope tab that we will discuss are in the Plan Parameters section.
Defining Forecast Time Ranges to Control Data Volume and Plan Horizon Length
The Plan Horizon Days option specifies the number of days that can be forecast. This should be
defined carefully keeping in mind the tactical nature of the planning applications, lead-time of buy
items and historical data available. Typical plan horizon settings range from 6 months to 1 year.
However, for long horizons over 2 years, you may want to consider Fusion SCP Sales and
Operations Planning, where further aggregation of dimensions is available, thereby reducing the plan
size. In the example below, the plan’s horizon is 180 days.
Figure 9 Plan Horizon and Planning Time Level
Store Plan Data at Aggregate Time Levels

There is a parameter available, also on the Scope tab, called Planning Time Level where you define
the time aggregation level at which plan data is stored (see example above). You choose the Planning
Time Level when creating a new plan. This setting cannot be changed after the plan is created. In
the example above, APS Calendar is a manufacturing calendar, and the selected Planning Time level
is Week.
You can choose to store data at a specific level. The levels available are Day/Week/Period when
using a manufacturing calendar, or Day/Month when using the Gregorian calendar. The default
Planning Time level is week for a manufacturing calendar. It is generally not recommended to store
data at Day level as it increases the size of the plan and affects plan performance.
• Multiple smaller plans are better than one large plan.
These Plan Parameters affect the forecasting options on the Demand tab. The Planning Time Level
option is only available for Demand plans. It is not available for Demand and Supply plans or
Supply Plans. There is no impact on the existing option in SOP plans.
The last option on the Scope tab to review is in Advanced Options where archiving parameters are
set for the plan.
Archiving an Aggregated Plan

Archiving a plan works in conjunction with the selected Planning Time Level. Enabling archives to
be created for a plan is done in the Advanced Options on the Scope tab.
Figure 10 Scope Tab - Advanced Options
It is recommended that you create a Measure Catalog, in Configure Planning Analytics, that contains
just key measures needed for tracking changes in a plan. Select that catalog in the Archive
Parameters dialog.
Figure 11 Archive Options
• If the Planning Time Level for a plan is “Day”, archives can be created at day level or higher
• If the Planning Time Level for a plan is anything other than “Day”, then parameters are
impacted as follows:
o The Archive Time Hierarchy is set to the Planning Calendar and cannot be changed
o The Archive Time Level is set to the Planning Time Level and cannot be changed to
a lower level
Demand Tab Options

Forecasting Time Level for an Aggregate Plan
There is an option on the Demand tab that allows you to determine the level at which the forecast is
generated. This option is available for Demand Plans only in the Demand Management, Demand
and Supply, and Planning Central work areas. Forecasting at a higher level may improve
performance.
Figure 12 Forecasting Time Level Option
The Forecasting Time Level can be at the same level or at a higher level than the Planning Time
Level. When creating a plan, changing the Planning Time Level selection on the Scope tab
automatically changes the Forecasting Time Level, and the number of Historical Buckets on the
Demand tab. You can change these options as needed.
Historical Buckets
It is important to keep in mind that the setting of Historical Buckets will have a substantial impact
on the demand forecast generated when a plan runs.
• If less than one year of history is used, the forecast will find it difficult or impossible to
determine the impact of yearly seasonal occurrences. This includes both yearly seasonality, as
well as holiday impacts.
• It is strongly recommended to always use at least one year of history, with 18 to 36 months
being best practice.
When using very long amounts of history, it will have an impact on plan run time and may result in
recent events not being reacted to as effectively.
Keep in mind that Historical Buckets settings is a maximum amount of history used when
generating a forecast. The actual amount will depend on the data available for a given Item and
Organization. For each item and organization, the forecasting process will identify all available
historical data, remove any leading zero demand before the first positive demand point, and then
generate a forecast.
Advanced Options – Demand History Days

In Advanced Options on the Demand tab, there are several parameters. The Demand History Days
field controls the amount of historical data shown in the plan. This is for data viewing purposes only
and will have no impact on the demand forecasting process.
Figure 13 Demand History Days Option
The default setting is 182 days, which is approximately a half year. For example when using the
Gregorian calendar, with the default setting of 182, the 6 months prior to the plan’s start date are
available for selection in the Selector Tool for use in tables and graphs.
Advanced Options – CTO Options and Forecasting Control Parameters

The other two parameters are in regard to using configure-to-order products, and Forecasting
Control Parameters used for logging information about your session.
In the Forecasting Control Parameters section, the log settings control how much information is
written to internal logs by the forecasting engine. These settings should be changed only based on
guidance from support and product development as they can adversely impact performance due to
logging information needed by Support when troubleshooting an issue.
Figure 14 Demand Tab - Advanced Options
Loading Measures To/From an Aggregate Plan
The Planning Calendar and Planning Time Level selections must be kept in mind when loading
measures from another plan using the Load Measures from Other Plans task. Measures can be loaded
from another plan if both plans use the same Planning Calendar.
• If the Planning Time Level of either the From Plan or the To Plan is Day (lowest level), then
no restrictions apply.
• If both the From Plan and the To Plan have an aggregate time level, e.g. Month, then both
plans must have the same Planning Calendar. Note that they both do not have to have the
same Planning Time Level, just the same Planning Calendar.
Forecasting Profiles Recommendations

In Demand Management, a forecasting profile is a collection of definitions used during the demand
forecast generation process. Each profile includes the definitions of the forecasting methods used
and at what level demand data is aggregated. The profile also includes the causal factors used to
explain variations in demand and the groups they are assigned for decomposition purposes. There
are two predefined forecasting profiles that are most commonly used: Forecast Bookings, Forecast
Shipments.
Figure 15 Manage Forecasting Profiles UI
It is recommended that you create your own forecasting profile and deselect the Price
Decomposition Group which can increase the time it takes to run the forecast. You can use the
Manage Forecasting Profiles task to configure your own forecasting profile. When creating your own
Forecasting Profile, there are 6 Forecast Methods selected by default. You can add to or remove
these selections. The more methods that you use may increase the time it takes to run the forecast.
You cannot access the Manage Forecasting Profiles task in the Supply Planning, Sales and
Operations Planning, or Planning Central work areas.
Figure 16 Selecting Forecasting Methods for User-Defined Forecast Profile
Decomposition Groups
A decomposition group is a container for the measures that you use as causal factors. Causal
factors enable several forecasting methods to understand the variation in historical demand and
produce an accurate and adoptive forecast. Decomposition groups allow you to organize
measures that have similar impacts and effects on a forecast. The definitions are also used when
the forecast is decomposed into causal factors when using the forecast decomposition run plan
option.
For your forecasting profile, you can add, edit, or delete decomposition groups. You can also
activate and deactivate a group using the check box against each group. Selecting a group
enables all causal factors associated with that group.
Figure 17 Selecting Decomposition Groups for User-Defined Forecast Profile
Due to potential long running times for an entire plan run with decomposition, it is recommended
to run a decomposition analysis for simulations or on analysis sets. However if running a plan with
decomposition analysis is needed, it is recommended to run the plan in batch.
You select options in the Demand Plan Run Options section of the Run Plan dialog to see the forecast
decomposed into more detailed information regarding forecasting methods and causal factors for
plans and simulations.
Figure 18 Include Decomposition Analysis in Plan Run or Simulation
Simulations can provide substantial value where a targeted part of the plan receives a forecast. A
simulation with decomposition analysis runs from a table or graph using the Simulate Demand
option under the toolbar’s Action menu on a selection of cells.
Figure 19 Running a Simulation
Select the Forecasting profile, the scope to generate a forecast for, the details to include and the
output measure. Other options can be selected as required.
Figure 20 Simulation Selections
Use Default Empty Layout

The Demand Plan Summary layout is opened by default when a plan is opened. The Demand Plan
Summary is a predefined page layout with two panes with a horizontal split that contains a set of key
performance indicators and high-level graphics you can use to review the business value of a plan.
Rendering the Demand Plan Summary layout takes a few minutes because it is aggregating over the
entire plan to calculate:
• Shipments History Comparison
• Shipments Forecast MAPE
• New Product Forecast
• Forecast Comparison
• Budget vs Plan
Figure 21 Demand Plan Summary Layout

To open plans quickly, change the default page layout to an empty layout by selecting Manage from
the Page Layout list of values.
Figure 22 Managing Page Layouts

Search for the seeded Default Layout (Empty Layout) and then select the check box in in the Default
column.
Figure 23 Setting the Default Page Layout
Plans will open quickly when using the empty layout.
Figure 24 Plan Opened with an Empty Layout
Summary
In Summary, to achieve optimal performance when working with Demand Plans, we recommend
the following:
• Using the “Aggregate Non Key-Customer Data” feature so that customer level data is only
maintained for your key customers.
• Defining Plan Scope by Organization and/or Product Group to control the number of
Item/Organization combinations within the plan.
• Using the “Store Plan Data at Aggregate Time Levels” feature to minimize plan data
volumes by maintaining plan data at an aggregate time level, such as week or month, rather
than at day level.
• Limiting the time ranges of your plans to using 18 to 36 months of history and forecasting 6
to 12 months in the future.
• Defining a separate Measure Catalog with a reduced set of measures for archiving.
• Improving the run time of the statistical forecasting engine by turning off the default option
of using price as a causal factor and by only using the forecast decomposition options when
needed.
• Using an empty default layout in order to quickly open a plan.
Manage Demand Plan – Fusion Planning Central
May 2018
Author: Mary Martin and Harish Wadhwa
Oracle Corporation
World Headquarters
500 Oracle Parkway
Redwood Shores, CA 94065
U.S.A.
Worldwide Inquiries:
Phone: +1.650.506.7000
Fax: +1.650.506.7200
oracle.com
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contents hereof are subject to change without notice.
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or fitness for a particular purpose. We specifically disclaim any
liability with respect to this document and no contractual obligations
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Configuring Demand Planning

for Scalability in Oracle

• Defining a subset of measures required for archiving.

• Using an empty default layout in order to quickly open a plan.

Plan Size Limits

Demand Plan Aggregation Recommendations

Aggregate Non Key-Customer Data

Figure 1 Illustration of Non-Key Customer Aggregation

Setup and Recommendations

Figure 2 Customer Hierarchy Example

The ScpKeyCustomerOptionsImportTemplate.xlsm is completed by specifying the hierarchy, level

Figure 4 Example of Identifying Specific Key Customers

Implementation considerations are:

• Populate and load the ScpKeyCustomerOptionsImportTemplate.xlsm with the identified

Plan Option Recommendations

Figure 6 Plan Options

Figure 8 Select Plan Item Members

Figure 9 Plan Horizon and Planning Time Level

Store Plan Data at Aggregate Time Levels

Archiving an Aggregated Plan

Figure 10 Scope Tab - Advanced Options

Figure 11 Archive Options

Demand Tab Options

Figure 12 Forecasting Time Level Option

Advanced Options – Demand History Days

Figure 13 Demand History Days Option

Advanced Options – CTO Options and Forecasting Control Parameters

Figure 14 Demand Tab - Advanced Options

Loading Measures To/From an Aggregate Plan

Forecasting Profiles Recommendations

Figure 16 Selecting Forecasting Methods for User-Defined Forecast Profile

Figure 17 Selecting Decomposition Groups for User-Defined Forecast Profile

Figure 18 Include Decomposition Analysis in Plan Run or Simulation

Figure 20 Simulation Selections

Use Default Empty Layout

Figure 21 Demand Plan Summary Layout

Figure 22 Managing Page Layouts

Plans will open quickly when using the empty layout.

Figure 24 Plan Opened with an Empty Layout

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