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About the Advanced PH feature
One of the key parameters available within the Nextail platform is the Planning Horizon. This lever defines how many days of demand to cover in each scenario, which is directly correlated with replenishment volumes. As a consequence, all products and stores included in each scenario will have the same planning horizon applied.
In case any specific coverage needs to be applied, Nextail offers the Advanced Planning Horizon feature, which is designed to provide flexible store coverage management, allowing for different PHs in certain stores or even in certain product categories.
Typical use cases
- Securing higher coverage in certain channels
- For example, retail vs franchises or online vs retail.
- Securing higher coverage in long transit stores
- Securing higher coverage in certain product categories during certain periods
- For example, knitwear during the Christmas peak or dresses during the summer season.
Even if less common, this feature can also be used to reduce replenishment volumes. For example:
- Reducing coverages of certain product categories in certain stores to help with capacity constraints:
- Reducing general coverage of certain stores temporarily
- For example, before a store relocation or a few weeks before a definitive store closure.
How does it work?
As you probably imagine after reading the previous sections, this feature consists of one main dimension: store, and an optional layer at the product category level (Family/Subfamily or any custom categories):
As the use cases can be widely different depending on the time of the season your business is in, it will be possible to create different sets of PH configurations (we call them Baselines) and leave them in the platform ready to be switched on and off when needed.
For example, let’s imagine a retailer decides to manage its business through 2 baselines:
When having Baseline 2 “Normal Operations” active, the whole store network would be replenished for a PH of 10 days, while E-comm and two marketplaces would be running on longer PHs (21 days and 14 days respectively).
On the other hand, when approaching November and switching on the Baseline 1 “Christmas Strategy”, all the network would run on a longer PH than usual (14 days) but, on top of that, E-commerce would be running on 21 days PH for the whole product catalog, while their two flagships would have longer coverages only for Knitwear, Handbags, and Outerwear (21 days).
If any of the above resonates with your business particularities, you can continue reading the next section, where it will explain how to set this up in Nextail.
Setting Up and visualizing Advanced PHs
To start configuring Baselines you need to obtain the template.
1º) Go to the section called “Planning Horizon” within “Master Data”:
Please be aware that if no Baselines have been configured, the page will be shown initially as empty, as you can see in the image below:
2º) To download the template, click on “Download PH Baselines data upload template”:
3º) Once downloaded, fill it up with the Baselines you need to create:
- PhBaselineCode: key field for identifying the PH baseline configurations and linking the exceptions to it. The codification can have any custom format, there is not a mandatory codification structure (PHXX).
- Name: field for setting a custom and detailed name to the PH baseline code.
- Days: number of days to apply to the baseline. Any product-store with no specific exceptions set will be ruled by this PH. From 1 to 365 days. 0 days are not allowed (it triggers a deletion of the whole baseline and all its associated exceptions built on top of it).
- Replenishment: field for indicating if that baseline is enabled for being used in Replenishment.
- 1 = true = enabled
- 0 = false = disabled
- First Allocation: field for indicating if that baseline is enabled for being used in First Allocation.
- 1 = true = enabled
- 0 = false = disabled
4º) Go to “Daily data” and click on “Data Upload” or go again to “Master data” -> “Planning Horizons” and click on “Go to Data Upload page”.
5º) Once in this screen, click on “Upload Data”, select the relevant Data type “Planning Horizon Baseline”, and select the file with the baselines you just created:
6º) You can now follow the same steps to configure the exceptions (download the template for exceptions, fill it up, and upload it using the “Planning Horizon Exceptions” Data Type):
How to deactivate exceptions and baselines?
- Existing exceptions can be easily removed by setting a value of 0 in the column “days” and uploading it to the platform.
- Existing baselines can be easily deactivated by setting a value of 0 in the column “Replenishment” and uploading it to the platform.
How to use a given Baseline in your Replenishment scenarios?
1º) Scroll down to the “Forecast Parameters” section
2º) Switch on the “Advanced PH” button
3º) Select the Baseline you want to use for that particular scenario
4º) Calculate
When activating this feature, an additional column called “Planning Horizon” will be automatically included in the RO file for any new scenario run. Based on the Baseline selected when setting up the scenario, this column will show the specific PH applied for each sku-store.
Q&A Advanced PH
Q: If I need to set up an exception Planning Horizon for my level-2 product, can I set up this exception directly?
A: Yes, you can set it up directly: product exceptions function independently.
Q: Can store exceptions be configured at category level instead of Store Code level?
A: No, store exceptions are limited to store-level configurations only.
Q: If I remove a store-level exception, do I need to delete all related product exceptions under that store?
A: Yes, all related exceptions should be manually removed as well, to ensure consistency and avoid potential conflicts in replenishment planning. When removing a store-level exception, all subsequent exceptions set at any product level are not automatically removed.
Q: Will activating Advanced PH add extra columns to my reports?
A: Yes. When Advanced PH is active, the RO file will include an additional "Planning Horizon" column, detailing the specific PH applied to each SKU-store combination for greater transparency.
Q: If a Baseline is no longer relevant, how can I deactivate it?
A: To deactivate a Baseline, set the "Replenishment" value to 0 in the configuration file and upload it to Nextail. This will disable the Baseline and remove all associated exceptions.
Q: How does the system prioritize stock replenishment when multiple exceptions overlap?
A: Nextail prioritizes based on the configured hierarchy, applying the narrowest exception (e.g., product level 2) within a given Baseline to ensure specific controls across the network. A store should not have multiple exceptions associated, as there is a store exception level for each baseline.
For product category exceptions, the system always applies the most granular exception. For example, within a Baseline of 7 days PH, if store A has a 20-day PH but the outerwear category has a 15-day PH, a product in the outerwear category in store A will have a 15-day PH.