The Supply Tree shows what each purchase is for and what each order depends on. Read down, it starts at your suppliers and follows every purchase through the works orders it feeds to the customer orders, contracts and forecast behind them: if this supplier is late or short, what is hit? Read up, it starts at the customers, contracts and forecast and follows them back to the materials and the suppliers they come from. Every quantity on a branch is the plan’s own figure for that branch, not a recalculation.
Where to find it: Supply Tree in the Demand Planning section of the main menu. You also reach it from the Trace button on each line of a demand plan, production plan or procurement plan, and from the Planning Cycle’s past-order-by warning.
The words used here
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Plans in force | The demand plan, production plan and procurement plan the Planning Cycle is working from: an approved plan where there is one, otherwise the newest draft, whose status is shown beside it. The tree is built from those three and nothing else. |
| Down | The Suppliers → customers direction. Starts at a supplier and ends at the demand a purchase serves. |
| Up | The Customers → suppliers direction. Starts at a customer, a contract or the forecast and ends at the supplier a material is bought from. |
| Share | Up the tree, a quantity is that customer’s, that contract’s or the forecast’s share of the line, not the whole line. The whole figure is shown beside it, so you can see both. |
| Call-off | A contract’s committed volume not yet ordered, spread over the weeks to the contract’s end. It gets a branch of its own, under its contract. |
Quick start
- Open Supply Tree.
- Choose Suppliers → customers or Customers → suppliers with the two buttons at the top.
- Click a card’s expand control to load the level below it. One level is read at a time.
- Click a card itself to open its panel on the right, with every figure the card had no room for.
- Tick Show only branches at risk to hide everything that is already settled.
The line above the tree
A single line under the title names the three plans the tree is built from, each with its status in brackets:
Demand plan DP-P1000007 (active), production plan PP-P1000006 (approved), procurement plan PR-P1000005 (executing)
- Each reference is a link and opens its plan.
- Where there is no plan of that kind yet, the slot reads none yet.
- A draft can be the plan in force when nothing better exists, which is why the status is always printed. Read it before you trust the tree.
Under it, a line of help changes with the direction. Going down it reads “What each purchase is for: from the supplier, through the works orders it feeds, to the customer orders and forecast it serves.” Going up it reads “What each order needs, and from whom. Every quantity below a customer, contract or the forecast is that one’s share, not the whole line.”
Reading down: from a supplier
Down answers “if this supplier is late or short, what is hit?” Each card carries a chip naming what it is. The levels, in order:
| Chip | What the card shows |
|---|---|
| Supplier | The supplier’s name, how many materials are bought from them on this plan, and the estimated value — “3 materials · est. 4,820.00”. A purchase line with no supplier is collected under No supplier. |
| Purchase | One purchase line of the procurement plan: the product, and the quantity as “1,200 kg to buy”. The order badge says where it has got to — Pending, Ordered PO-…, Received or Cancelled. |
| Works orders | The works orders that material feeds, grouped by the product they make: “3 works orders · from 14 Sep”, with the quantity as “Makes 900 L”. Only the works orders that really use this parent’s material are in the group. |
| Finished good | The demand plan lines those works orders were made for. Where the plan wanted more than this branch makes, the caption reads “Makes 900 · of 1,100 wanted”. |
| Customer | A customer’s confirmed orders for that product: the customer’s name, the first order’s reference and due date, and +N more when there are several. The quantity reads “Wants 600 EA”. The panel lists every order with its reference, due date and quantity, and marks one that is not confirmed. |
| Contract | A sales contract’s firm scheduled deliveries, shown as Contract SC-… under the customer’s name. |
| Contract (call-off) | The same contract’s call-off — committed volume with no dates yet — on a branch of its own, reading Contract SC-… call-off. It is kept apart from the firm rows because it is a different kind of promise. |
| Forecast | Demand nobody has ordered: the card reads Forecast only. This is the branch to look at first when you are deciding what can slip. |
| Removed demand | Demand the plan was built for that no longer exists — “Works order no longer exists”, “Demand plan line no longer exists”. The quantity is still in the plan, so it is shown rather than hidden. |
Reading up: from a customer
Up answers “what does this order need, and from whom?” It walks the same links the other way: the roots are Customer, Contract, a contract’s call-off, Forecast and Removed demand; below them come Finished good, Works orders, Purchase and finally Supplier.
Every quantity below a root is that root’s share. A card says whose it is and what it came out of — for example “600 kg for this customer · of a 1,200 kg line” on a purchase, or “600 L for this customer · of 900 L planned” on a group of works orders. The phrase changes with the root: for this customer, for this contract, for the forecast, for removed demand. A root card itself shows the plain quantity, because there is nothing above it to take a share of.
A procurement plan has to be in force before a works order will show what it needs. The materials under a works order are read off the procurement plan, not off the recipe, so with no procurement plan there is nothing to read and the card says “What this needs cannot be shown until a procurement plan is in force.” rather than “Nothing is recorded under this.” The step that produces one is step 4 of the Planning Cycle, Work out what to buy — or Generate Procurement Plan on an approved production plan, which is the same thing.
A component that is not bought
Not every ingredient of a works order has a purchase line. Where there is none, the branch ends in a card chipped Not bought, and its badge says why:
| Badge | What it means |
|---|---|
| “Covered by stock — nothing to buy” | You already hold enough. Nothing to do. |
| “Covered by stock and orders — nothing to buy” | Stock alone is short, but what is already on order closes the gap. Check those orders are still coming. |
| “Covered by stock and batches in progress — nothing to buy” | It is something you make, and a batch already on the floor will yield the rest. |
| “Its batch has already taken this — nothing more to buy” | The works order’s batch has recorded taking the whole of it. Deliberately not “covered by stock”: there may be no stock at all, because the batch has taken it. There is simply nothing left for this works order to need. |
| “Not covered by stock or orders, and not bought” | Act. Nothing covers it and nothing is being bought for it. Read the works order’s notes on the production plan. |
| “Not bought yet: needed after this plan’s period” | The need falls outside the procurement plan’s period, so a later cycle buys it. Normal. |
| “Not bought, and whether stock covers it cannot be worked out” | A quantity could not be put into the product’s stock unit, so the answer is unknown rather than zero. Add the unit conversion. |
| “Not bought: the procurement plan’s warnings name it” | The procurement plan refused it and said why. Open the plan’s Notes. |
Its quantity caption reads “Needs 40 kg”, or, below a root, “Needs 24 kg for this customer · of 40 kg for these works orders”. Where the need itself could not be worked out it says “Need could not be worked out”.
Trace from a plan line
Every line of a demand plan, a production plan and a procurement plan carries a Trace button at the end of the row. It opens this screen on that line:
- A purchase line opens the tree down from that purchase — what this order is for.
- A works order or a demand plan line opens it up — what this line needs, and from whom.
- The path from the root to the line is expanded for you, and the line itself is highlighted.
A line cannot always be placed. When that happens the page says so at the top and offers Show the whole tree, which drops the deep link and keeps the direction:
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| “This line isn’t on the plans in force (DP-…, PP-…, PR-…), so it can’t be placed in the tree.” | You opened a plan that has been replaced. Work from the plans named in the message. |
| “This line is on PR-… (executing), which is not one of the plans in force (…), so it can’t be placed in the tree. Its purchase order still counts as stock on order.” | Nothing is lost: the older plan raised real orders, and the plans in force counted them as supply. The second sentence appears only where the line was actually ordered. |
| “This line is on PR-… (executing), and there are no plans in force yet, so it can’t be placed in the tree.” | This site has no demand plan at all, so there is no chain to place anything on — usually a site whose plans were all archived. Run the Planning Cycle. The stock-on-order sentence is added here too where the line was ordered, and there is no Show the whole tree button, because there is no tree to show. |
| “This line is on the plans in force, but the plan doesn’t record what it’s for. Regenerate the plan to trace it.” | The plan was generated before tracing existed. Regenerate it and the branches appear. |
The badges
| Badge | Means |
|---|---|
| Pending / Ordered PO-… / Received / Cancelled | Where the purchase has got to. Received is shown in green. |
| Late | The order is expected after it is needed. It is coming, but not in time for the works order below it. |
| Overdue | A purchase still pending whose order-by date has passed. Nobody has ordered it yet and the window has gone. |
| Covered by stock, Covered by stock and orders, Covered by stock and batches in progress, Covered by stock, batches in progress and orders | What closes the gap, and in that order: usable stock first, then batches already being made, then orders. The badge names only what was actually needed. |
| No cover badge at all | On a group of works orders, and on a finished good reached going down — and on a purchase. Their quantity is what is still to be bought or made, so nothing shown on the card can cover it. See Why a works-order group gives no verdict. |
| Orders overdue | The cover needed an order, and part of what is on order is already late. It still counts as supply — it has not stopped being on order — but the panel names how much and since when: “370 L since 10 Aug”. |
| ⚠ warning icon | The line has a note. Hover it to read the note, or open the card’s panel, where the same notes are listed under Needs attention. |
A purchase line carries no cover badge at all. A purchase is the answer to a shortfall, so judging it against stock would be circular. Its On hand and On order figures are still in the panel, beside Stock notes saying what was left out or counted — “Excludes 40 kg expired, 20 kg on hold”, “Includes 40 kg frozen, past its date”.
Why a works-order group gives no verdict
Open a group of works orders, or a finished good reached going down, and you get figures but no verdict: On hand, On order, In production and Promised to batches are all in the panel, and no badge says whether the branch is covered. That is the screen declining to answer, on purpose — not failing to decide.
The quantity on such a card is a net figure. It is what the plans decided still has to be bought or made after stock, batches in progress, batch claims and arrivals were already taken off it. So nothing shown on the card can cover it. Every one of those figures was deducted before the number you are reading was arrived at.
It used to read “Covered by orders”, and that was worse than saying nothing. Arrivals are counted week by week, so the orders listed on the card are the very orders the plan had already deducted, in the weeks they land in — the badge restated a deduction that had already happened. A branch covered by nothing except an order the plan had counted once was reported as settled.
What is on order and overdue is still named. Nothing has been hidden along with the verdict:
- The panel still shows On hand, On order, In production and Promised to batches — the last of those is the Committed figure, what open batches have recorded taking and not yet posted. “Cannot be worked out” appears in place of any figure that could not be put into the product’s stock unit.
- Overdue still reads “370 L since 10 Aug” where part of what is on order is late.
- Stock notes still say what was left out or counted — “Excludes 40 kg expired, 20 kg on hold”.
- Any warnings the line carries still appear, on the card and under Needs attention in the panel.
And because such a card has no verdict, “Show only branches at risk” never hides it. A node whose verdict is unknown is kept, so nothing stops being flagged.
Show only branches at risk
The switch at the top hides every branch that is settled — covered, not late, not overdue, with nothing overdue among the orders that cover it, and with no warnings. What is left is what needs a decision. When everything is settled the page reads “Nothing is at risk.”
The switch reloads the level you are on, so turn it on before expanding rather than after.
It filters the levels that carry a verdict. A card with no cover verdict of its own is never hidden — a supplier; a purchase line, which is the answer to a shortfall rather than something judged against stock; and a works-order group or a finished good reached going down, whose quantity is already net of everything that could cover it. So turning the switch on at the top of the down direction will not shorten the list of suppliers. Expand one and the filtering bites from there down. Reading up it works from the roots.
When the tree is empty
| What it says | What it means, and what to do |
|---|---|
| “No plans in force yet — run the Planning Cycle.” | This site has no demand plan at all, so there is no chain to draw. The link opens the Planning Cycle. |
| “There is no procurement plan in force yet: production plan PP-… has not been taken through procurement, so there is no purchase to follow down from a supplier. Run procurement in the Planning Cycle to fill this in.” | Going down starts at the purchases, and none have been worked out. Press Work out what to buy on step 4 of the Planning Cycle. Reading up still works, as far as the works orders — see the row below. Where the screen made that switch for you it says so first: “There is no procurement plan in force yet, so there is nothing to follow down from a supplier. This is what each order needs, and from whom, instead.” |
| On a card: “What this needs cannot be shown until a procurement plan is in force.” | You expanded a group of works orders reading up, and nothing came back. A works order’s materials are read off the procurement plan, so with none in force that level is unknown, not empty — which is why the card says this rather than “Nothing is recorded under this.” Press Work out what to buy on step 4 of the Planning Cycle and expand again. |
| On a card: “Nothing is recorded under this.” / “Nothing under this is at risk.” | The card was expanded and the level below really is empty. The second wording appears only with Show only branches at risk on — there is something under it, and none of it needs a decision. |
| “Procurement plan PR-… found nothing to buy: everything is covered by stock and orders.” | An answer, not a fault. There is nothing to buy, so there is nothing to draw going down. |
| “Procurement plan PR-… has no open purchase lines.” | Every line has been cancelled. A cancelled line is not in force and is never drawn. |
| “Nothing on demand plan DP-… can be traced to an order, contract or forecast yet. A demand plan generated before tracing existed shows nothing here until it is regenerated.” | Regenerate the demand plan and work forward again. Plans made before this feature shipped recorded no links. |
| “Nothing is at risk.” | Only with Show only branches at risk on. Turn it off to see everything. |
| On a card: “Regenerate the procurement plan to see what these purchases are for.” / “…the production plan to see what these works orders are for.” / “…the demand plan to see what this demand is for.” | That one plan predates tracing, so its branch stops there. Regenerate the plan it names. |
A read that fails shows the reason with a Try again button rather than an empty tree, and a failed expand leaves the rest of the tree where it was.
Availability and permissions
- Part of the Demand Planning module, which requires Manufacturing and Orders. See Getting started with Demand Planning.
- Scoped to your current site, like the rest of Demand Planning. Another site’s plans are never drawn here.
- A site is not a security boundary. The site selector decides which site’s plans are drawn, and it keeps another site’s out of your way. It is a working scope, not a wall: a user who can open this screen and change site can read that site’s tree. The real boundary is the account — nothing belonging to another account is reachable at all. Do not use sites to keep figures from a colleague; use roles.
- Anyone who can view production plans can open it.
- It changes nothing. There is no action on this screen; it reads the plans and shows you what they say.
Things to know
- One level is read at a time. Expanding a card asks the server for its children then and there, which is what keeps a deep chain usable. Nothing is loaded until you ask for it.
- Cancelled purchases and works orders are not in force. They do not appear, and they never make a card expandable.
- A draft can be the plan in force when nothing has been approved. Its status is printed in the line above the tree for exactly that reason.
- Quantities in different units are not added up. A branch that spans units shows each figure in its own unit rather than one meaningless total.
- Plans generated before tracing existed show no branches. The links between a purchase, a works order and the demand behind it are written when a plan is generated, so an older plan has none. Regenerate it.
- Call-off is shown under its contract, not the forecast. It is committed volume, even though it competes with the forecast in the demand plan’s arithmetic — putting it on the forecast branch would make a promise look like a projection.
- The tree follows the plans in force, and only those. The chain is the demand plan in force, its production plan, and that production plan’s procurement plan. A procurement plan still executing from an older chain is therefore not on the tree — but its purchase orders are real, and the plans in force counted them as stock on order. Tracing one of its lines says so in as many words.
- A works-order group gives figures, not a verdict. Its quantity is already net of stock, batches, claims and arrivals, so nothing on the card can cover it. It used to say “Covered by orders”, which restated a deduction the plan had already made. See Why a works-order group gives no verdict.
- A works order shows what it needs only once procurement has run. Its materials come from the procurement plan, not the recipe, so step 4 of the Planning Cycle has to have produced one.
- Every figure is the plan’s own. Nothing here is recalculated, so what the tree says and what the plan says cannot disagree. If a number looks wrong, the plan is where it was decided.