Navigational Attributes

[Former Member]

Dear all,

Will you please give inputs on exact use of Navigational Attributes in APO DP ?

The documentation says, use Navgational Attributes should be used as Display and Navigation. I have gone through consulting notes about NA.

It is very clear that, statistical forecasting should not be done on NA.

However, shall we use NA , to input data at some NA and disagreegate on lower level.

Thanks and with best regards.

Datta

Message was edited by:

Dattasaheb Kadam

[Former Member]

Thank you both.

Regards,

Datta

[Former Member]

Dear all,

I will decribe the scenario for better inputs on this.

Product characteristics is having NA "Category" .

In the first quarter, there are 3 products A,B,C with Cattegory 1.

Total budget sale plan for this category 1 is 12000 with A, B and C each to have 4000.

Now, in the second quarter, attribute of C is changed from category 1 to 2.

When I see in the second quarter, I can see now only 8000 EA( as C product attribute value is changed).

So, to keep, cateogry 1 budget plan same, I need to have total budget plan for A and B together 12000.

To achieve, this, will it be okay, to change the figure at Category 1 at NA level and save the same ? Then 12000 will get distributed between A and B .

We have seen this working, however, want to confirm as SAP Notes and documentation does not explicitly say this.

Regards,

Datta

[Former Member]

Hi Datta,

Looks like you are planning at 'Category' level since you are budgeting for Category 1.

My personal suggestion would be, if you are planning at a given level ( such as 'category' in your case) it always makes sense to use it as a Charateristic. There are some disadvantaghes as mentioned earlier for Nav Attibutes such using them in Sel ID in Forecast Assignment Table. You can use Nav Attribute for lesser significance charcteristics which are solely used by planners for information purpose.

Another thing would be, in your particular case, a sudden change in 'Category - Product' combination would be easier to handle through realignment of CVC rather than manually changing data as in your current case. Realignment in your case would easily help you to transfer all data from one 'Category-Product' combination to another. If you are using Nav Attribute, then I guess you will have to manually change the data in Interactive Planning which might be more painful.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Srinidhi

[Former Member]

Hi,

Navigational Attributes are recommended if you want to simplify your realignment process as it reduces the number of characteristics to be used. It is also convinient when you have certain characteristics that change regularly. You need not do any realignment as the changes get updated automatically in Nav Attributes.

It has certain disadvantages though. It adds up to the system load & slows performance. You may refer to that SAP note mentioned.

Another disadvantage which I would like to add is that you cannot use Navigational Attributes for creating Selection ID & assignning in the Forecast Assignment table. This assignment controls which Forecast Profile is executed for a given data selection.

PS: This selection ID is different from the one we create in Interactive Planning where we can use Nav attributes. You can carry out stat forecast at Nav Attribute level by scheduling DP back jobs and assigning these Selection IDs containing nav attributes to the back job provided you do not maintain similar entries in the Forecast Assignment table.

regards,

Srinidhi

[Former Member]

As the name indicates, Navigational Attributes are ideally used for navigating.... ie selections

This is useful when you have characteristics that are necessary for selection and display. But they are related to another characterisitc that is part of the MPOS. If we have more characterisitcs instead of NA we will end up with lots of Char combs. Hence we use NAs.

Also we use NAs where the Attributes are liable to change. You can change the Attribs and this will reflect on the Selection and does not entail any realignment (which would be the case if you had them as char)

imagine NAs are on a table that is a join to the MPOS table with one Char acting as the Key

You dont do planning on NAs. You can make your object a Characteristic if you want to do planning

There is no lower level as such in NA (or even in MPOS for that matter)

So technically you ar entering data at some Char comb level and disaggregation will be on a criteria set on the Plannig Area admin. You dont have a disaggregation in the NA. So maybe you can use the Characteristic that the NA is attached

I hope you ahd a look at note 413526 - Consultation: Navigation attributes versus basic charact.