Exception Messages in Enterprise Planning

In Enterprise Planning, one way to monitor the performance of your planning involves the use of exception messages. These are used to indicate bottlenecks and other (possible) problems occurring in a specific scenario, and allow you to analyze and solve these problems.

Here are some key characteristics of exception messages:

• Exception messages are created for a specific combination of scenario and plan level.
• Each exception message belongs to an exception message type (for an overview of the available exception message types and their meanings, see the Related topics Types of exception messages).
• The exception message is a brief description of the problem or situation involved. The exception message can contain extra information, such as a relevant date, or an error specification.
• Attached to each exception message are a number of fields containing information, such as a reference date, information on the order involved, and a quantity indication. The meaning of these fields can vary per exception message type; for more information, see the help for these fields in the Exception Messages (cprao1125m000) session and the Exception Messages by Resource (cprao1130m000) session.

You can use the Update Exception Messages (cprao1210m000) to generate or update planning exception messages based on the current planning situation. In the following situations, you can also let LN generate or update the exception messages online:

• When you initialize or update a scenario in the Initialize, Roll, and Update Scenario (cprpd4200m000) session, additional exception messages may be generated due to progression of the planning periods.
• When you generate a master plan.
• When you generate an order plan.

When a exception message is created, it is marked as directed to a specific planner. The following procedure is used to determine this planner:

• When generating orders using the Generate Order Planning (cprrp1210m000) session, you can specify in the Planning Signals to Planner field to which planner the newly generated exception messages are sent.
• If you leave the Planner field empty, or if the exception messages are generated starting from a different session, the planner defined for the plan item in question (in the Items - Planning (cprpd1100m000) session) is used.
• If the Planner field in the Items - Planning (cprpd1100m000) session is empty, the exception message is not marked for a specific planner. In sessions which give an overview or list of exception messages, you can view such non-planner-related exception messages by leaving the planner ID field empty.

The Resource Analysis and Optimization module contains several sessions to quickly analyze and resolve exception messages. Examples of what you can do with these sessions are:

• Get an overview of total exception messages by item and resource.
• Zoom to specific exception messages by item or resource.
• Zoom to the planning and simulation sessions to analyze and resolve the exception messages.