¶ Creating Planning Models: Defining Planning Objects and Measures in SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is a leading platform that combines business intelligence, planning, and predictive analytics in a single environment. One of its core strengths lies in its planning capabilities, which allow organizations to design flexible, collaborative, and integrated planning models. Central to this process is creating planning models by defining planning objects and measures that represent business realities and key performance indicators.
In this article, we explore how to create effective planning models in SAC by understanding planning objects and measures and how they work together to support dynamic business planning.
A planning model in SAC is a data structure specifically designed to capture, manage, and simulate financial or operational planning data. It serves as the foundation for inputting, calculating, and analyzing planning data, enabling collaborative budgeting, forecasting, and scenario analysis.
Unlike purely analytical models, planning models support write-back capabilities, allowing users to input or adjust data directly within SAC.
Planning objects represent the descriptive elements or characteristics of data that organize and categorize planning figures. They are analogous to dimensions in traditional data modeling.
Common planning objects include:
- Time: Year, quarter, month, week, day.
- Organization: Company code, business unit, cost center, department.
- Product: Product categories, SKUs, brands.
- Account: General ledger accounts, expense types, revenue lines.
- Version: Different plan versions (e.g., budget, forecast, actuals).
Planning objects provide the structure that allows users to slice, dice, and analyze data across different hierarchies and perspectives.
Measures are the numerical values or quantities that are planned, measured, or analyzed. These are typically financial amounts, quantities, or other metrics relevant to business planning.
Examples of measures:
- Revenue
- Costs (fixed, variable)
- Headcount
- Capital expenditure
- Units sold
Measures support aggregation, calculations, and input from users during planning cycles.
¶ Step 1: Define Data Source and Model Type
When creating a new planning model, you choose whether to import data or build a model from scratch. SAC supports:
- Imported Models: Data is imported into SAC for offline planning.
- Live Models: Connected live to backend systems like SAP BW or SAP S/4HANA, allowing real-time planning.
- Composite Models: Combine multiple data sources and planning models.
- Create or import relevant dimensions based on business requirements.
- Define hierarchies within dimensions to support roll-ups (e.g., Product Category > Product Subcategory > Product).
- Set attributes such as descriptions, keys, and properties.
- Enable write-back capabilities on dimensions if planning data entry is needed.
- Add key figures representing planned metrics.
- Specify measure properties including data type (currency, number), aggregation method (sum, average), and formatting.
- Define calculated measures if needed (e.g., profit = revenue - cost).
- Set input readiness—measures can be input-enabled or calculated fields.
- Define version management to differentiate between various plan scenarios.
- Set time settings and calendar configurations.
- Enable data entry permissions and data locking for governance.
- Establish data validation rules if necessary.
- Import historical or actual data to initialize the model.
- Enable planners to input or adjust data directly within SAC stories.
- Set up workflows for review and approval cycles.
¶ Best Practices for Defining Planning Objects and Measures
- Align with Business Processes: Structure dimensions and measures according to organizational reporting and planning needs.
- Keep it Manageable: Avoid excessive complexity in hierarchies and measures to enhance usability.
- Use Consistent Naming Conventions: Facilitate understanding and maintenance.
- Plan for Scalability: Anticipate future growth and changes in business structure.
- Leverage Versioning: Support multiple scenarios such as baseline, optimistic, and pessimistic plans.
- Integrated Planning and Analytics: Seamlessly combine planning data with BI insights.
- Collaborative Planning: Multiple stakeholders can contribute and review plans in real time.
- Agility: Quickly adjust plans based on changing business conditions.
- Transparency: Clear data lineage and audit trails improve governance.
Creating planning models in SAP Analytics Cloud by carefully defining planning objects and measures is fundamental to successful enterprise planning. These models provide the structure and metrics needed to capture accurate, actionable plans that align with business goals. By following best practices and leveraging SAC’s powerful modeling capabilities, organizations can transform their planning processes into a more collaborative, flexible, and data-driven function.