Planning Areas and ATP
There are two ways available to promise can be run with respect to planning areas.
- No planning area checking
- With planning area checking
No Planning Area Checking
If product allocations are planned using flexible planning in SAP ERP and allocations are used in SCM, what is called an info structure is used for planning product allocations in SAP ERP and the product allocation group for checking allocation quantities in SCM. This data in the info structures must then be transferred periodically to the product allocation group by the CIF.
With Planning Area Checking
For sales orders coming from SAP ERP a check is carried out in SCM for the sales document items. Product allocations can be carried out in either SAP ERP sales and operations planning or in SCM DP. If they are performed in DP then a planning area is used. The characteristic combinations and product allocations are then transferred. The data is copied from the planning area to the product allocation group after the planning is complete. The check against product allocations uses the information in the product allocation group. This requires transferring the data manually to the product allocation group.
For more on ATP see this post:
http://sapplanning.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/availability-checking-vs-gatp/
For details on planning areas see this post:
