App Overview
Reverse Planning is a supply chain planning app for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that gives planners a faster, more transparent alternative to BC's native planning engine. Where the native planning engine runs a full regenerative or net-change plan across everything, Reverse Planning lets planners run targeted, template-driven calculations for exactly the items, locations, and scenarios they need — and see the results in a dedicated journal before anything is committed to actual orders.
The app is built around a common infrastructure — Planning Templates, the Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet, and a shared journal engine — but exposes four distinct planning journals, each solving a different problem. A planner can use just one journal or all four, depending on their role and process. The journals are independent: running Simple MRP has no effect on Move Demand Dates, and vice versa. They do share a common output: all four journals carry lines to the Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet, where purchase orders, production orders, and transfer orders are created using BC's standard Carry Out Action Message mechanism.
Beyond the four journals, the app includes two supporting tools: Sales Order Handling, which provides a controlled staging area for date changes to sales orders before they are written back, and Rolled Up Lead Time, which calculates cumulative procurement and production lead times through BOM structures and feeds them back into the planning horizon calculations.
Feature Map
Use this table to find the right article for your planning task.
| Feature | What it solves | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Simple MRP | Which items need replenishment, and how much? Calculates supply needs based on demand, inventory levels, and reorder parameters. | Purchasing Planner, Production Planner |
| Move Demand Dates | Which sales orders and production orders can no longer be fulfilled on time? Proposes new dates aligned with available supply. | Sales Coordinator, Logistics Planner |
| Direct Replenishment | I know what I want to order — I just need a context-rich journal to do it efficiently. Ad hoc and manual supply creation without MRP triggers. | Purchasing Planner |
| Identify Overstock | Which items have more inventory than we need? Finds items exceeding configurable quantity and value thresholds. | Inventory Manager |
| Sales Order Handling | Review and approve proposed shipment date changes before they are written back to sales orders. | Sales Coordinator, Logistics Planner |
| Rolled Up Lead Time | What is the total procurement time for a produced item including all components? Calculates the critical path through the BOM. | Production Planner, Planning Administrator |
Common Infrastructure
Several concepts and pages are shared across multiple features. Understanding them once makes all the feature articles easier to follow.
Planning Templates
Every calculation in Simple MRP, Move Demand Dates, and Direct Replenishment is driven by a Planning Template. A template is a saved configuration record that defines what a calculation includes: which demand types (sales orders, production components, service orders, forecasts), which supply types (purchase orders, production orders, transfers), the date range, the trigger condition, item filters, and automation flags.
Templates are reusable and per-feature — Simple MRP templates are separate from Move Demand Dates templates. Each journal has its own template list, but the structure and fields are largely the same. Templates can be categorised, copied, and refreshed from Abakion standard defaults.
When you run a calculation, you select or accept a template on the request page. The template's settings drive everything that follows. Changing the template changes the output — no code changes required.
Order Quantity Templates and Date Templates
Order Quantity Templates control how the Suggest Quantity to Order action fills in the order quantity on Simple MRP and Direct Replenishment lines. They define what to calculate from (lowest projected inventory, end inventory, etc.), what to calculate to (safety stock, reorder point, maximum inventory, etc.), and whether to apply order modifiers (minimum, maximum, order multiple).
Date Templates are linked to Order Quantity Templates and control how the suggested due date is set — for example, backward from the first date inventory falls below zero, or forward from the reorder point date. These two templates together make Suggest Quantity to Order a fully configurable, repeatable quantity and date proposal engine.
The Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet
The Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet is the shared downstream journal for Simple MRP, Move Demand Dates, and Direct Replenishment. When you run Carry Out Action Message in any of those journals, the accepted lines land here as standard BC requisition lines. From the worksheet, the standard BC Carry Out Action Message creates the actual purchase, production, or transfer orders.
The Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet adds several capabilities on top of BC's standard requisition journal: total volume and weight footers, Create Purchase Quotes action, Update Due Date and Update Starting Date batch actions, Update Vendor No. batch action, and a shortcut to Identify Overstock.
Each user has their own named worksheet batch, configured in the Reverse Planning – Worksheet Setup page. Multiple planners can work in parallel without interfering with each other's batches.
Journal Batch Names
Every journal in Reverse Planning — Simple MRP, Move Demand Dates, Direct Replenishment, and the Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet — uses named journal batches that are personal to each user. The batch is configured once in Reverse Planning – Worksheet Setup and is remembered between sessions. The batch name is visible at the top of each journal page and can be changed via lookup if you need to work in a different batch.
Item Filter Templates and SKU Filter Templates
Item Filter Templates save a BC item filter (on any combination of item fields — vendor, category, low-level code, location, etc.) as a reusable template that can be linked to a Planning Template. This means the same template can always calculate for the same item scope without re-entering filters manually.
SKU Filter Templates do the same for the Stockkeeping Unit table — useful for restricting calculations to items with Transfer replenishment, or to SKUs at a specific location.
Typical Planning Workflows
Daily purchase planning (Simple MRP)
- Run Simple MRP with a template covering purchase items for the next 8 weeks.
- Click Suggest Quantity to Order to auto-fill quantities.
- Review lines, adjust if needed.
- Carry Out Action Message → Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet.
- Carry Out Action Message in the worksheet → purchase orders created.
Weekly delivery review (Move Demand Dates + Sales Order Handling)
- Run Move Demand Dates to identify sales orders that cannot be fulfilled on time.
- Review suggested new dates and action messages in the journal.
- Accept relevant lines → Carry Out Action Message → Sales Order Handling.
- In Sales Order Handling, optionally run Calculate First Possible Shipment Date for lines without a date proposal.
- Apply safety buffer and weekday rounding via Update New Promised Delivery Date.
- Carry Out Action Message → sales order dates updated.
Month-end overstock review (Identify Overstock)
- Open Identify Overstock with an Overstock Template targeting items above 3× reorder quantity.
- Run the calculation including forecast and planning lines for the next 6 months.
- Review the result list sorted by inventory value.
- For flagged items, open the related purchase orders and reduce or cancel as appropriate.
Production planning across BOM levels (Simple MRP with all low-level codes)
- Run Calculate Rolled Up Lead Time to refresh cumulative lead times.
- Run Simple MRP with a template that has Run for all Low Level Codes enabled.
- The calculation automatically cascades through BOM levels, creating supply suggestions at every level.
- Carry out to the Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet → production and purchase orders created.
Integration with Other Abakion Apps
| App | Integration |
|---|---|
| Flexible Forecast | Simple MRP and Direct Replenishment can include a demand forecast as demand. Lines from both journals can be converted to forecast entries via Convert to Forecast. |
| Assign Quantity | Planning Templates can use assigned quantities on sales lines, transfer orders, production components, and assembly orders instead of the standard quantity field. |
| Graphical Inventory Profile | Available as an action in all four journals and in the Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet, giving a visual inventory curve for the selected item. |
| Master Data Information | The Copy Group from Master Data setting in Reverse Planning Setup allows the Reverse Planning Group field on sales lines to be populated automatically from MDI item attributes. |
| Purchase Order Management | Planning Templates for Simple MRP and Identify Overstock can use proposed dates from the Purchase Order Management journal instead of actual purchase order dates. |
Setup
The setup user stories below cover the initial configuration of Reverse Planning — from creating your first Planning Template to configuring journal batches for your team. Work through the Core Setup section first. The remaining sections are independent and can be completed in any order based on which features you are activating.
Core Setup
SETUP-01: Load the standard template library
As a Planning Administrator
I want to load Abakion's standard Planning Templates, Order Quantity Templates, Item Filter Templates, SKU Filter Templates, and Date Templates in one action
So that the planning setup is ready to use immediately with best-practice defaults, without having to build templates from scratch
Setup:
- Open Reverse Planning – Simple MRP from the Reverse Planning Role Center.
- Open Planning Templates from the action bar.
- Click Refresh Standard Templates.
- The system creates the full standard template library including all categories, template chains, and linked sub-templates. Standard templates are marked as Standard Template so they can be refreshed again later without affecting custom templates.
Note: If this is the first time the Planning Templates page is opened, standard templates are created automatically. Use Refresh Standard Templates when upgrading to a new version of Reverse Planning to get the latest Abakion defaults.
SETUP-02: Configure a journal batch for each planner
As a Planning Administrator
I want to set up a personal journal batch for each planner so that each person has their own named batch in Simple MRP, Move Demand Dates, Direct Replenishment, and the Reverse Planning – Planning Worksheet
So that multiple planners can run calculations and review results in parallel without overwriting each other's work
Setup:
- Open Reverse Planning – Worksheet Setup from the Reverse Planning Role Center.
- For each planner, create a line with their User ID and assign a Journal Batch Name for their personal batch.
- The batch name is used across all journals. When the planner opens any Reverse Planning journal for the first time, the system uses this batch.
- Multiple planners can have different batch names, or share a batch if their planning responsibilities overlap.
SETUP-03: Review and adjust the Reverse Planning Setup
As a Planning Administrator
I want to review the global Reverse Planning Setup record to ensure the app behaves correctly for our planning process
So that settings like sales date alignment and supply change visibility are correct before planners start using the journals
Setup:
- Open Reverse Planning Setup from the Reverse Planning Role Center.
- Review and configure:
- Align Sales Dates per Group — when enabled, Move Demand Dates aligns the shipment date across all lines with the same Reverse Planning Group on a sales order, using the latest possible common date. Requires the Reverse Planning Group field on sales lines to be populated.
- Hide Supply Changes — when enabled, action messages that only affect existing supply (Reschedule, Cancel) are hidden in Move Demand Dates, keeping the journal focused on demand-side actions.
- Copy Group from Master Data — when enabled, the Reverse Planning Group field on sales lines is automatically populated from a Master Data Information specification. Requires Master Data Information to be installed.
- Save.
Planning Template Setup
Complete this section to create or customise Planning Templates beyond the standard library.
SETUP-04: Create a custom Planning Template for a specific buyer or product group
As a Planning Administrator
I want to create a Planning Template for a specific vendor group — for example, all items supplied by a particular vendor — with a tailored date range and calculation scope
So that the buyer responsible for that vendor group can run their own focused calculation without affecting other planners' results
Setup:
- Open Planning Templates from the Simple MRP journal.
- Click New and set Planning Feature to Simple MRP.
- Enter a Code and Description that identify the vendor or product group.
- Set Default Start Date Formula and Default End Date Formula for the calculation window.
- In the Item Filter Template field, select or create an Item Filter Template that filters to the relevant vendor.
- Configure demand and supply types as needed for this scope.
- Link an Order Quantity Template to enable automatic quantity suggestion.
- Save. The template is now available when the buyer runs their calculation.
SETUP-05: Set up Order Quantity Templates for automatic quantity calculation
As a Planning Administrator
I want to configure an Order Quantity Template that calculates how much to order based on the item's reorder parameters
So that planners can click Suggest Quantity to Order and get a ready-to-carry-out order quantity without manual calculation
Setup:
- Open Planning Templates from the Simple MRP journal, open the relevant template, and navigate to the Order Quantity Template field. Open the lookup.
- Create a new Order Quantity Template with:
- Calculate From: Lowest Inventory (top up from the lowest projected inventory level).
- Calculate To: Maximum Inventory (order up to the item's Maximum Inventory).
- Use Order Modifiers: enabled (applies Minimum, Maximum, and Order Multiple from item/SKU card).
- Link a Date Template if you want the suggested due date to reflect the first date inventory falls below a threshold (e.g. below Safety Stock).
- Set Past Planning Policy to Warning Only so planners are alerted when a suggested order date falls in the past.
- Save and link the Order Quantity Template to the relevant Planning Templates.
Sales Date Alignment Setup
Complete this section if you use Move Demand Dates and want to align shipment dates across order lines with the same delivery group.
SETUP-06: Populate the Reverse Planning Group field on sales lines
As a Planning Administrator
I want to ensure the Reverse Planning Group field is populated on sales order lines so that Move Demand Dates can align shipment dates across lines that belong to the same delivery group
So that all lines for the same customer delivery are always moved to the same date, preventing partial shipment proposals
Setup:
- Open Reverse Planning Setup and verify Align Sales Dates per Group is enabled.
- The Reverse Planning Group field on sales order lines can be populated in three ways:
- Manually: open the sales order line and set the Reverse Planning Group field directly.
- Via Copy from Sales Header: on the sales order, use the Copy Group from Header action to copy the order number to all lines as their group value.
- Via Master Data Information: if MDI is installed, enable Copy Group from Master Data in Reverse Planning Setup and configure the relevant MDI code. The group is then populated automatically from the item's specification when the sales line is created.
- Verify the setup by running Move Demand Dates on an order with multiple lines — lines sharing a Reverse Planning Group should receive the same proposed date.
Rolled Up Lead Time Setup
Complete this section if you use production BOMs and want the planning horizon in Simple MRP to reflect the full cumulative lead time of produced items.
SETUP-07: Calculate Rolled Up Lead Times before going live with production planning
As a Production Planner
I want to calculate the rolled-up lead time for all produced items before using Reverse Planning for production planning
So that templates using Calculation Period = Rolled Up Lead Time correctly reflect the actual cumulative procurement time through the BOM
Setup:
- Open Reverse Planning – Simple MRP from the Reverse Planning Role Center.
- Click Calculate Rolled up Lead Time in the action bar. Run the report for all relevant items.
- After the calculation completes, navigate to Rolled up Lead Times from the Navigate menu to verify the results look correct for key produced items.
- Schedule a recurring job or run this calculation periodically when BOM structures or routing times change.