SAP Business Planning and Consolidation-Introduction

 

SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, version for SAP Net Weaver is a robust
planning and consolidation application that can meet all of your budgeting, planning,
consolidation, and reporting requirements. It supports the full array of top-down and
bottom-up financial and operational planning needs as well as consolidation processes
necessary to ensure the smoothest, most timely financial close possible — all through a
single application. As a result,you gain the confidence to meet increasingly stringent
regulations and reporting requirements across the globe.

BPC Overview
BPC Administration

The Administration module allows administrators to perform setup and maintenance tasks
for Business Planning and Consolidation applications.
Activities
You can access the Administration module by going to http://<server>/osoft and choosing

BPC Administration

. Select one of the application sets for which you have administrative
rights.You can use the Connection Wizard to refresh the list of application sets, if
necessary.
Note :
If you get a prompt to update files, select
Yes
.
BPC for Office:

The BPC for Office client includes interfaces for Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
These interfaces leverage your familiarity with the Microsoft Office applications of Excel,
Word, and PowerPoint, enabling you to collect, analyze, and store financial data and
efficiently distribute enterprise performance management reports.
The interface for BPC for Excel is  the primary interface you use, complemented by
features of the interfaces for BPC for Word and BPC for PowerPoint.

Features

With BPC for Excel, BPC for Word, and BPC for PowerPoint, you can perform the
following tasks:
•   Utilize the powerful and flexible formulas and functions within reports and input
schedules to retrieve, display, and submit data for a real-time view of the
financial position of your organization.
•  Use predefined report and input schedule templates that you can also customize
to meet your specific business requirements.
•  Instantly change the information you see in a report or the entities, accounts,
time period, and so on of input data simply by changing your current view.
•  Display accurate, live data from the database within Microsoft Excel worksheets,
Microsoft Word documents, and Microsoft PowerPoint slides.
•  Analyze data in reports, perform data entry in input schedules, and distribute
information based on user access rights when you are completely offline from the
system.
•  Submit budgets with a wide range of supporting attachments in the form of
spreadsheets, documents, and presentations

What is SAP BPC

 

What is SAP BPC

SAP Business Objects Planning and Consolidation (formerly OutlookSoft) is a corporate performance management tool that can cater for all types of planning and forecasting, from simple small processes to complex multi layer processes, while also providing consolidation and easy to use reporting.

SAP BPC offers a robust, multiuser platform, which is fully integrated with Microsoft Excel.  Initially leveraging off the power of Microsoft SQL Server and Analysis Services there is now another version that uses SAP Netweaver as its back-end database. Although similar, especially to the end user, these two versions of the product do offer different functionalities (see whitepaper)

The main features of SAP BPC are:

Multi-Dimensional

The multi-dimensional nature allows users to “slice and dice” the data according their needs.

Dynamic

As SAP BPC utilises OLAP technology, this means that data is available as soon as it has been entered – no need to aggregate data!

Workflow Management

Enables an organisation to keep track of its progress through a budget/forecasting process

BPC 7.5 CLIENT INSTALLATION SCREEN SHOTS

 

BPC 7.5 CLIENT INSTALLATION SCREEN SHOTS

Download links for Prerequisite softwares:

Dotnetfx:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=262d25e3-f589-4842-8157-034d1e7cf3a3&displaylang=en

msxml:

http://www.microsoft.com/downLoads/details.aspx?familyid=3144B72B-B4F2-46DA-B4B6-C5D7485F2B42&displaylang=en

msxml3:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=28494391-052B-42FF-9674-F752BDCA9582&displaylang=en

vbrun60sp5:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=bf9a24f9-b5c5-48f4-8edd-cdf2d29a79d5&displaylang=en

vcredist_x86:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b2da534-3e03-4391-8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&displaylang=en

.Net framework 1.1

MSXML 4.0

Select “Install Now”.

MSXML 3.0

Select “Install”.

VB 6.0 Service Pack 5

VC++ 2005

Prerequisites installation is finished. Then install client software.

SAP BusinessObjects Operational Performance Management Elite Enablement - Spend 3.0, Supply Chain 2.0, Data Enrichment 1.0 - Sep 26-30, 2011, Palo Alto

BE THE FIRST TO HAVE LIVE SPEND 3.0, SCPM 2.0 and DEC 1.0 EXPERIENCE at the SAP BusinessObjects Operational Performance Management Elite Enablement.

After successful Elite enablement sessions for BPC in US, Shanghai and (soon to come) in EMEA and a great PCM 10.0 Elite enablement session in Palo Alto, we felt that is was time to extend the offering to the Operational Performance Management (OPM) suite that is part of EPM 10.0:

• SAP BusinessObjects Spend Performance Management / Spend Analytics 3.0 (SPM)
• SAP BusinessObjects Data Enrichment and Classification 1.0 OnDemand (DEC)
• SAP BusinessObjects Supply Chain Performance Management 2.0 (SCPM)

This action-packed week conducted by OPM product and solution management and Customer Solution Adoption (CSA – former RIG), will provide customers and partners invaluable "hands-on" exercises and information to ensure you hit the ground running with the latest OPM suite. In addition to mingling with the solution experts you will also have the opportunity to meet our OPM executive leadership team.

This Elite enablement workshop will cover a large variety of topics including:

• Day 1 – Hands-on walk thru of new features in SAP BusinessObjects Spend Performance Management 3.0 (SPM), SAP BusinessObjects Supply Chain Performance Management 2.0 (SCPM) & SAP BusinessObjects Data Enrichment and Classification OnDemand (DEC) including What-If-Analysis, Advanced Analytics and Risk Management Integration
• Day 2 – Product deep dives covering User Interface configuration, data sourcing and integration from SAP ERP, integrating Spend and Data Enrichment & Classification
• Day 3 – Product deep dives (continued): Extensibility of SPM data model, integration of External Factors, Risk management integration and related applications configuration, Integration of SPM & BPC
• Day 4 – performance tuning SAP NetWeaver BW 7.3, SCPM, SPM, DEC, Backend Modification to extend out-of-the-box functionalities (JAVA and ABAP Extensions), standard transports, install, security
• Day 5 – SAP In-Memory (HANA), best practices project setup, documentation, issue handling, project scoping

Also hear from the experts on the roadmap and future of OPM and OPM with HANA – SAP's in-memory technology.

We will distribute iPads to the participants to support the exercises.

Space is limited so register today! We will be limiting space per company in order to ensure we can meet the demand from all partner companies, so we encourage you to respond quickly to ensure your registration.

What other Elite enablement is coming up?

A BPC 10.0 MEGA Elite training completely on BPC 10.0 NW is planned for Nov 14-18, 2011 in Philadelphia. For the first time this will be open for over 100 customers and partners to go hands-on and dive deep into BPC 10.0 NW. Register here. Contact liz.fitzgibbons@sap.com for details and follow us on Twitter at #BPCElite or directly @SAPEPMRIG and @jenskoerner

Also SAPinsider is hosting a 3 day BPC bootcamp seminar in Chicago, Orlando, Amsterdam, Las Vegas and Philadelphia for customers and partners. For details check out www.bpcbootcamp.com and http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/24378

How to manage scope changes with SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation 10.0, Version for SAP Netweaver Starter Kit for IFRS? Part 2

his series of seven blogs is dedicated to handling scope changes using “SAP® BusinessObjects^TM Planning and Consolidation 10.0, Version for SAP Netweaver Starter Kit for IFRS". The objective is to illustrate in the BPC Starter kit for IFRS some of the most frequent scope changes.

Blog #1: Acquisition of a subsidiary (full goodwill method)

Blog #2: Loss of control without any retained interest - this blog

Blog #3: Acquisition of further equity interests from Non Controlling Interests

Blog #4: Partial disposal of an investment in a subsidiary while control is retained

Blog #5: Step acquisition

Blog #6: Loss of control while retaining an interest

Blog #7: Internal merger between two subsidiaries

Each blog introduces a practical guide that deals with the following questions:

-          What are the regulation requirements that applies to the business case

-          How to handle the business case in the starter kit for IFRS

-          What are the impacts on the financial statements

The business cases presented in these blogs are included in the set of data provided with BPC NW 10.0 Starter kit for IFRS. You can consult them in the database. Please, refer to the operating guide delivered along with the starter kit for further detail on the consolidation process.

These blogs have been written by members of the SAP EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) Starter Kits & Innovations team that develops starter kits on top of SAP financial consolidation products, Financial Consolidation (FC) and Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC). The starter kits are preconfigured contents created to deliver business logic, to speed-up the application deployment and to provide guidance to help maximize advantages of the product. The contents provided in the starter kits consist of reports, controls and rules for performing, validating and publishing a legal consolidation in accordance with IFRS. SAP starter kits for IFRS are provided to BPC/FC customers at no additional charge; they can be downloaded from SAP service market place at http://help.sap.com/.

Now to the second blog!

Presentation of the business case

Year 2013

The 1^st of January, parent company P2 (USD) acquires 100% interest of subsidiary PS2 (EUR) for USD 95 000 in cash. PS2 net value of the identifiable assets and liabilities is EUR 87 500

Goodwill calculation = EUR 7 500 (x rate: 1 USD = 1 EUR)

PS2 profit for the year = EUR 10 000 (average rate for 2013: 1 USD =0,80 EUR)

On December 31^st, the exchange rate is 1 USD =0,85 EUR

Year 2014

PS2 goodwill impairment = EUR 4 000

PS2 profit for the year = EUR 15 000

The 1^st of December P2 sells its 100% controlling interests in PS2 for

USD 100 000. The average rate from January 1^st to December 1^st is

1 USD = 0,75 EUR. The spot rate on December 1st is 1 USD = 0,80 EUR

Note: For a matter of simplification, the case study is displayed on two years even if it is not fully relevant from an IFRS perspective (e.g. IFRS5)

PS2 net assets at the disposal date is EUR 112 500 (87 500 + 10 000 + 15 000).

PS2 individual accounts converted in USD and including goodwill are as follows:

Calculation of net gain/loss on the disposal

Practical guide

Please click here to access the practical guide

The Next Blog

In the next blog of this series, we will look at the Acquisition of further equity interests from Non Controlling Interests (Equity transaction)

Acknowledgements to Laetitia Lamoureux, Caroline Verrier and Jean-François Bouillon from the EPM SK&I team for their high contribution to the "Consolidation Practical guide".

Your comments about the contents are very welcome. Let us know what you wish to write about.
http://forums.sdn.sap.com/forum.jspa?forumID=400

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/sapifrs

Twitter http://twitter.com/SAP_IFRS_XBRL

Comparision list of BPC Script Logic command between NW version and MS version

I guess many consultants already know the difference between BPC NW version and MS version.

Even though you know the difference, I think this chart will help us as a reference.

If you find anything wrong in the list, please leave a comment so that I can update it continuously.

Thank you.

*Index of Color

     YELLOW : Supported by both version.

     GREEN : Supported by NW version only

     WHITE : Supported by MS version only

     ORANGE : It was supported by MS version before 7.0 but not suppported any more.

Here is a link of Google docs. If you want to add more, please use it and edit, I will convert it as image and will publish it later

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlNX_-VUdSnudFhZSlpibzJ1NmpTX0N1Ty1WcUZUbFE&hl=en_US&authkey=CM3FoJkB

A Taste of What’s Coming in BPC 10.0

Today, the 2011 ASUG Annual Conference (and SapphireNOW) began with a series of pre-conference education sessions.  I was fortunate enough to attend the Enterprise Performance Management Version 10.0 Roadmap session led by a number of product experts within SAP’s EPM leadership team.  The goal of the session was to provide an overview of the changes that were coming in the to-be-launched-this-week EPM 10.0 as well as the vision for the suite of products beyond this pending release.

I was most interested in the SAP BusinessObjects Business Planning and Consolidation (“BPC”) portions of the session, since that’s the tool that I work with the most within the EPM product category.  In today’s session, I learned that SAP will be delivering a number of enhancements in the 10.0 release and I’ll do my best to try to outline the bigger changes below and my thoughts on those changes.

BPC Netweaver

New look and feel – One of the themes that SAP has been touting in the EPM 10.0 release is ‘Unified’, and this refers to making each of the EPM products have a similar user-friendly interface so that the user doesn’t know whether they’re in a BPC report or a Strategy Management scorecard (for example).  This new user interface seems very visually appealing based on the screenshots and demos provided.

Integrated security with Netweaver back-end – One of the complaints about BPC security in previous 7.x releases was that the security was not integrated with the underlying BW system.  SAP appears to have addressed this issue and provides a new administration area that will give system administrators a user friendly tool that acts as a front-end to PFCG or SU01 transaction code.

Enhanced hierarchy maintenance – While maintaining hierarchies were do-able by maintaining the ParentHx property in the dimension sheet, new functionality was developed that will allow for drag and drop hierarchy builds within BPC.

Enhanced script logic editor – Let’s face it, writing script logic can be less than straight-forward (and that’s putting it nicely), but with the new functionality planned for this enhancement, it will become a little easier.  With keywords and MDX statements now at a script-writer’s finger tips, searching online for the exact nomenclature will hopefully be less frequent.

No more .Net tier – As a business guy, I’m not sure that I understand exactly what this involves, but a more simplified and streamlined backend likely makes things easier.

Enhanced core consolidation functionality – New features such as Consolidation Central will give administrators a single place for configuration.  Better data validations (with thresholds that will allow consolidation process to continue or if breached, to stop) and a Consolidation Monitor (ala SEM-BCS) are added features in the upcoming release.

Ownership Manager – the Dynamic Hierarchy Editor is now called the Ownership Manager.  This web-based tool allows for auto calculation of ownership percentages based upon a user input of the Parent/Child relationships.  Based on the description, this reminds me a little of the SEM-BCS Group Shares report.

Web-based Journals – Journals will now be entered via a new web-based front-end, with what seemed to be a user-defined layout.  Enhanced journal reporting using a query manager will also allow users to better investigate the entries that are being posted in the system.

Future HANA Enablement – Beginning later in 2011, BPC will be enabled to run on HANA, first with replication of data using the Sybase Replication Server.  Then, in mid-2012, look for BPC to run fully on the HANA technology.

BPC Microsoft

Further demonstrating what SAP has said it would do, some of the Netweaver enhancements mentioned above will be available in the Microsoft platform, but not all.  Specific notable enhancements called out for the Microsoft platform were performance enhancements brought on by fully leveraging the 64-bit architecture and a new Advanced Variance Analysis tool that will help drive variance reporting.  The AVA will only be available in the Microsoft version of BPC, at least for the initial roll-out of 10.0

Conclusion

It was a really good Roadmap session with a lot of excellent and knowledgeable speakers.  I hate to short-change the speakers for the non-BPC EPM tools, but that’s what my personal focus is on these days.

I look forward to an exciting week at ASUG Annual Conference and SapphireNOW as there will be plenty of EPM sessions (more than any one person can actually attend by him/herself).

Don’t miss the official launch of EPM 10.0 on Tuesday, May 17 at 11:00am ET.

I’m quite certain that I missed out on some other enhancements that are coming in 10.0, especially on the Microsoft side, so please don’t think that’s all that’s coming.

SAP BPC Tutorials | SAP BPC Training | SAP BPC Interview Questions |SAP BPC Books

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How to Setup Business Process Flow E-mail Notifications in SAP BPC 7.5 NW

Business Process Flows (BPFs) are an exciting new feature available in SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation 7.5, version for SAP NetWeaver (BPC 7.5 NW).  BPFs are made up of task steps and sub-steps which guide planning and consolidation users through a sequentially defined business process.  In the BPC 7.5 NW system, four main BPF functions are provided:

1. My Activities
2. Monitor
3. Reports
4. E-mail notifications

The first three topics are documented well in the SAP Help documentation and demonstrated in an SDN How-to article called How to Configure and Execute Business Process Flows in SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation 7.5, version for SAP NetWeaver.  However the BPF e-mail notification function described in the BPC 7.5 NW Operations Guide does not explain all the necessary steps to enable e-mails from BPF's.  So I will explain how to set up e-mail notifications here in this weblog.

A) From the SAP BPC Server Manager application on the .net server

1) Maintain the Web Server Name and Port. This will be used by the backend Business Warehouse (BW) system to send a URL link in the e-mail notifications triggered by the BPF task.

Note: When the BPF is activated, the web server name and port will be transferred automatically to the BW system into field SERVER_NAME of table UJA_SERVER_INFO.  As of BPC 7.5 NW SP02, this field length is only 20 characters.  So if your server's fully-qualified domain name is too long, then you may be able to use a short name.  Or you could also simply input an IP address and port.  In BPC 7.5 NW support package 03 the field length was increased to 60 characters in the BW system.

B) From the SAP BPC Web Administration landing page

When you launch the AppSet Parameters maintenance screen, there are several items which are used to setup e-mail notifications for Work Status, such as APPROVALSTATUSMAIL and APPROVALSTATUSMSG, as well as the ABAP SMTP service.  These parameters are NOT used by the Business Process Flow e-mail notification framework.

There are also several parameter items that start with "SMTP...".  These also are NOT used by the BPF programs.

In fact the SAP Help documentation currently states that these AppSet parameters which start with SMTP... are only used in BPC for the Microsoft platform.  However that conclusion is not believed to be accurate.  Recent findings shared by a colleague indicate that these SMTP related parameters are also used by BPC 7.5 NW for the Distributor and Collector function to e-mail reports or input schedules.

C) From the SAP Business Warehouse system

1) Maintain the SMTP connection settings from the SAPconnect Administration screen. From transaction SCOT double-click on the SMTP node. In the pop-up dialogue screen input the Mail Host, Mail Port, and Code Page which is appropriate for your network.

Note: It is possible to test the SMTP settings using telnet following the procedure outlined in SAP Note 607108 Problem Analysis when sending or receiving e-mail.

2) If the BPC to BW communication user BPC_SYSADMIN is setup in Active Directory (which is not required for installation of BPC) then it can be used as the sender of the BPF e-mail notifications. To do so requires that you define a default domain from transaction SCOT. Follow the menu path Settings --> Default Domain and enter the appropriate domain. For example if BPC_SYSADMIN was a valid e-mail account at SAP (which it is not) based on a default domain such as exchange.sap.com, then all BPF e-mail notifications would be sent by user BPC_SYSADMIN@exchange.sap.corp.

3) If user BPC_SYSADMIN is not an Active Directory user, then it is necessary to assign an e-mail address to BPC system administration user directly in the BW user profile. From transaction SU01 for user BPC_SYSADMIN enter a valid e-mail address to be used as the sender of the BPF e-mail notifications.

Note: You can have some fun here with a buddy while testing the BPF e-mail setup because you can use any valid e-mail address within your organization (e.g. your boss or even the CEO).  This setting together with the designated BPF step owners and reviewers can result in some curious e-mails making their way into your friend's inbox having been triggered by BPC :).

Of course, I don't endorse such pranks.  So I suggest you be cautious in your actions.

4) Customizing the E-mail Templates

The BPC 7.5 NW system comes installed with 16 different pre-defined BPF e-mail templates which correspond to the many possible events (activation, task completion, review, etc) that occur throughout the lifecycle of a BPF from setup to execution to archival. Each template has one system default version and allows one customized version. This means all BPF e-mails can be customized. But keep in mind that the templates are used system-wide and are not Application or even Application Set specific.

To customize the e-mail templates follow the steps below.

4.1) From transaction SE38 execute program UJB_MAINTAIN_EMAIL_TMPL
4.2) Leave the selection parameters blank and click execute (F8)
4.3) Note that you cannot modify the type "S" or system-generated templates.
4.4) Select from the list the appropriate template ID and click on the create icon. This will create a template of type "C" for customizing.  (It is a good idea to have a second session of SAP BW open concurrently to display how the standard templates are maintained.  In which case you can use CNTL-C to copy and CNTL-V to paste between sessions from the system template and the customized one.)
4.5) In customized e-mail templates, multi-language texts can be used in the e-mail body.
4.6) E-mail templates can be enabled or disabled through a status indicator.
4.7) Save your custom template.

D) From BPC Administration

Before you can create a BPF template which should trigger e-mail notifications you have to decide which dimension will be used to store the owners and (optionally) the reviewers of the BPF steps.  The entity dimension is typically used for this purpose.

As opposed to Work Status which expects the Owner property be named Owner, the owner property for Business Process Flows can be any name you wish.  The same is true for the reviewer property, it can be any name.  Simply add these properties to the appropriate dimension.  Then maintain the dimension members to assign the owners and reviewers either with a valid BPC username(s) or team(s).  You can enter multiple names and teams separated by commas.  Usernames must also include the domain or server name in the path.  Team names should be input within square brackets.    Afterward save and process the dimension.

With the properties setup you can now create the BPF template and instance.  I won't go into the details here, refer to the SAP Help and the How-to guide I mentioned above.

Conclusion

If you setup the e-mail notifications as I described and you successfully define your Business Process Flows, the BPF owners and reviewers will begin to receive e-mail notifications from Planning and Consolidation 7.5 NW