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Re: How I Built It: Data locking and validation within processes
@saglago that is fascinating, I definitely forgot about that specific functionality of Versions!
For reference, here is the mini lesson on that functionality:
It is useful for whenever input data has the Versions and Time dimensions - if you need to lock version data that is not on the time dimension, then you would need to use Dynamic Cell Access or some other method.
NoahJ
How I Built It: Data locking and validation within processes
Author: Noah Jackson is a Certified Master Anaplanner and Principal Data and Insights Architect at Anaplan.
Hello Anaplan Community! I’m excited to share this ‘How I Built It’ video with you.
In this tutorial, I walk you through two types of actions that you can add to your Anaplan processes to improve your data access control and validation:
- A “Lock” action and an “Unlock” action that you can use to easily toggle access between different steps of a process.
- A “Data Check” action that we will set up to intentionally fail and halt the process when further action is needed.
In my sample model I use the “Lock / Unlock” actions to allow a non-Admin end user to import into a table for which they should generally have read only access. I use the “Data Check” action to draw attention to when a new product is added and requires a decision point, which avoids having to re-run imports and reduces the risk of missed steps.
I think these concepts and some of the tips and tricks I cover could be useful in all sorts of contexts; leave a comment if you see something that you think might fit in your models!
Happy planning!
NoahJ
Re: L2 Sprint 1 exam attempts
Hang in there!
You get two attempts at the questions and two attempts at the exam. If you exceed that limit, send a note to academy@anaplan.com and they will visit with you about next steps, and most likely reset the attempts so you can take it again.
Make sure you join the Learner's Forum. Most questions about L2 are asked there and probably answered. You got this!!
February 2024 Community Member Spotlight: Alessio Pagliano
Join us in celebrating @Alessio_Pagliano as our featured Community Member Spotlight for February! Alessio's inspiring journey in the Anaplan ecosystem spans seven years, marked by notable achievements such as becoming a Certified Master Anaplanner and a Community Boss. Explore Alessio's impressive Anaplan journey and contributions below!
About Alessio
We asked Alessio about his background and history with Anaplan. Here’s what we learned!
As a Certified Master Anaplanner, I’ve immersed myself in the Anaplan ecosystem for seven years, wearing various hats for major multinationals. My journey spans both end user and consulting roles, covering a wide range of use cases. Recently, I embarked on an exciting new chapter as a solution architect at Puig.
With Puig’s hypergrowth and ambitious plans for the near future, we’re about to launch our first Anaplan models and I’m very excited to play a pivotal role in the adoption of the tool throughout the company.
We asked Alessio a few questions to get to know him.
Please share an Anaplan success story you’re proud of.
Over the years, I honed my skills working with similar planning tools like Oracle and IBM. In 2017, seeking a fresh challenge, I applied for a finance role in a project leveraging a cutting-edge technology called Anaplan. Despite lacking formal academic finance knowledge, I dedicated myself to learning, studying part-time alongside my new role.
In less than two years, I achieved an accounting diploma with merit, earned the coveted Master Anaplanner certification (back then I was a Certified Master Anaplanner number 89!), and gained invaluable project experiences. These accomplishments were rewarded with a well-deserved promotion.
My journey took an unexpected turn when I dared to dream beyond borders. Since 2005, the UK had been my home, but I harbored an impossible desire: to live and work in Spain, specifically in Sitges — a picturesque seaside gem near Barcelona. Language barriers and Anaplan’s relative obscurity in the country seemed insurmountable.
Fate intervened. A colleague introduced me to a large spirits multinational with an office in Barcelona, and suddenly, my dream became reality. Four years later, I’ve expanded my competencies, accumulated rich experiences, and — almost imperceptibly — become proficient in Spanish.
I am immensely proud of this journey and deeply grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with exceptional professionals and remarkable individuals.
Please share something you can teach about Anaplan — any tips and tricks you’d like to highlight?
Strive to remain well-informed about the roadmap, ensuring you stay up-to-date.
Explore the appropriate support plans to acquire relevant Anaplan certifications, working your way up to the prestigious Certified Master Anaplanner and progress at your own pace.
Moreover, actively engage with the Community. It serves as the optimal platform for knowledge sharing, learning, and expanding your professional network.
Remember, continuous learning and community involvement are key to your growth!
What do you enjoy about the Anaplan Community?
I highly value the Anaplan community as an exceptional resource for knowledge sharing and learning.
It consistently amazes me how swiftly high-quality solutions to complex problems can be obtained, fostering idea exchange and network building. Allow me to share a recent example and extend credit to two individuals. Approximately two weeks ago, I engaged in a discussion on a Community thread led by a Community Boss. The thread involved intricate and challenging questions related to integration, specifically utilizing Python with APIs. On that very day, both @pyrypeura and a former colleague, @M.Kierepka, generously shared their expertise. Subsequently, the Anaplan Operational Excellence Group (OEG) — renowned for their exceptional skills — directly addressed some of my inquiries, providing valuable insights and action points. Their responsiveness exemplifies the Community’s commitment to excellence.
As mentioned earlier, active participation in such communities contributes significantly to professional growth and development.
What's one thing on your bucket list that you hope to accomplish in the next year?
Throughout my previous professional roles, I played an active role in establishing, developing and expanding internal Anaplan Centers of Excellence (CoEs) with setup aligned to a company’s goals.
These CoEs fostered collaboration, growth, governance, best practices and overall success. I hold a firm belief that any company investing in Anaplan and aiming to maximize their ROI should prioritize CoE investment.
Drawing from my relevant experience, I am eager to be the CoE lead, driving this initiative, attract, nurture, and retain top talent, and witness the remarkable results we can achieve together.
On this topic, keep an eye on the job openings here. Particularly if you love the idea of living the dream in the sun and work together.
We currently have this one role advertised, but there could soon be others!
There are now 25 hours in a day! How do you spend your extra hour?
Undoubtedly, I would allocate the additional hour to my family, friends, and personal well-being. I acknowledge that the Anaplan role demands a relentless pace, especially since my transition into it. The primary challenge remains striking the delicate equilibrium between work commitments and personal life. Therefore, that extra hour is unequivocally reserved for my better half, family, close friends, and my recreational pursuits — be it padel, gym workouts, or even football, provided my knee permits!
…
We hope you enjoyed learning more about Alessio in this month’s Community Member Spotlight. Thank you, Alessio, for being an outstanding Community contributor and advocate!
Interested in learning more about our Community Member Spotlight series? Check out this post.
Do you know someone in the Community who you think should be featured in a Community Member Spotlight? We want to hear about it — please nominate them here.
Re: Summary Calculations With the User List
@JaredDolich @pallavi6.gupta @ashish.banka @alexpavel @AntonMineev @michael_park @kavinkumar
Since you folks had comments on the above, I wanted to alert you to a new feature and document that was released this morning and can be found here:
[UPDATED] Summary Calculations with the User List
Author: Rob Marshall, Director of Architecture and Performance at Anaplan, Operational Excellence Group (OEG).
Prior to the February 2024, users were not allowed to use aggregation functions (SUM, ALL, ANY, AVERAGE, FIRSTNONBLANK, LASTNONBLANK, MAX, MIN, RANK) when having the Users list in a module because the system could not aggregate the numbers to a top level. As of our February 2024 release, that has changed.
Prior to February 2024
First, let’s look at the previous behavior. In the below, I have an Input module with products in the row axis and Users in the column axis (if I were not a Workspace Admin, I would only see my own user ID).
Input Module:
If I wanted to get the total of Product Amounts, I would create a RPT module to sum the Amounts by Product, but I would get the following:
With the February 2024 update, this has changed!!!!
Users displayed under General Lists
The User list is now displayed under the General Lists menu under Contents, like all your other lists.
Highlight Users and click Open, you will have the same options as you do with other lists and can select Tree View, Grid View, Subsets, and Configure.
Clicking Configure, you can now add a Top Level Item. Enter the text you would like to use for the Top Level Item and click Apply.
Now, we can go back to the RPT module (dimensionalized by Product) and enter our SUM function.
Not only does this work for sum, but it works for all aggregation functions.
Subsets on Users
Going back to General Lists and clicking on the Users list, navigate to the Subsets tab. Click Insert and you can now add subsets to the Users list, which will behave the same as subsets defined on other lists.
Once defined, select the Grid View tab where you can define who is part of a certain subset.
*** Note, automation of the user subset definitions via an action is not currently possible, however we wanted to get this functionality (Users with a Top Level Item and User Subsets) out as quickly as we could since it has been one of the most requested enhancements.
In order to use the User Subsets in a module, you can select the subset the same way as you would with regular subsets. Notice, people can belong to more than one subset.
Or if you are already have a module defined and you want to add the subset, click the ellipsis on the right under Applies To in order to see the full list of lists.
The aggregation functions will work the same way with the User Subset.
Going back to our RPT module, we can now add two new line items to get the aggregation totals for the subsets.
No List and/or using Select
With the added Top Level, you can also get sums without having a list defined in the module (helpful for validation purposes) as well as using the Select function.
In conclusion, the use of aggregation functions can now be used with the Users list by adding a Top Level item to the list which is a great new feature.
Video:
rob_marshall
Re: Drive dimension selectors from undimensioned module
Hi
You can use context selectors .
otherwise
if you have system module then You should create a Boolean line item.And write a formula (Source Selection module Entity = system modle line-item entity same for Dept. Apply this in the target moduel)
Or
In the targe module crete two list formated as Entity and Dept Applies to also same dimesion to reduce cell count) and You should create a Boolean line item.And write a formula (Source Selection module Entity = Target module lineitem entity same for Dept. Apply this in the target moduel)
Hope its helps
Re: Scrolling issue?
Yes, I also have seen this frequently over the years and have been very frustrated by it. I don't know if it's a "feature" or something related to the browser version. Today, my Chrome version is Version 121.0.6167.161 and it doesn't seem to be happening right now.
Stacey
Re: Move Excel Worksheet with Anaplan connection to new workbook - Excel Add in
Hi @samval, thank you for the response!!
Re: Refresh data hub to Spoke model
Set up a module in the spoke that is dimensioned by your target list and that has a boolean you can use to delete from. We can set that to true before importing from the hub, and we import in a setting of false from the changed list on the hub. This means anything left set to true doesn't exist on the hub, so we can use this boolean to run a delete.
Create a process in the spoke that will…
- Set that boolean to true
- Import your list
- import into your 'delete' module from a saved view in the hub with a boolean set to false
- run a delete action
