Use this screen to look at the errors and jobs associated with the demand plan server.
Starting the Server
When the server starts, it tries to find the latest version of data. This can be in Oracle or on a backup file. Once the server finds the latest backup file (by searching along the backup path, which is in the forecast server set up in the scheduling tab), it compares the file's date to the last date for a write back to Oracle. The server then selects the newest data and loads it.
By adding command line parameters it is possible to force the server to start from Oracle or from the file or manually. Here are the commands:
| Command | Description |
| /r | Start the server using the last restore file. |
| /r:filename | Start the server using a specific restore file. |
| /o | Start the server using data found in Oracle. |
| /o:username/password@service | Start the server from Oracle specifying username, password, and service. |
| /m | Start the server manually. Do not load from Oracle or the file. |
| /x | Run the server without GUI (window). |
Error Messages:
The error messages have this layout:
flow_id - part_no - Description: <Error message>
flow_id - G1 - G2 - G3 - G4 - G5 - G6 : <Error message>
The upper message is an error on a part, and the lower message is an error on a group level. You can also define which type of error messages that should be logged in 3 steps from all messages logged to Moderate and severe messages logged to only severe messages logged. see LogLevel in Advance Server Settings for details.
Configuring the server:
The server can be configured by changing Advance Server Settings parameters, see Advance Server Settings for details about this.
Demand Plan Server Console
When running the Demand Plan Server as a Service you can log on to the Demand Server Web page. This web page let you examine the state of the DP server if it is ok to kill the service fore example. Only to be done if the Write back job is not working (Ideal 0:0). It is also vice not to do kill / stop the DP Server when the DP server is performing any other jobs as well only when Ideal and finished. You can also start any of the Demand Plan server jobs from this web page as well see further in this document for jobs and their description. You access this page by typing http:\\DemandPlanServerMachineName(or IP-add):DemandPlanServerPortNumber(see DPServerSetup). This also work when the Demand Server runs as an application.
IPR(Inventory Planning and Replenishment)
NOTE: IPR is only available if you have bought the IPR (INVPLA) component from IFS it is NOT part of the Demand Planning (DEMAND) component.
To examine inventory parts calculations preformed by the IPR calculating engine in detail, you can issue the IPR Export to Excel command in IPR Parameters tab in Inventory Part, Planning Data tab. See here for a detailed description of the IPR Calculation Models.
Clicking on the refresh button will reload the IPR data from the database for one part and recalculate its IPR result without producing an MS Excel sheet.
N/A
There are also different value that can be set in Advance Server Setting to get the Demand Plan Server to operate as wanted, see Advance Server Settings for details.
Menu Choice
File
| Load from DB | Loads historical data into the demand planning server from the Oracle database. |
| Backup | Writes demand planning server data to a binary file on the hard disk. |
| Restore | Loads a backup binary file from the hard disk into the demand planning server. |
| Stop/Start online write back | Stops and Starts the online write back to DB process. (depending on its previous state) |
| Retry | Retries to start the online write back process, typically after an critical error has occurred. |
| IPR Simulation Model | Sets the Demand Plan Server in IPR Simulation Mode. In this mode the DP server will not write back any data when running IPR. Allows the user to do simulation changes in IPR hierarchy and take out Excel reports of the result without IPR Changes being written back to the Database. |
| Setup | Launches the Server Setup dialog. |
| Exit | Shuts down the demand planning server. |
System
| Aggregate Daily | Aggregates historical demand from the start of the current period to the current day. |
| Qualify Parts | Opens the Qualify Input dialog, which is used to qualify and disqualify parts as forecast parts. |
| Create Forecast | First, aggregates historical demand from the newest historical demand period to the current period - 1. Then it generates the forecast for the current period and the specified number of forecast periods into the future. See Demand Plan Server Setup/General. |
| Lock/Unlock Server | Turns server locking on and off. If the lock is on, clients cannot change forecasts. |
| Complete Writeback | Writes back the total contents of the Server back to the data base no matter if the records is changed (dirty) or not. So every thing in the server is written to the data base. |
| Refresh DP Data | Looks for changes in the DP data done in IFS Cloud, deleted parts, added parts or changes done to forecast parts. NOTE that you still need to take down (File-Exit) the server BEFORE any changes in the Demand Plan Server Setup dialog is to be done. |
| Refresh IPR Data | Will update all IPR changes made to Inventory parts in IFS Supply Chain, and recalculate the new IPR result. |
| Complete Refresh DP Data | Will refresh ALL data in demand planning with the database. This also reads changes done to Budget or Target Sales Plan lines, in short reads all DP data from the database. Only Possible when DP is enabled. |
| Generate season profiles | Runs a job that goes through all parts and creates season profiles. See Season Indexes. |
| Delete Unused season profiles | This job deletes all unused season profiles form the libary. |
| Recalc historical demand | Runs a job that recalculates the historical demand with the current selected forecast model and season profiles. This is used during implementation after the forecast parts have been assigned their models and profiles. It sets more accurate forecast error measures for the parts. |
| Classify Parts | Runs the classify part job. See Part Classification. |
| Set Budget base | Sets the budget equal to the system forecast for all parts on the base flows. This will give a good budget on each individual part when entering the budget on an aggregated level. Note that the only level where a 1005 accurate budget revision can occur is the level where you enter it. But the budget on each part will be the best approximation for a part by part budget. |
| Set Target Sales Plan base | Sets the target sales plan equal to the system forecast for all parts on the base flows. This will give a good target sales plan on each individual part when entering the target sales plan on an aggregated level. Note that the only level where follow up on target sales plan can occur 100% accurate is the level where you enter it. But the target sales plan on each part will be the best approximation for a part by part target sales plan. |
| External Import | Starts the job that reads data from the FORECAST_DAY_IMPORT LU. See Importing data. |
Help
| About Forecast Server | Displays the About dialog. |
| Contents | Launches the help file. |
This window is contained in the status bar:
The status bar is divided into sections from left to right.
Demand Planning: Process bar for the Demand Planning engine. This is also the process bar for all the jobs preformed by the server.
IPR: Process bar for the IPR engine.
Writeback: This is the status of the write back process the first digit is the number of dirty records (or records to be written back) from the DP engine, the second number is dirty records to be written back from the IPR engine. The IPR records has priority over the DP records. The text message gives the status of the write back job like connecting (connection to the DB), working (when it is writing data to the db), off (when the write back job is turned off), sleep (when you have set up that no db access is allowed in the DP Idle screen of the Demand Plan Server Setup), ideal (no records to write back), and critical (a critical error has occurred and the server can no longer write back data).
Errors: Number of errors occurred.
Jobs: The next job, identified by job number, and when it is scheduled to run (year/month/day/time).