Collaborative Planning (IBP + SAC) – Technical focus Part 2 (SAC to IBP)

Hello community members!

It’s been quite some time since the last blog post! During this time, I received quite a few questions from you, and most of them were about the capability to write back from SAC into IBP:

• Can SAC write data into IBP?
• What is required to write data from SAC into IBP?

Here is the summary of how the integration works and some recommended Dos and Don’ts.

Integrate data from SAC into IBP

For simplicity, I will refer to the bi-directional integration with READ and WRITE as following:

• IBP integration into SAC: READ
• SAC integration into IBP: WRITE

Step 1: Enable the connection between IBP and SAC

The setup required to enable the oData WRITE service is exactly the same as for the READ. This means that if you have already enabled the connection for the READ scenario, you can use it also for the WRITE. If not, here is a summary of what you will have to cover:

IBP prerequisites 

• • List the required planning area for integration in Global Configuration
  • Create a Communication System type SAP_COM_0143
  • Create a Communication User
  • Create a Communication Arrangement

For more details, check here.

SAC prerequisites

• • Create a connection to IBP using the OData Service URL generated by the IBP communication arrangement and using the credentials of the defined communication user

For more details, check part 1 of this blog.

Dos

• Even if it might be confusing because of the name, the same EXTRACT endpoint service from the IBP communication arrangement is also used for the WRITE.

Don’ts

• In the communication system definition, you don’t have to fill the User for Outbound Communication. The User for Inbound Communication is used for both READ and WRITE.

Step 2: Select the parameters for the WRITE call

From the SAC Model, Data Management tab, you can also run an export job “Export Data to SAP Integrated Business Planning”.

Select the IBP connection you would like to use and proceed to the next step.

Select the key figure and all the attribute dimensions that correspond to the planning level root attributes where the key figure is defined.

Dos

• If the key figure is enabled for conversion, e.g. UoM or Currency conversion, make sure to select the Target UoM or the Target Currency attribute.

Don’ts

• Don’t select the time dimensions as a TIMESTAMP, e.g. Month(As Timestamp). As of now, writing the date as a TIMESTAMP is not supported and selecting it will generate a SAC generic error An error occurred when exporting data: The type’ class java.lang. String’ of the value object is not supported.
• Don’t map attributes that are used in Attribute Transformation Type Key figures. The WRITE request is not supporting Attribute Transformation Type Key figures. The error I got for this: Internal Error: cannot read corresponding IBP data from planning area. 
• Don’t select more than one key figure. As of now, only one key figure at a time can be written.

Step 3:Map the parameters between SAC and IBP

Map the IBP fields to SAC and filter the source data.

Dos

• If the IBP attribute names aren’t the same as the column names in your SAP Analytics Cloud model, you can create an extra property column, with names that match the names in IBP. Then when you export the data, you can map the new property column to the IBP attributes. In my example, I created an additional column named PRDID as the IBP attribute and filled it with the product IDs.

• For any target IBP field, if you have no source dimension to map data to and choose the option Not Mapped, you need to specify a default value for the target field. In this example, I mapped Target Currency with USD as default value.
• IBP currently doesn’t support version mapping during the data acquisition. If you maintain multiple versions in SAC, make sure you set a filter for a specific version. Otherwise, transaction data from different versions will be aggregated.

Don’ts

• Don’t click Finish unless you are sure you provided all the inputs. Unfortunately, you will not be able to re-edit this query.

Once you are done, click Finish and, if all is ok, you will get a confirmation.

Further limitations that exist at the moment:

• WRITE is possible only for Key Figures, master data write is not supported –  roadmap item, currently planned for 2105
• WRITE is not available at version/scenario level – roadmap item, currently planned for 2102
• WRITE new planning combination from SAC into IBP is not supported

I hope it helps you to move forward with IBP+SAC implementations.

Alecsandra

p.s: please note that with future releases, the limitations described in this blog might become obsolete.