Carry out all the steps needed to set up your planning area. The planning area is the basis for all activities in APO Demand Planning. It is a collection of parameters that define the scope of all planning tasks. The planning area is linked to the data mart. You load into the data mart the actual history (for example, bookings, shipments or billings) that wlíll be used to create the DP master data and generate the demand forecasts. See Planning Area Administration .