Planning Engine cycles

New configuration is added to Planning Engine Cycles (Configuration > Planning Engines > Planning Engine Cycles. This consists of a cycle name and application variables to support cycle-level overrides for Planning Engines (PE) based on that cycle.

Previously, all instances of a Planning Engine have been adhoc. Each new planning engine, or version of the plan, has been created anew, with its own defined plan horizon. PE cycles support a repeatable business process to create the “next” version of the plan based on the PE cycle, source PE definition and calendar information of the current plan. Cycle is an optional field when creating a Planning Engine, meaning adhoc plans, are supported as per previous versions.

When creating Planning Engines based on a cycle it is expected that calendar details are provided: Calendar, Level, Start Period and Horizon; defining the initial plan. The system can derive the next planning period for Planning Engines for this cycle.

A Status has been added to Planning Engines, which is populated for any Planning Engine with a Cycle defined. The initial Planning Engine based on a cycle have a Status = Master. Only one Master PE is supported for each cycle. The Master PE is used to determine the plan for deriving ‘Next Planning Period’ when automating the process. The other Planning Engines created for that PE cycle must be copied and the status is set to Running.

A new Next Planning Engine option enables you to create the next plan based on the current running or master plan. This creates the next Planning Engine for the cycle with Status = Master, a Start Period = 1 after the current plan, based on the PE calendar details. The status of the Planning Engine, used to create the next Planning Engine, is set to Published. The other Planning Engine with the same cycle that have been with the Running or Master status is changed to the Completed status.

A new NextPlanningEngine macro is added to support the automation of creating the next planning engine. This support providing just the Planning Engine cycle to derive the next period from the current Master. Additional parameters support defining a specific next Planning Engine. A new Promote to Master option promotes an alternate, running Planning Engine to be the Master plan.

Note: By default, this feature is enabled. However, access to the Promote to Master menu option is linked to the ‘Planning Engine - Promote Master’ permission. This permission is required to be added to appropriate roles.