How to configure for the give senario where we from APO demand planning, we provide baseline forecast into TPM

Question

Hello Guru's,
Request for information on smart documentation on the integration between Trade Promotion Management and SCM-Demand Planning from an architecture perspective how to configure for the give senario where we from APO demand planning, we provide baseline forecast into TPM and from TPM promotions values can be considered in to APO demand planning: can anybody give me some insight on it.
Thanks in advance.
Kumar

Answer 1

Hi Praveen
There are several ways you can connect a DP system to a TPM. How are your interfaces and systems setup?
Option1:
Extract the baseline from APO to a BW cube, extract the data out of BW, may be using infospokes/open hub and pass it on to TPM.
2. Have a custom program written in APO-DP to extract the selected keyfigure data at the aggregation level into an interface or a .txt file into APO directory and use some data transfer service such as EDI to take this data and send to TPM.
In my experience it is simple to define an integration process. The much larger and complicated aspects are the date adjustments and the aggregation levels.
Date adjustments:
Understand the basis of the data in APO and TPM. APO is usually at the requested delivery date or material availability date ( when the customer like a store wants the product). However TPMs are usually at the consumption date ( when an end customer like you and me but from store shelf). Depending on the product and business style this can mean several days difference. Let's say it is 25 days on average, you need to add 25 days to APO base line date to get the TPM consumption date.
Aggregation level:
This can be product or customer. If the planning in DP is at product sku level and the TPM is at packs or brand level, you need to aggregate the data up before loading to TPM. The same with customer.
To me the most complex part of the integration is to understand and transform the data in a meaningful way and a strategy to sustain this integration by keeping both DP and TPM in sync in terms of master data. Also important to have a process for identifying exceptions and failures. you send baseline from DP to TPM and if it fails, how do you know? how do you trouble shoot?
Hope these help.