Dynamics 365 Master Planning: Revealing the mystery of the Requested date versus the Requirement date

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations apps provide both a requirement date and requested date, and the differences between them can be unclear. The requirement date is the date we will see most prominently. It is the date that is used for the MRP calculation. Both the demand and the supply transactions have the requirement date. In the Net Requirement screen for an item, the only date we will ever see is the requirement date.

Then why do we need a “Requested date”? Who is doing the requesting?  The functionality of the requested date is not immediately clear. That is the reason for this article.  There is no simple answer on what the requested date represents. It depends on the scenario. Often, the requested date is the original demand date that reminds the user of what the requirement date used to be before something happened. Often, when the requirement date is not equal to the requested date, an action message will be generated.  But not always. Let’s go into detailed testing.  

Requested date: there are two!

First of all, surprise, there are TWO requested dates. You will find the field “Requested date” in two places:

1. In the planned order grid.
2. In the pegging fast tab of the planned order.

The fields have the same name, but these are, in reality, two different fields and they never have the same value: If one has a value, the other is blank and the other way around. 

Four ways requirement date can be different from requested date

1.Using a Receive safety margin

When we are using a receive safety margin in the Coverage group or in the Master plan, a planned Purchase order will get a delivery date that is earlier then the official requirement date when it is needed. We knew that already. Now what is the Requested date doing?