Channels in Enterprise Planning

Enterprise Planning supports the use of channels to serve particular customers (sold-to business partners) or to distribute specific items. For example, a channel can represent a particular geographical area, or a particular group of customers. Forecasts can be maintained and compared with actual sales in the channel master plan.

Based on the allowed demand, the channel available to promise is automatically calculated to support order promising. Forecast and allowed demand can also be automatically calculated using disaggregation from the central item master plan.

  • Without an item master plan
    If an item has no item master plan, you can maintain forecasts by channel in the Special Demand by Item (cpdsp2100m000) session. The channel division is also taken into account for forecast consumption. For more information, see To compute the projected inventory.
  • With an item master plan

    If you maintain an item master plan for an item, you can also maintain a channel master plan for each item/channel combination. Channel master plans offer the following types of functionality:

    • Channel-specific demand forecasting and forecast consumption
    • Aggregation of channel master plans to the corresponding item master plan
    • Channel ATP, used to control the maximum sales volume for each channel
  • How to set up a channel

    To set up a channel for use in Enterprise Planning, you must define the channel, and specify which customers and which items belong to this channel.

    • Define the channel in the Channels (tcmcs0166m000) session.
    • Enter this channel as the default channel for one or more customers (sold-to business partners) in the Channel field in the Sold-to Business Partners (tccom4510m000) session.
    • You can modify the customer's channel for a particular item in the Channels field of the Items - Sales Business Partner (tdisa0510m000) session. If there is a channel linked to the business partner and a channel master plan present, the channel is defaulted in the sales order line. Updating of a channel master plan is based on channel data in the sales order lines: The channel master plan is only updated if channel data is present on the sales order line.
    • Define specific item/channel combinations in the Plan Item - Channels (cpdsp5100m000) session.
  • Multicompany planning

    Channel functionality can also be used for other companies in a multicompany situation. Define the company in the Business Partners (tccom4500m000) session, designating it as an affiliated company.

Note

If you primarily use channels for channel ATP, you need not necessarily group all your customers into channels. Only those customers for which you want to limit the maximum sales volume need be in a channel.

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