The previous blogs in our series have already helped our virtual Supply chain company acquire the knowledge to set in place a planning model with currency conversion and even maintain a version for accounts in SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC). Now that the framework is in place, let us consider that the management wants to enter tentative budget values for the year 2020 and wants to perform an ad–hoc addition of a temporary seasonal product into its inventory. The company is flummoxed by how SAP Analytics Cloud will fill out values at lower levels of granularity, about how to successfully accomplish top-down planning for its specific scenario.  Fret not! By the end of this literature, you will be able to comfortably play around with the facts (manual and mass data entry) and dimensions (Members on the fly) in the planning enabled SAC model.

Write-back of Data to Source System

First, we look at the level to which writeback is possible in SAP Analytics cloud.

*SAP Analytics Cloud allows data write-back up to SAC model level for all the acquired data sources. Writeback to the source is only supported as of now using Export Jobs to the following sources –

• SAP BPC
• OData services
• S4HANA
• Integrated Business planning

Apart from the above four, you can also export the data to CSV and then import it into your Source System.

Data Entry

Secondly, we consume the planning enabled model on a canvas page in SAC story and perform the actual entry of data. The default behaviour is to perform all calculations like rank etc., as and when the data is updated. This is known as ‘Single Data Entry’ mode. There is an option to switch to ‘Mass Data Entry’ mode where a bulk of update transactions can be performed prior to recalculations.

In both modes, SAC offers simple excel-like interaction where operations like copy-paste between cells and value changes are possible. In addition, there is an option to specify a percentage increase from a value in a particular cell by entering +x% or -x%, x being the amount of percentage increase. The change can also be specified by entering basic arithmetic operations like +x, -x, *x, /x to a data cell where x can be any number.

Auto Allocation – Top-Down Planning

Once the user enters the budget values for 2019 at the year level for an unbooked cell, the data gets split between the quarters equally (based on number of members under each quarter). If there is an existing budget for 2019 and the values are modified, the ratio of values between the different quarters is maintained while the new value is split between quarters. This is applicable not only to a time hierarchy but for any dimensions in lower granularity. This is the default spreading feature in SAC and there are further techniques to customize the spreading which will be covered as part of blogs that entail in this series.

Since top-down planning is the option available by default, if a bottom-up planning approach is to be enforced, the lowest level dimension can be added to the ‘Required dimensions’ property of the account for which data entry is to be done.

As you can see in the above gifs, the whole of the hierarchy gets updated every time a value is entered\updated. SAP Analytics Cloud offers another mode of operation if the user wants to perform bulk data updates prior to updating calculations – ‘Mass Data Entry’ mode. The following table details the differences between these two modes –

Differences in the data entry modes

Members on the fly

Suppose there is a new product that is to be procured and it is to be added immediately instead of waiting for the data member to be added to the source system or if there are new stores in the given city, and you want to have some budget assigned to the stores. This could be achieved using the Members-on-the-fly feature as simple as a right-click. The property attributes and description for these members can be defined in addition to currency and person responsible property. This gets updated in the master data of the dimension in the model level. Note that the members can be created for parent-child hierarchies and not for level-based hierarchy. Unbooked cells can be found against this newly created members and budget values can be entered as required

Once the members are created, they are automatically published, and you will not be able to delete the member later. So, you need to be careful before creating new members.

Publishing Data

If you are entering data for a private version, data is automatically saved. Whereas if you are entering data for a public version, then you need to publish the changes so that data is actually written back to the data model. You can find the publish button under Data in the Top menu which is enabled whenever you have unpublished changes in your public version.

When you want to publish a private version, then you need to go to Version Management. You can select Publish which overwrites an existing public version or select Publish As which creates a new public version.

Want to make the most of SAP Analytics Cloud? Click here to evaluate if SAP Analytics Cloud is right for you. To know about the Analytic Applications of SAP Analytics Cloud, please check out our blog series here.