Creating and Using Navigation to Other Systems

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to explain how to set up navigation from SAP Integrated Business Planning applications to other systems.

Manage Navigation to Other Systems App

SAP Integrated Business Planning solution supports navigation to other systems. This feature can be used to follow up on the issues that have been identified in the planning tool (for example, displayed as a result of the custom alert calculation), or to supplement the information that the user consumes, for example, in the Analytics Advanced app with additional facts from external systems or Web apps.

This functionality is very relevant for the planners who spend the most time in the system and have to be keenly aware of the planning situation and operational realities on the execution side. For executive-level employees, who are participating in an Executive S&OP review, there can be benefits from product fact sheets, and so on, that can be made available via the navigation to Web pages and be presented in the SAP IBP Analytics.

Examples of Supported Navigation.

  • To other SAP systems, where you can specify the system and client to navigate to, and the transaction to be launched

  • To Web-based applications and Web pages

  • Navigations for order-based planning

    An example of order-based navigation could be from a sales order selected in the Web-Based Planning app to the source system of the sales order

  • Generic navigations

    For example, from a custom alert that has a product as a calculation level in the Monitor Custom Alerts app to the source system of the product

Navigation can be made available from the following:

  • Analytics Advanced
  • Monitor Custom Alerts
  • Web-based Planning
  • Planning Workspace
  • Intelligent Visibility

    Note

    Navigation from the Intelligent Visibility  app is possible for order-based planning, that is, for custom alerts that identify specific sales orders that are triggering the alert along with any gating factors causing the delay in confirming or fulfilling  the orders.
  • Web-based planning

    Note

    Navigation from the Web-based planning app is possible for order-based planning.

Navigation to other systems can be configured so that it is based on the context of the selected data in the SAP IBP app. This is the functionality of dynamic navigation and it is relevant, for example, when data for a specific country is available in a particular system and data for other countries is available in another system.

The figure shows an example of a contextual navigation.

In case of navigation to a Web app, the URL of the app is expected. You can also specify the URL of a Web page to navigate to.

You have to define the attribute mapping so that an attribute in SAP IBP is mapped to a specific field in the target system or Web app. The attributes in the URL must match the target attributes you define in the attribute mapping and vice versa, the target attributes that you define in the attribute mapping must be included in the URL you specify.

Demonstration how to Set Up Navigation to a Web App

Set Up Navigation to a Web App

Steps

  1. Review Master Data settings in the planning area ZCONTROLTO for Master Data Type C55PRODUCT, and select an attribute that will be passed to the other system.

    1. Log in via Web UI using the credentials for your user.

    2. In the Model Configuration group, choose the Planning Areas Model Configuration tile.

    3. Open the planning area by clicking on the planning area name ZCONTROLTO.

    4. In the Attributes tab, search for Master Data Type C55PRODUCT.

    5. Observe the attributes assigned, specifically the PRDID and PRDDESCR attribute and check that the Business Meaning field is populated for PRDDESCR.

      Note

      Business Meaning provides a semantic connection between the attribute ID and the code.

  2. Using the Manage Master Data app, review Master Data values in the planning area ZCONTROLTO for Master Data Type C55PRODUCT. Identify that there is a Product ID that is not conform with the other product ranges.

    1. In the Web UI, go to the General Planner section and open the Manage Master Data app.

    2. In the Manage Master Data app, search for the master data type C55PRODUCT. By selecting the respective line, you open the master data type and the details appear on the right side of your screen.

    3. Observe that we have a product with a numerical ID that looks different than the rest.

  3. Create a setting for navigation for Web Pages T##WEB Mapping to be used in Analytics and Custom Alerts, using the Manage Navigation to other Systems app.

    1. Navigate to the Manage Navigation to other Systems app.

    2. Select Create → Navigation to Web App → Generic.

    3. Type in the name and description T##WEB Mapping.

    4. Select Planning Area → ZCONTROLTO.

    5. Make sure that status is set to Active.

    6. Select Available in→ Analytics Chart, Custom Alerts.

      Note

      We will not be doing dynamic navigation in this exercise, as all the master data for training purposes is maintained in SAP IBP.

  4. Populate the Navigation Details and the Attribute Mapping. Use information in the following table.

    Note

    The test products that we are dealing with in the SAP IBP 500 course are Pumps. We had introduced a Power product that has an ID that is matching the internal ID on the online portal of the major retail chain that sells these types of products.
    FieldValue
    URLhttps://www.lidl.com/products/{200778001}
    Source AttributePRDID
    Target Attribute200778001

    1. In the Navigation Details, populate the following URL: https://www.lidl.com/products/{200778001}.

    2. Select Add in the attribute mapping.

    3. Populate PRDID in the Source Attribute and 200778001 in the Target Attribute fields.

    4. Select Create.

  5. Create a copy of the chart T##IBPCONSENSUS and use it to check the navigation that you have created. To do so, make sure that you have added a filter on Product 200778001 and the Group By selection contains Product ID.

    Note

    Navigation works when the Source Attribute used in the navigation is used for a Group By.

    1. In the Analytics Advanced app, locate the chart that you have previously created → T##IBPCONSENSUS and open it.

    2. Select Copy and name the new chart T##IBPCONSENSUS02.

    3. While in Edit mode, change the filtering so that your chart is filtered by product ID 200778001.

    4. In the Group By field, add the grouping by Product ID.

    5. Select Save.

    6. When the chart is saved and you are not in the Edit mode, test the navigation by selecting a point on the chart and then choosing Navigate To → T##WEB Mapping at the bottom right of the screen.

Learning

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