APO cubes are within the APO datamart. They do receive data from BW which receives data from R/3. The data in APO are used by planning areas to classify the key figures and charactiristics to be used in the planning process. Planning books are created to provide different views of the data and also to receive data inputs. Macros also can be created to perform activities and formulas utilizing the data in the planning books. Macros are created in a similar concept as Excel macros, but in a very different mechamism called MacroBuilder.
Bellow is a quick and very high level flow to demonstarte the APO structure.
