SCM Planning Solutions IBP APO Ariba: Note 830673 - AMON: Some consulting issues when handling alert monitor

Note 830673 - AMON: Some consulting issues when handling alert monitor

Summary

Symptom

It is sometimes difficult to handle alert monitor either as standalone or in the applications.

Other terms

/sapapo/amon1

Reason and Prerequisites

Consulting issue

Solution

This note is the extension of the note 495166. While note 495166 deals mainly with the releases APO 3.0 and APO 3.1, this note will consider the releases SCM 4.0 and higher. An overview of common problems met while dealing with alert monitor will be discussed in details.

Alert Monitor Settings/Profiles

In order to maintain the alert monitor profiles/settings, you have to start either the transaction /SAPAPO/AMON_SETTING.

Releases APO 3.x

General information about maintaining the alert settings and alert profiles are detailed in the note 495166.

Releases SCM 4.x

As of release SCM 4.0, the alert monitor has changed its face. Starting the transaction /SAPAPO/AMON_SETTING, the user will land in a screen with both the setting part and the profile maintenance part. The field 'Settings' used in APO 3.x was replaced by 'Overall Prof'. The overall profile includes all selection criteria for alerts.

Alert Overall profile:

specify the name in the 'Overall prof' field (short text and long text),

specify the time intervall (relative or absolute),

select the required planning version (you can use the F4-help functionality)

Alert profile:

Maintenance:

choose first the application for which you need to generate the alerts by clicking on the corresponding tab,

define the name of the alert profile (short text and long text)

select the required alert types and if necessary the threshold values,

define the planning objects to filter the alerts: For details, please refer to note 495166

MSP: define the resources, locations, resource utilisation, and maintenance objects.

VMI: define the products, and locations.

others: see note 495166

Restrictions

In order to see SDP DB alerts or SDP dynamic alerts for the given planning book without specifying the data view, it is required to create an empty entry in the "Database alerts" or "Dynamic alerts" areas when you maintain your SDP alert profile. Otherwise, no alert will be displayed.

After you have maintained your alert profile (any), you should display alerts by clicking on the button 'Redetermine Alerts'. If you make any change in the alert profile (e.g. define new objects) and redetermine alert directly, no alerts will be shown for the new changes. In order to see alerts for these changes, you have first to save the alert profile or save again the overall profile.

If the 'SAP R/3' tab is not displayed from the transaction /SAPAPO/AMON_SETTING (in this case you cannot maintain the R/3 alert profile), please connect your APO system to appropriate R/3 system release 4.6C or higher. The note 813923 provides more details on this issue.

While maintaining the selection of objects (locations, products, resources, location products, ...), you are requested to define the 'Selection option'. If some objects have to be excluded from the selection, please never select 'Not Equal to' in the tab 'Select', but 'Equal' in the tab 'Exclude from Selection' to meet your expectations.

Alert types:

The existing alert types are well described in the note 500051.

Favorite management: You can maintain (if you have valid authorisation) some overall profiles as your favorites. They will be available for selection when your directly access the alert monitor (transaction /SAPAPO/AMON1).

N.B. : If there exist many overall profiles in the system, it may happen that the user cannot maintain a profile as favorite due to the fact that he cannot access it since the scrolldown function doesn't work. In this case, it is recommended to apply the instructions contained in the note 809608.

Assignment of substitutes: You can also assign favorites to other users for substitution. Click on the button 'Assign Substitute (Shift+F7)' -> click 'Append row' -> fill required entries.

Adoption of substitution: If some one has assigned you some of his overall profiles as substitution, you have to adopt them in order to see them in the list of substitutions when you access the alert monitor (transaction /SAPAPO/AMON1). Click on the button 'Adopt Substitute' -> Drag and drop the data from 'Assigned overall profiles' to 'Adopted substitutions'.

Deletion of overall or alert profiles: you can delete your profiles using the appropriate offered button for deletion.

N.B.: Transporting alert setting or overall profile or alert profile from one system to another is not supported.

Generation of alerts

Releases APO 3.0, 3.1 and SCM 4.0

All dynamic alerts are generated interactively. Database (DB) alerts can be generated interactively as well as in background.

Dynamic alerts are generated while running the alert monitor. Note that in order to generate the SDP dynamic alerts, the corresponding macros have to be defined as 'default macros' in the MacroBuilder (please check note 495166 for details).

DB alerts are generated either in the application (ATP, Vehicle Scheduling, PP/DS) or by executing the macro either interactively or via background job. Please take care of the note 521639.

Releases SCM 4.1 or higher

All alerts (dynamic & DB alerts) can be generated in background.

DB alerts are of course generated (as in SCM 4.0) either in the application (ATP, Vehicle Scheduling, PP/DS) or by executing the macro either interactively or via background job. Please take care of the note 521639. Dynamic alerts are generated directly when being determined (read).

By scheduling the program /SAPAPO/READ_ALERTS_BATCH , you can determine and save dynamic & existing DB (generated as described above) alert situations, which you can call up and process at a later point. Note that if there exist no DB alert on database, the above program will show no saved alert situation. To display the alerts determined by this report in alert monitor (transaction /SAPAPO/AMON1), please don't click on the button 'Redetermine alerts'. You have rather to select the overall profile (which you have set up for alert determination in the background) using the context menu available for 'Saved alert situations'. The system display automatically the selected alerts.

Before you run the program /SAPAPO/READ_ALERTS_BATCH , you have to configure the overall profile for alert determination in background.

If you prefer that this program determines the alerts regardless of their due date, you have to set the indicator 'Ignore Due Dates'. Otherwise, the settings defined while configuring the overall profile for alert determination in the background will be considered, which to non-determination of alerts.

Configuring Overall Profiles for Alert Determination in the Background

Define first the overall profile to display alerts

While in alert monitor (transaction /SAPAPO/AMON_SETTING) go in menu bar -> Goto -> Alert Determination in the Background.

In the popup, choose 'Generate new profile' button, select mit f4-help the desired overall profile and fill all required fields (Priority, Start date, Start time, time intervall the alerts will be generated) and if necessary give the email or the directory at which alert will be sent.

choose 'Confirm Profile' button and save the data.

If the alerts have been determined this way, the user will see the additional field 'Saved alert situations' in front of the field 'Favorites' when he runs the transaction /SAPAPO/AMON1.

As in SCM 4.0, DB alerts have to be generated in the usual way, i.e. interactively or via a batch job before running the program /SAPAPO/READ_ALERTS_BATCH.

Some known problems:

A selection created with grouping characteristics 'APO-RESOURCE with selection criteria APO-LOCATION and APO-RESOURCE is loaded in Interactive Planning. When you execute the appropriate macro to generate alerts and then display them in alert monitor, you see that the name of location is not shown. However, if the macro run in the background using a job with the same selection under aggregation level APO-LOCATION and APO-RESOURCE, the location name appears in alert monitor

solution: In order to see location name for the alerts generated in Interactive planning, you have to perform a drill down on location before you execute the macro.

Alerts in Alert Monitor Standalone

Alert Monitor Standalone was designed to help the planner to filter alerts with respect to a time intervall and required planning objects as well as alert types for which he wants to see alerts. It is no surprise that no alerts are displayed in alert monitor standalone while they are shown in the application. To get alert in Standalone, you have first to maintain required settings (see above).

Some known problems:

Customer specific fields are missing in ALV alert display structure: Please use the BAdi "SAPAPO/AM_ALERTLIST" to add them. The implementation will be done in the method "MODIFY_ALERTLIST" of the interface "/SAPAPO/IF_EX_AM_ALERTLIST".

Show User-specific PP/DS alert types in alert monitor: These types of alerts can be implemented via the BAdi "SAPAPO/AM_ALERTLIST". The implementation will be done in the method "READ_CUSTDEF_PP_ALERTS" of the interface "/SAPAPO/IF_EX_AM_ALERTLIST".

Alerts are shown in interactive planning (/SAPAPO/SDP94) but not in alert monitor standalone (/SAPAPO/AMON1): In interactive planning, whatever what selection profile you use to load the data in the planning book, the alerts are found since the system considers just the data as loaded in the planning book. However, in alert monitor standalone, the selection id defined in the alert profile plays a big role. The alerts will be shown depending on the objects defined in the selection id and the aggregation level defined in the job when generating the DB alerts. For instance, in case of resource, it is strictly necessary to use a selection id that has resources only. If the selection id contains also locations for instance, the system tries to find alerts linked to the location resource for which for which there are none because the alerts are on the resource level only.

Alerts are generated but cannot be displayed in ALV grid: Check if there is a filter criterium in the layout which doesn't match with the existing alerts.

Alerts in Applications

When alert monitor is called from application, it is expected that more alerts will displayed than in standalone since not all filtering condtions defined in the alert monitor setting and alert profile maintenance are not considered, mainly the defined time intervall and the selected objects (location products, resources, etc...). The alerts are determined if the alert profile is assigned to the application.

Detailed Scheduling Planning Board (DSPB)

unexpected alerts are shown in DSPB: please refer to note 374307 and 518945

Alert determination uses propagation range: the objects displayed in the alert monitor are impacted by the propagation area. The current design is that all objects defined in the work area and in the propagation area are passed to the alert monitor. This is so in the standard and can not be changed without changing the behaviour at the other customers. The aggregation of both the work area and the propagation range is passed to the alert monitor and causes the bad performance. But, to reduce the amount of data passed to the alert monitor, you should use the BADI /SAPAPO/CDPS_AMOFILT to filter the data. (For more details see also note 518945). All aggregate resources, products and orders are passed to this BADI, where they can be changed, added or deleted. To determine the objects of the propagation area use function module /SAPAPO/IFPL_PROP_AREA_GET; for the work area use /SAPAPO/EINT_SELECTIONS_GET; see /SAPAPO/EFPL_ALERTMON_HANDLE. You could delete all objects not included in the work area. The notes 481455 and 611217 should also be interesting for you.

Interactive Planning

If you need to generate resource alerts in interactive planning for a selection profile with grouping characteristics 'APO-RESOURCE' and selection criteria containing APO-LOCATION, you have first to perform a drill down on location before you execute the corresponding macro in order to see the location in the generated alerts. Otherwise, the alert will contain no location name/description.

Performance problem occurs while executing the alert macro: Check if both Database and dynamic macros are defined as default. Database macros should not be assigned as default.

Generally, only alerts which lie within the planning period will be displayed in interactive planning. If thus your planning period for the future begins with the today's day and you use no planning period for the past, then Alerts valid for the past will not be displayed in interactive planning. During the reading of the Alerts in interactive planning as a period always the starting and end date of the planning period are considered. Alerts outside of these data cannot be shown.

Deletion of alerts

Alerts with status are also stored in the database table /SAPAPO/AM_FLAGS. If you run alert monitor (standalone or from application), alerts, whose time in days since their status was set is greater or equal to the one defined for the user-parameter /SAPAPO/ASTAT_DAYS, get automatically deleted, provided that the notes 943065 and 946559 are implemented in the system. If the parameter is not maintained, the default value of 14 days is considered.

After the note 840315 is applied in your system, the entries on database /SAPAPO/AM_FLAGS will be also deleted if the corresponding entries on database /SAPAPO/AM_ALERT are deleted either by macro or by the report /SAPAPO/AMON_REORG, or when deleted directly from alert monitor window.

If a user has only display authorisation, he is allowed to display and manipulate alerts for his favorites. Therefore, he can delete, acknowledge, or do whatever with his own alerts, but he cannot not delete other users' alerts, i.e. jump from alert monitor to the program /SAPAPO/AMON_REORG since the functionality (from Alert monitor -> Goto -> Deletion of Alerts) is desabled

Header Data


Release Status:	Released for Customer
Released on:	08.06.2006 10:14:13
Master Language:	English
Priority:	Recommendations/additional info
Category:	Consulting
Primary Component:	SCM-APO-AMO Alert Monitor
Secondary Components:	SCM-APO-ATP Global Available-to-Promise
	SCM-APO-SNP Supply Network Planning (SNP)
	SCM-APO-PPS Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling
	SCM-APO-SCC Supply Chain Cockpit (SCC)
	SCM-APO-FCS Demand Planning
	SCM-APO-VS Vehicle Scheduling
	SCM-APO-CPR-SCH Scheduling Agreement
	SCM-APO-PPS-PPT Product Planning Table
	SCM-APO-PPS-DST Detailed Scheduling Planning Board
	SCM-APO-PPS-PVW Product View
	SCM-APO-SNP-VMI Vendor-Managed-Inventory
	SCM-APO-SNP-MAC MacroBuilder
	SCM-APO-FCS-MAC MacroBuilder
	SCM-APO-MSP Maintenance and Service Planning
	SCM-BAS-ANO Alert Notification Engine
	SCM-BAS-AMO Alert Monitor