BW370 training

I’ve recently attended SAP’s BW370 training. It is Integrated Planning training. Just briefly in general by planning we understood BW application that allows users to enter data in BW system. SAP BW/BI platform provides several planning tools in that matter:

1. BW-BPS (Business Planning and Simulation, formerly know as SEM-BPS Strategic Enterprise Management) – it was a solution provided strategic planning capabilities for management.

It had 5 components:

• SEM-BPS (Business Planning and Simulation)


• SEM-SRM (Stakeholder Relationship Management)


• SEM-CPM (Corporate Performance Monitor)


• BIC (Business Information Collection)


• SEM-BCS (Business Consolidation)

From BI point of view BW-BPS was moved from SAP SEM to SAP BI within SAP NetWeaver ’04, but SAP is still offering SAP SEM as part of mySAP Financials which means part of mySAP ERP).

Difference between SEM-BPS and BW-BPS is no quite significant, they are mostly same. However some financial planning functions (like offsetting entry, accumulated balances, depreciation, net present value, internal rate of return, time lag, valuation, allocation, rounding, and account-based currency translation) remain with SEM-BPS. Only available in BW-BPS are following function: formula extensions (FoX formulas) and ABAP. Some other functionality like Status and Tracking System (STS) have been enhanced in BW-BPS only. Target for SAP is combine functions of both in BI-IP.

2. BI-IP (Integrated Planning) a solution that is completely integrated into the BI system and it is based on JAVA Stack of NetWeaver.

Both solutions (BPS & IP) can be used in parallel just SAP recommends IP for new development and BPS for enhancement of existing solution based on it.

Major differences between BPS & IP:

- For developing of data models, planning scenarios etc there is a new tool called Planning Modeler.

- Instead of Web Interface Builder in BPS “BEx Query/(Web Application) Designer (called all together as Business Explorer Suite, a tool Visual Composer is used for developing of BI cockpit, dashboards..)” is used for input-query development.

- BPS Planning objects like Planning area, Planning level, Planning package, Parameter Group in IP there are following objects: Aggregation level, Filter, Planning functions, Planning sequence.

For further details refer to online docu.

It will be interesting how all this tools plus tools coming from acquisition of OutlookSoft; SAP tackles into their solutions.