FAQ - Understanding the ATP Results and the Availability Window

of the Sales Order Form

  Doc ID:436771.1 Type:FAQ
  Modified Date:08-SEP-2009 Status:PUBLISHED

In this Document
  Purpose
  Questions and Answers
     Why can't I ship my sales order today when I have enough on-hand?
     Why is Discrete Job Or PO Supply Available Today, But Not Available for ATP On the Next Day?
     Can I build and ship an ATO Today? ATP Returns results of today + 1 day for item I can build in 1 hour and ship today.
     How can I ship it today, when I cannot schedule the order?
     How are the results calculated for the On-Hand and Reservable in Availability Window?
     Closed (or Canceled) Sales orders showing up in the ATP Supply/Demand and keeping me from scheduling orders. How can I
fix this?
     For ATP/CTP Based On Planning Output, How can I get Date for Buy Items in the same way I get Dates for Make Items?
     How Can I Setup Calendars To Ship to Customers Only On Certain Days Of The Week?
     How Can I Setup Carrier Transit Calendar and Customer Receiving Calendar?
     Where can I get more information about the error messages that are displayed in the ATP Availability window?
     Why do we get the message 'Try ATP again later'?
     How can I view ATP Supply/Demand results easily OR How to Use /File/Export in Oracle Applications?
     How Can I Setup /File/Export OR /File/Export Fails To Open as an XLS Type File?
  References

Applies to:
Oracle Order Management - Version: 11.5.9 to 12.0
Oracle Advanced Supply Chain Planning - Version: 11.5.9 to 12.0
Information in this document applies to any platform.
FORM:OEXOEORD.FMB - Sales Orders
FORM:MSCOSCWB.FMB - ATP Inquiry

Purpose
Due to many questions about the ATP Date Results in the Availability Window in Order Management, the
Advanced Resolution team for ATP has produced this FAQ to help users and engineers understand and check
results and answer related questions.

This will show how to get into the details of the results and explain several of the common questions and
issues encountered in ATP and related Data Collections functionality.

This note will be updated as we find more common issues that may be useful to address in this format.

Questions and Answers

Why can't I ship my sales order today when I have enough on-hand?
The first screen shot show the ATP results and the following will show more detailed steps to review the
results.

Here we make the point  - do NOT use the Inventory Supply/Demand screen to try and understand the ATP
results.
ATP Results come from the MSC tables, and not the regular Transaction tables of Inventory, OM, PO, WIP,
etc which are used for the Inventory Supply/Demand screen
Data Collections is the process that updates the data in the MSC tables.
ATP processes for new Sales orders or canceled Sales Orders will also update the MSC tables to keep ATP
results in synch when new demand is placed via a sales order.

The ATP Details screen will display pegging information. To allow access to rt-click functionality in the
pegging window and see further information required to investigate the issue, you must set profile MRP:
Calculate Supply Demand = Yes
-- Note that this can have performance implications, but when trying to debug ATP results, this is required.
Set at the User Level is usually the best solution.

IF using 'ATP Based On Collected Data', then the results are coming from data that is in the Collections
Workbench (View Collected Data menu option)
AND IF using 'ATP/CTP Based on Planning Output', then the results of the ASCP Plan are where the ATP
results are coming from to populate the ATP Details and produce the Supply/Demand picture being presented
in ATP. Note that these workbenches can show data that is not being used for ATP.

The Supply/Demand here will show how ATP arrived at the results in the Availability Window and which
demands are taking the supply that could be used today.
Since ATP is First-Come/First Served, it will not be able to schedule the order for today, unless steps are
taken.
See the next question  - for a discussion of the possibilities.
Also since the Supply/Demand window is small and displays only 5 lines, there will be times when many
lines exist and using /File /Export to generate a TSV file which can be viewed in MS Excel is the easiest
method to view the results in total - see How can I view ATP Supply/Demand results easily? if you are not
familiar with this process.
 

Why is Discrete Job Or PO Supply Available Today, But Not Available for ATP On the
Next Day?

In ATP Based on Collected Data, it is necessary to create supplies to satisfy Sales Order demand that is
scheduled at the Infinite Supply Time Fence date BEFORE the next day, so this demand will not consume
current expected supplies.
Note 883278.1 has been created to provide a detailed scenario and explanation of how ATP works for this
scenario.

Can I build and ship an ATO Today? ATP Returns results of today + 1 day for item I can
build in 1 hour and ship today.

ATP is a DAY level scheduling engine, so this is not possible under the current design.

Typical ATO for this scenario.

ATO which has components that are stocked on hand.

ATO has routing that has short work time (e.g. After Routing lead time calculation and Rollup - Leadtime
shows ZERO Fixed LT and 0.125 Variable LT)
When ATO is configured for build of 1 item, and job is created, the job completes in just over 1 hour.

ATP Schedule Date results are the same if using ATP Based on Planning Output or ATP Based on Collected
Data.

Example 1: Order QTY = 1 - ATP detects Variable LT and since it schedules by the DAY, it must consider
this as using a full day, so the results show that Order will be satisfied on SYSDATE + 1

Example 2: Order QTY = 50 - ATP calculates the Variable LT accurately, by "hours", but there is partial day
used at end of this calcuation, so this partial day at end of calculation is rounded to a full day.
Order will be satisfied on SYSDATE + 10 days based on leadtime, resource availability, and MFG calendar
working days.

An Enhancment 7711440 has been entered to allow ATP to consider this and be able to return a schedule date
of today for these type of short build ATO models.

How can I ship it today, when I cannot schedule the order?

There are two options: ATP Override and Unscheduling Other Orders make inventory avaiable for this order.
ATP Override
Continuing with the example used above, we will show how to use ATP Override, which is the fastest way to
get the order shipped.
Set the profile OM: Authorize ATP Override at the Site or User Level to allow the functionality

In the Shipping tab, the user can use / Folder / Show Field (or rt-click mouse as shown below) and reveal the
ATP Override field

Then the field will be available in the Shipping Tab of the order line.
And any schedule date may be entered by the user.

Unschedule Other Orders

Order lines in the future, which are taking up supply, can be Unscheduled, using /Tools/Scheduling - then
choose Unschedule
Then the order line for today can be scheduled. Then the unscheduled lines can be scheduled again.

How are the results calculated for the On-Hand and Reservable in Availability Window?

ALL subinventories are used to display the On Hand Qty seen in the Availability window. OM calls an
Inventory private API to display this information. This is the design so that the user has complete picture of
all available inventories and may make decisions based on this knowledge.

The Qty Reservable is also called by OM using a standard Inventory private API for Hard Reserved
quantities.
In this example, the quantities were reserved using / Tools / Scheduling / Reserve

This means that both these fields are displaying data that may not be consistent with ATP data in the MSC
tables, The example below shows how the data in the Availability Window could be different from data in
the ATP Supply/Demand window.

ATP Supply/Demand window, it will show the line(s) with Order Type = On Hand quantity based on the
following:
1. ATP based on Collected Data - ATP-able subinventories as defined in Inventory / Setup / Organizations /
Subinventories
2. ATP/CTP based on Planning Data - All inventories included in the ASCP Plan Options / Organizations
Tab - Subinventories button. This means that if there is a Nettable subinventory that is NOT ATP-able, any
supply from that subinventory that is included in the plan could will as available in the ATP Supply/Demand
window results unless you explicitly remove that sub inventory from the plan options of your ATP plan.
Closed (or Canceled) Sales orders showing up in the ATP Supply/Demand and keeping me
from scheduling orders. How can I fix this?

This issue has been reported in several ways and is always difficult to duplicate:

1. The order line has been deleted. This can be prevented in Order Management by using setups to not
allow order lines to be deleted. Companies that are not using ATP may find that they want to be able
to simple delete lines. But any ATP user should not allow this to occur and should instead use Cancel
functionality for any sales order line that is no longer required. 
2. The Order Line has been canceled, but still shows in the ATP Supply/Demand Results.
The difficulty usually encountered with this issue, is that customers do not know how to duplicate the
issue.
For example, in internal testing, the issue was not duplicated when the following steps were
performed.
Item has 200 on hand and created 3 sales orders for an item totaling 190.
Then canceled one sales order for 150 each,
Then created a new sales order for 100 each and ATP was fine... it had been updated correctly for the
canceled order and I was able to schedule the new order. This is the way it is supposed to work. When
a Sales order is canceled, then ATP is notified so that the ATP results for the next order are correctly
calculated.
3. The Order Line has been Shipped and Closed, but still shows in the ATP Supply/Demand
Results. When the order is shipped, then ATP is NOT notified of this change automatically. ALSO,
the On Hand quantity is not updated until data collections is run, so the ATP results will still be
correct.
Running Data Collections with Net Change or Complete will update the data for both sales orders and
on hand quantities and update the data.
Problems reported are that it appears that the on hand IS updated, but the Closed Sales order remains
in the system.

Solution:

1. Best Solution:
For Distributed installations where APS Suite is on a separate server: Run Data Collections from
Advanced Supply Chain Planner with a Targeted Refresh and Sales Orders set to explicitly to Yes
(this will default to No for all collections types for performance reasons) - Set parameter Purge
Previously Collected Data = No so that Collection Method parameter gives option for Targeted
Refresh
OR
IF not using ASCP and a Centralized installation where APS suite is not deployed on a separate
server, THEN run ATP Data Collections with Sales order parameter set to Complete Refresh.
Note: This step will mean that ATP will not be available during part of the Data Collections
processing cycle
2. IMPORTANT: Is the Database version been upgraded to 10g?
IF Yes, THEN it is very important that the latest Data Collections Rollup patch be applied!!
We have observed that 10g treats data collections objects like Snapshots much differently than 9i
RDBMS and this has forced code changes.
Minimum rollup patch level for Collections is Rollup #18. Check Note 252108.1 - and see section
Collections Cumulative Patch List - and see the SQL in the note to determine which is the latest patch
applied. We have fixed many issues for Sales Orders and other data by having the customer apply the
latest Data Collection rollup patch.
3. Possible Solution: As above, run Data Collections, but use Net Change Refresh for the parameters
instead of Complete Refresh.
Note: ATP will still be available when you use this option, so it us usually the preferred options for
running data collections.
This solution has been known not to work, even though it should work... and if this occurs, then a
Complete Refresh as described in #1 above is the only solution:
Reasons why a Net Change of Data Collections may not work:
1. The profile MSC: Sales Order Offset Days is not set properly. This profile is used in Net
Change Collections UNLESS you are on 11.5.10 and have applied the last Collections Rollup
patch from Section IV of Note 223026.1 - List of High Priority Patches for the APS Suite.
To setup the profile properly, it should be setup in a value that exceeds the earliest Schedule
Ship Date for an unshipped Sales Order that exists on the system.
Example: If today is 01-Jun-2007 and the order that was shipped had a Scheduled Ship Date of
01-Mar-2007 and the profile was not set to greater than 92, this closed order would be missed
during Net Change Collections and not update correctly.
2. The Data Collections code level is old and changes updates to the code are not on the system.
For instance, if Note 278055.1 has not been followed after the installation of 11.5.10.2 during
an install or upgrade and the latest Rollup patches for Data Collections is not applied OR IF
customer has been live for a long time without problems and code level is old. In Data
Collections 11.5.10.2 base release, code level of key file $MSC_TOP/sql/MSCVIEWS.sql is
115.228.11510.13 and the latest released version as of 01-Jun-2007 is 115.228.11510.62 -
almost 60 revisions higher. Applying the latest Collections Rollup patch from Note 223026.1 is
imperative when code levels are older.
3. The profile MRP: Consume MPS = Yes and the Planning Manager is not running. NAV:
Material Planner / Setup / Planning Manager to see if the planning manager is running
normally by checking the messages in the form. If the interval = 00:00:30 , the default setting,
then message should be posted in the form with today's date and time stamp of every 1 - 3
minutes under normal operations.
4. The Interface Trip Stop process errored and did not complete the transaction processing, so that
updating of some tables was not completed and demand or supply still exists in related tables.
This is a data corruption issue that would require a data fix. Only possible interim is to attempt
Complete Refresh of Data Collections and then proceed to work with the Inventory support
team to get a data fix, possible patch for the failure of the program.
5. OM code is older and did not properly call the MRP API to relieve the sales order demand on
the planning side of the application. $ONT_TOP/patch/115/sql/OEXUSCHB.pls is one of the
key files used in OM to call ATP and Planning routines. In base release of 11.5.10.2, the
version is 115.153.11510.13 and OM regularly releases Cumulative (rollup) patches for their
code. As of 01-Jun-2007 the latest version is 115.153.11510.30 released in the April 2007
cumulative patch with the June Cumulative patch expected to be released soon. Check with the
OM Support team for the latest patch information.
For ATP/CTP Based On Planning Output, How can I get Date for Buy Items in the same
way I get Dates for Make Items?

This scenario is for the following conditions:

 Profile INV: Capable to Promise = ATP/CTP Based on Planning Output
 All items using ATP Rule with User-Defined Time Fence Days > than lead times to Make or Buy the
items

Key Setup Points:

1. ATP rule is setup Infinite Supply using User Defined Time Fence of X days – where X is greater than
leadtime of the purchased item.
2. Check ATP set to Material Only and ATP Components must be set to Material Only in the Order
Management tab of the Organization Items form.
1. Setting ATP Components - Material Only is not an intuitive setup for Buy items since they
generally do not have a BOM. This is the setup that tells ATP code to search the supply chain
for further availability for purchased items.
2. In this case, it will look at the supplier availability.
3. Note: Item should NOT have a BOM defined.
3. Sourcing Rule for this item in the Assignment Set assigned to the ASCP Plan checked for ATP
4. Item exists in the ASCP ATP Plan results
5. If ASL and Supply Capacity is setup for an item, then it will be considered during ATP calculation.

Details of this Example:

1. Purchased item has an ATP Rule with User Defined Time Fence = 120 days
2. Item DG-ATP-Buy has only 4 days processing leadtime. In general, Total Leadtime must be less than
120 days (Pre-processing + Processing + Post-processing Leadtime)

Item ATP Setup

See that Check ATP and ATP Components are both set to Material Only in the Organization Items screen
Note: This setup may result in error:
APP-INV-05421 - ATP Components must be set to "No" when Pick Components is set to "No",
Assemble To Order = "No", and WIP Supply Type is not Phantom"
This error will only occur when INV: Capable to Promise  = ATP Based on Collected Data,
Check your profile, as this setup is valid only for ATP/CTP based on Planning Data

ATP Inquiry Details - when the setups are complete and the item exists in the ATP plan

ATP Results when the setups are complete and the item exists in the ATP plan

Example of the data returned

IF Item has setup with only Check ATP – Material Only (ATP Components –NULL)
OR
Item does NOT exist in the ATP plan (and therefore ATP calculation reverts to ATP Based On Collected
Data)
OR
ATP based on Collected Data

ATP Results show the infinite supply time fence from the ATP Rule - in this example - 120 days

Example of results that are considered ‘normal’ for a Finished Good item where Check ATP and ATP
Components are setup for Material Only
These are the results that customer wants to see for the Buy type items as well as the Make items and why this
question was answered.
In this example, the ATP Date of 15-APR-2008 is based on Leadtime to Make 150 of this item when Variable
Leadtime is conputed along with Manufacturing Leadtime and Lot Size in the Organization Item setups

How Can I Setup Calendars To Ship to Customers Only On Certain Days Of The Week?

How Can I Setup Carrier Transit Calendar and Customer Receiving Calendar?

Update 07-Sep-2009 - Internal Sales Orders - we have enhanced and updated Note 251449.1 which deals
with Internal Sales Orders and setup and processing of Internal Requistions, Internal Sales Orders and ATP.
This note should be reviewed for any functionality relating to Internal Sales Orders.
It will also point back to these documents in cases where Sales Order will involve the complexity of using
specific Calendar for different parts of the ATP process. Key Setups for Internal Sales orders and ATP are
convered in this note.

Updated 15-Dec-2008 - New sections (10 and 11) added to this answer and the PDF file to show setups for
Carrier Transit Calendar and Customer Receiving Calendar.
Also shows the difference between Order Date Type Schedule and Arrival (the type of Request Date used
when scheduling)
The Users Guide discusses this and the application allows for setup of a calendar with assignment type of
Shipping/Customer, which seems logical, but is not the correct setup for this requirement. Enhancement
5169488 has been logged to enable this functionality, but there are methods currently available in the
application to setup this requirement.

Key Concepts:
1. Available in 11.5.10 and above
2. Shipping Calendars are for Shipping FROM, not Shipping to [Customers], so the setup is based on the
Organization where the order will be Shipping FROM.
3. It is possible to setup for different shipping days in a single organization using different carriers, ship
methods and calendars as noted below in Summary of Setup Steps - #3
4. This functionality is available for ATP using EITHER
INV: Capable to Promise = ATP Based on Collected Data OR ATP/CTP Based on planning data
Click here to download the PDF File for Detailed Screen Shots -
436771.1_Shipping_to_Specific_Customers_on_Specific_Days.pdf

Summary of the Setup Steps from in the PDF file

Check Note 417249.1 - Shipping Calendar Is Being Ignored At Ship Confirm - Make sure that you are not
exposed to this 11.5.10 bug for Shipping

1. Profile settings at the Site Level:

a. MSC: Use Shipping/Receiving Calendars. = Yes
b. INV: Capable to Promise = ATP Based on Collected Data ORATP/CTP Based on planning data.
c. Note: If using Distributed/Decentralized installation where Transactional Instance (ERP Source) and
Planning Instance (APS Destination) are separate databases, then you need to set the profiles on
BOTH instances.

2. Setup the Calendar for required days

Example: Tuesday and Friday as active days for this example.
Setup different calendars to model the different requirements for shipping.
3. Setup of Freight Carriers and Ship Methods and assign to organizations
Example: Yellow Freight used in this example
Note: If you have same carrier shipping to different customers on different days, then you need to
setup different carrier codes:
Examples:
Yellow Freight-Mon-Wed (ships from org on Mon and Wed)
Yellow Freight-Tue-Thu
Yellow Freight-Wed-Fri
4. Create the Calendar Assignment for the Organization / Shipping / Carrier
5. Assign Ship Method to Customer
6. Setup Regions
7. Assign Transit Times to Region
a. This can also be setup for specific Customer instead of a Region
8. Run Data Collections and ASCP ATP Plan.
9. Enter Sales orders and observe results
10. Using Carrier Transit Calendar / Customer Receiving Calendar
11. Order Date Type - Arrival

Where can I get more information about the error messages that are displayed in the ATP
Availability window?

The Users Guide - Oracle Global Order Promising Implementation and User’s Guide - Release 11i  - Part No.
B10512-03 - June 2004
has a Chapter 8 - Troubleshooting- which addresses many of the ATP errors including
 Try ATP again later.
 Summary Concurrent program is running. Try ATP later
 Invalid ATP rule or No ATP rule defined
 Unable to meet the request quantity
 Unable to find a calendar date
 No APS instance defined. Set APS instance and run collections
 Wrong Check ATP setup for product family item and member item
 One of the group elements or mandatory components failed
  INV: Capable to Promise must be same at source and destination
 ATP processing error
 Cannot meet request date or latest acceptable date
 ATP not applicable
 No Sources
 This item is not collected. Please run Data Collection
 No Assignment Set
 Plan not found. ATP is calculated using collected data

Additionally more troubleshooting tips for common problems and some SQL queries to investigate certain
errors is included in this Chapter of the Users Guide
To get the latest version of the users guide, see Note 118086.1 APS Documentation for 11.5 and 12.0

Why do we get the message 'Try ATP again later'?

This is standard requirement when running Targeted or Complete Refresh of Data Collections.
During time when the sales order and customer tables are being refresh during the ODS load, then we cannot
provide ATP results.
The only way to avoid this entirely is to run Data Collections with Net Change Refresh.

Customers Running ATP Data Collections from Order Management Application:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. We shutdown ATP for the entire Data Collections process when parameter Sales Orders - Complete
Refresh

2. When running with parameters

Collection Type - Complete Refresh
Sales Orders - Net Change ,
Then we have limited downtime during the ODS Load phase when we are doing TRANFORM
KEYS* processing
3. When running both parameters with Net Change, then no ATP downtime would be experienced.

Customers Running ASCP Data Collections:

---------------------------------------------------

1. Net Change Collections - ATP is never down during Net Change data collections

2. Complete shutdown of ATP when:

1. Running Targeted Refresh with Sales Order Parameter = Yes
2. Running Complete Refresh Data Collections with Sales Order Parameter Set = Yes and using
ODS ATP (ATP Based on Collected Data)
3. Running Continous Collections where threshold is reached for Sales Orders which triggers the
Targeted refresh of sales orders and using ATP Based On Collected Data

Note: Running Complete Refresh of Data Collections with default parameters will have Sales
Order Parameter = No. this means that the Sales Orders are collected in Net Change mode
This is by design to limit downtime and for performance reasons.
 Unless you experience problems with sales order information in ASCP or ATP, then we do not
recommend running a complete refresh (or Targeted Refresh) of sales orders.
3. To minimize downtime we have code designed so that during ODS Load - TRANSFORM KEYS*
process, we will shutdown ATP IF:
1. Complete Refresh with default parameters (which means sales orders is No)
2. Complete Refresh setting with Sales Orders Parameter = Yes AND when using PDS ATP
(INV: Capable To Promise = ATP/CTP based on Planning output)
4. Targeted Refresh - Yes for the following parameters:
1. Customers/Supplier/Orgs
2. Items
3. Sourcing Rules
4. Sales Orders
5. Continuous Collections where threshold is reached for any of the following entities, which will
trigger Targeted Refresh of those entities
1. Customers/Supplier/Orgs
2. Items
3. Sourcing Rules
4. Sales Orders

* TRANSFORM KEYS is the process that insures we maintain unique ID's for key entities when collecting
from Multiple instances and is part of the base design of Data Collections and ASCP.

Notes:

1. We set the value of MSC_APPS_INSTANCES.SO_TBL_STATUS = 2 during this downtime and

change it back to 1 when the processing is finished.
2. Ref Bug 2605884 and Bug 5727196 / 5883296

How can I view ATP Supply/Demand results easily OR How to Use /File/Export in Oracle
Applications?

This slide shows how to use / File / Export to create a TSV file of the screen output and then shows some
setup to make viewing and using the file as a spreadsheet easy.
This is very effective, since once the spreadsheet is setup, you can also add the ATP Horizontal Plan to the
same spreadsheet and then also add screen shots showing the ATP results and have a complete picture of the
ATP issue in one file!!

IF the file automatically opens in IE, then you can manipulate there before saving.

If the TSV file opens in IE as a spreadsheet

Then you can save the File as an XLS file
IF the file is saved to your local disc before you open it, then you can find the file, and then use rt-click / Open
With and choose Excel ( or choose program to associate with Excel or see below to setup the file types for
TSV files

How Can I Setup /File/Export OR /File/Export Fails To Open as an XLS Type File?

Set up TSV file types to default to Excel. In Windows Explorer (NOT your Browser), use / Tools  / Folder
Options as shown below to setup the default file type to recognise a RSV file as a Excel type document. When
this is setup properly then the next time you use /File/Export it should open in the browser and look like a
spreadsheet and you should be able to Save As a spreadsheet.

IF you are having problems getting /File/Export to work properly, check the following Notes:
Note 427555.1 - File > Export via IE- Browser Closes After Tool Bar Completion
Note 414616.1 - Forms Export Process Crashes Internet Explorer 7 and 6
Note 357667.1 - Export Of Records Errors And Displays No Result