I. Demand Planning Home Page

Inaccurate forecasts and demand plans can lead to lost revenue and inefficiency in the supply chain. However, forecasts that are infused with intelligence lead to more accurate and effective demand plans. Direct impact can be measured in improved revenue and fewer stockouts. Operating expenses are reduced in supply chains that require fewer fire drills.

Demand planning in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management is Microsoft's next-generation collaborative demand planning solution. This app is powered by best-in-class forecasting algorithms and models and offers immersive user experiences, intelligent reports, and analytics. It empowers organizations to build an agile, resilient, and sustainable demand planning practice that's fueled by intelligence and collaboration.

Demand planning provides the following capabilities:

A no-code approach to demand modelling and planning configuration. Flexible building blocks enable the vast majority (over 85%) of demand planners who aren't data scientists to do what-if planning and analyze, optimize, and compare scenarios in minutes.

Seamless, on-the-fly aggregation and disaggregation. Therefore, planners can edit forecasts at the corporate or product group level, and then zoom in and instantly see the impact at the regional and stock-keeping unit (SKU) levels.

Improved forecast accuracy with automatic AI parameter tuning to help ensure accurate forecasting and preprocessing. External signals enable superior forecast accuracy by considering promotions or stockouts.

Disruption readiness with interactive and fast what-if analysis. Version history enables tracking, evaluating forecast changes, and using the lessons learned to improve the decision-making process.

Effective collaboration throughout the planning cycle. This capability is enabled through Microsoft Teams in-context communication, in-product commenting, and restorable versions of forecast values throughout the planning process.

Increased agility through integrated planning and execution flow with native integration with Supply Chain Management, customizable worksheets, and exception-based planning.

II. Demand Planning Process

The following learning map shows the major concepts and tasks that make up the framework of the Master planning module.

Import data – Import your historical data, products, sites, warehouses, prices, and so on, into the app.

Create transformation – Transform imported data from tables into time series by identifying data columns, choosing time buckets, and shifting dates. For example, you can shift historical data from last year to next year so that you can use it as a basis for the forecast. Alternatively, you can apply multiplications or combine data from different systems.

Create forecasts – Use different forecasting models (including your own Azure Machine Learning model) to create a forecast, or let AI determine which forecast model works best.

Review and adjust forecast – Work on the forecast, adjust values; and get different perspectives about how pricing, weather, promotional events, and other factors might affect the forecast. Collaborate to reach the most accurate forecast.

Export data – After your forecast is done, you can export it to any external system that can consume forecasts.

III. Install, enable and  set up Demand Planning

This section describes how to install, enable, and set up Demand Planning in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. It explains how to use Power Platform admin center to install Demand Planning in your tenant and set up the feature in Supply Chain Management.

Prerequisites –

To use Demand planning with Supply Chain Management, you must be running one of the following versions of Supply Chain Management:

 - Supply Chain Management version 10.0.36, build 10.0.1695.83

 - Supply Chain Management version 10.0.37, build 10.0.1725.60

 - Supply Chain Management version 10.0.38 (any build) or later

Install Demand Planning in the Power platform admin centre –

Follow these steps to install Demand planning in the Power Platform admin center.

 - Sign in to the Power Platform admin center.

 - Select Resources > Dynamics 365 apps on the left navigation pane.

 - Search for and select the app named Dynamics 365 Demand Planning Application.

 - Select Install on the top toolbar.

 - Select an environment, review the packages that will be installed, and select the I agree to the terms of service checkbox.

 - Select Install.

Enable and configure Demand Planning in Supply Chain Management - 

Follow these steps to enable and configure Demand Planning in Supply Chain Management.

 1. In the Feature management workspace, turn on the Demand Planning feature.

 2. Go to System Administration > Setup > Demand planning app parameters.

 3. On the General tab, in the Demand Planning app URL field, enter the URL where Demand Planning is installed.

 4. Go to Master Planning > Setup > Master planning parameters.

 5. On the Number sequences tab, in the grid, find the row where the Reference field is set to the Demand forecast sequence number. Then select the link in the Number sequence column for that row.

 6. On the details page for the selected number sequence, on the Performance FastTab, set the following field:

  - Preallocation – Set this option to Yes.

  - Quantity of numbers – Set the value to 500.

 7. On the Action Pane, select Save.

 8. You must now refresh the data entity list in Supply Chain Management to ensure that data imports and exports between Supply Chain Management and Demand planning will work correctly. Follow these steps:

 - Go to System administration > Workspaces > Data management.

 - Select the Framework parameters tile.

 - Open the Entity settings tab.

 - Select Refresh entity list.

IV. Security roles and row-level security

This section describes how to set up users, security roles, and access rules for Demand planning. It explains how to configure security roles and duties in Supply Chain Management and how to assign security roles for accessing the app and its various features on Power Platform. It also explains how to set up row-level security within Demand planning.

Configure security roles and duties in Supply Chain Management –

Demand planning features in Supply Chain Management are available only to users who have the required security roles and related duties. When you enable Demand planning in Supply Chain Management, the feature adds a privilege named Demand planning informational tile. This privilege grants users access to a button that opens Demand planning from the home page of Supply Chain Management. The privilege is added to the out-of-box roles and duties that are listed in the following table.

If you're using custom roles in Supply Chain Management, you must manually assign the Demand planning informational tile privilege to them as needed after you enable Demand planning in Supply Chain Management.

Assign security roles for accessing Demand planning on Power Platform –

When you install Demand planning on Power Platform, it creates several security roles to control access to its various features. To be able to access Demand planning, users must sign in a Power Platform user account that has the security roles for the features they need.

The following security roles are used by Demand planning. Some of them are standard for Power Platform, while others are specific to Demand planning.

Basic User - 

 - This is a standard security role that's included with Power Platform.

 - All users of Demand planning must have this role in order to access the app.

System Administrator - 

 - This is a standard security role that's included with Power Platform. It also grants access to admin features within Demand planning.

 - Install the app, add users, assign roles, manage teams, and so on.

 - View, create, and manage tables, relations, and data.

 - Create and manage imports and exports.

 - View and create transformations based on requests from the demand planning manager.

 - Monitor jobs (imports, calculations, forecasts, transformations, and exports).

Demand Planning Manager - 

 - Configure demand planning (role-level security, time fences, worksheets).

 - View and create planning data (forecasts and calculations).

 - View and create tables and import data from excel.

 - View and create transformations.

 - View and create worksheets.

 - Export plans when they're ready to share with Supply Chain Management.

Demand Planning Contributor -

 - View worksheets (see shared worksheets and save their own views).

 - Controlled by row-level access and can edit data they have access to.

 - Collaborate using Microsoft Teams and in-app comments.

Demand Planning Service Role -

 - An internal role required by Demand planning, which uses this role for internal operations.

 - You should never assign this role to a human user.

Use the Power Platform admin center to set up user accounts and assign security roles to them as needed. For more instructions, see Assign a security role to a user.

The Next few blogs will look into a few scenarios using configurations.

Thank you!