What is SAP planning and consolidation portfolio?

In this post, I’d like to briefly describe current SAP portfolio of planning/consolidation portfolio. Kindly notice that in this area there are multiple offerings involved. The portfolio is really evolving very fast!

With advert of SAP HANA there are significant changes into planning and consolidation applications. SAP is (was) offering different solutions for planning/consolidation apps.

In case of planning part it all started with BPS (Business Planning and Simulation) which is add-on to BW enabling BW to provide planning functions. Technically speaking this means that BW is capable to write data (so-called planning data) entered by user into its InfoProviders (e.g. cubes). This functionality is embraced so called planning layouts where user has the interface via which user can enter the data. Just a side note BPS was formerly called SEM-BPS. In version 7.0 of BW a BW-IP (formerly called BI-IP) arrived. IP stands for Integrated Planning and from technological point of view, it is based on JAVA stack of NetWeaver. Finally, when HANA took a stage some of BW-IP functionalities started to leverage HANA.

That would be all for planning part. In case of consolidation part situation is trickier as per historic background. In this space SAP has a pile of its own or acquired apps. It all started with R/3 module FI-LC called Legal Consolidation. Later LC module was renamed to EC-CS (not sure what does it stand for, maybe Enterprise Component – Consolidation System?). Usually we call it ECC based consolidation. From BW standpoint there was SEM component called BCS (Business Consolidation). This is what we called BW based consolidation. Due to SAP’s acquisition of BusinessObjects and of Outlooksoft there were more products coming into play. BOBJ had product called SAP BusinessObjects Cartesis Finance which became SAP Financial Consolidations Finance (SAP BFC) sometimes called SAP FC only. On Outlooksoft front SAP got two products which are part of Business Planning and Consolidation (EPM-BPC): BPC-MS - Microsoft Version and BPC-NW - NetWeaver Version. To sum up consolidation part there are 3 solutions: BFC and 2 flavors of BPC. HANA has changes consolidation solutions as well. In BW version 7.3 SP5 (which is version required for BW on HANA scenario) Planning Applications Kit (PAK) was introduced. The PAK enables an execution of BW-IP functionalities on HANA. After that the BPC was left as unsupported by HANA. This got changed within SAP BW 7.40 SP05. Here the BPC "unified" model was introduced. By unified it is meant there two models are integrated as enabled on HANA:

1. Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC)

2. Planning Application Kit (PAK)

For information on how to activate PAK see SAP Notes below.

Useful notes:

1637199 - Using the planning applications KIT

1637148 - BW on HANA: Activation of Planning Application Kit

1919631 - Activating the BPC-PAK unified model

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.