Blog

Articles about the Anaplan Community and Connected Planning

Make an Impact — Be an Anaplan Group Leader!
Anaplan Groups are where people with similar interests, business goals, or objectives can interact and collaborate along their Connected Planning journeys. Through a wide variety of member-driven events and dedicated Community spaces, group members can discuss and exchange best practices, collaborate on challenges, and…
2022 Solution Architect and Certified Model Builder Certification Requirements
Being a Certified Model Builder, Certified Solution Architect or Certified Master Anaplanner means that you’re an expert and highly qualified. You need to stay up to date on all the latest product releases and best practices, to maintain your certification and to enhance your expertise. Please review this new information…
How to Avoid the Top Anaplan Implementation Mistakes, Continued
Back in June, we were so fortunate to have nearly 700 people attend our live session discussing ways to avoid some of the most challenging Anaplan implementation tasks. In this blog, we summarize the top 10 as well as add a few more that were brought up by you during the session. Discover the best ways to prevent the most…
Anaplan’s Intelligence Capabilities Deliver Real-Time Insights
Rapid and unanticipated market changes require business leaders to leverage internal and external data to predict the future, rather than extrapolate from the past, in order to orchestrate the business performance needed for tomorrow. A modern, intuitive, intelligent, and holistic approach to planning that breaks down…
Helping Customers Implement New Functionality and Features
In the 16 months from March 2020 to July 2021, business, government, and social organizations in the United States have faced unprecedented challenges to their very survival, as well as vast uncertainty about when there would be a return to normal economic conditions, or even what “the new normal” might look like. But now…
Move Data Faster With Model-to-Model Import in CloudWorks
Model-to-model import is now available in CloudWorks! Easy to set up and ready to use, model-to-model import helps you automatically move data from one model to another—on the schedule that’s right for you and without additional IT resources. With CloudWorks, Connected Planning has never been easier—you can distribute data…
How to Make the Most of Mentorship
I'm fortunate to have had multiple helpful mentors throughout my career. From each, I’ve gained invaluable insights across a variety of areas (including job search, negotiation, and real estate). That’s the beauty of mentorship: no matter your goals, you can partner with someone that has “been there, done that” and work…
Get On-Demand DigitalCPX + Anaplan Live! Content
More than 3,000 people attended DigitalCPX + Anaplan Live! in June. The two-day global event kicked off with a lively discussion about how critical model builders are supporting executives in achieving their goals of thriving in the "next normal." Anaplan Live! offered technical sessions with an interactive Q&A that…
Top 10 Helpful Tips From Anaplan Learners
With so many new Anaplan learners joining the Community, everyone is at a different place on their journey—some just starting, others in the middle, and still others already finished and offering support or assistance to their peers. Recently, we invited members of the Learner's Lounge Group to share something they've…
My Road to Master Anaplanner
My Sign Story The power of social media and the power of good people—precisely what I realized during the longest job search of my early career back in the summer of 2018. Rejection after rejection, automated robotic email after email, and hundreds of recruiters, applications, and "get to know you" meetings later, I was…
Improving Forecast Accuracy
Improving forecast accuracy often features the business value expected from a system implementation like Anaplan for demand planning. In reality, forecast accuracy is not a business value—but it contributes to business value in terms of better service levels and economic inventory levels. Often, customers want to improve…
Using Anaplan to Prepare College and University Budgets
In the last 15 months, colleges and universities (perhaps more than any other sector of business and society) have faced enormous challenges when it comes to preparing annual budgets and long-range financial plans. There was great uncertainty about the major drivers of revenue such as enrollments, government support, and…
Congratulations to the Inaugural Class of Anaplan for All Fellows!
Anaplan for All is a first-of-its-kind program that opens doors for professionals from underrepresented backgrounds and connects them with jobs in the Anaplan Community. This spring, 45 fellows were selected from a pool of over 8,500 applicants. Each fellow first completed a 13-week data science training program led by…
Anaplan Community Recognized as an Industry Leader
In the last several years, a growing body of research supports the proposition that communities provide tremendous value—to their members as well as to business. Here at the Anaplan Community, this has been a guiding principle of everything we do since we launched this site. We are here to support, inspire, and connect…
Documentation: It Starts With the 'Why'
Documentation is one word that gives most model builders a cold shiver. It’s associated with binders full of information lost in archives or the output of rushed efforts to complete an implementation. As an Anaplan partner, we come across a bandwidth of different approaches to Anaplan model documentation. Let's discuss our…
Higher Ed: Optimize Resource Allocation for Financial Sustainability
In the past year, business, government, and civic and cultural institutions faced enormous challenges that forced them to re-evaluate and change how they operate in order to survive. This was especially the case in the higher education sector, which was already under pressure to adapt its business model to keep up with…
The Evolution of Talent Builder: Career Search
June 2023 update: please note this is an older blog post and the information has changed. Please go here for an overview of all our training programs. ………. During the March 2020 Anaplan Live! event, I announced a new initiative aimed at growing talent in the Anaplan ecosystem. We called it Anaplan Talent Builder. This…
Survey Opportunities: Share Your Anaplan Experience
On occasion, the industry analyst community will approach Anaplan for customer insights, typically to inform research, and most often, in survey form. We have two such opportunities in motion for the month of May. The first comes from the BPM Partner community, which is currently preparing its annual Vendor Landscape…
Leveraging the Anaplan Community in a Remote World
It doesn’t take a genius to articulate the vast change that COVID-19 made in our work environments. The days of being able to walk over to a colleague’s desk for support are no more. The pivot to working in an entirely remote world challenged our teams to be resourceful in order to continue delivering superior end results…
Anaplan Live!: Upcoming Events and New On-Demand Videos
Packed with valuable insights from top Anaplan experts and thought leaders, Anaplan Live! is a free, virtual event series designed with model builders, end-users, and learners in mind. The reoccurring event lets attendees interact in real-time with presenters and fellow Anaplanners, getting all the benefits of an in-person…
Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly: A Supply Chain Optimization Journey
During the past months, the supply chain world has experienced several major disruptions (COVID-19, the Suez Canal blockage, etc.). Agile supply chain planning and fast decision-making have become more important than ever. On the other hand, due to the increasing complexity of value chains, decision-making is becoming more…
Optimizing Your Budget for Success in Challenging Times
In these challenging times, corporate balance sheets have been stressed, the way people work has been turned upside-down and the future for many businesses has never been more uncertain. This has created greater urgency for companies to look at how they spend their money and find new and better ways to plan for the future.…
5 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Anaplan Groups
Anaplan Groups exist to help you go further in your Anaplan journey by sharing and collaborating with like-minded peers. In essence, Groups are micro-communities within the larger Anaplan Community, each built around a specific region, topic, or another unifying theme that brings people together. Groups provide places to…
Thank You, Anaplan Community
During the last year—amid some very different and challenging times—we’ve seen the importance and impact of community. Whether it’s the physical community we live in or the community we choose to be part of, having a group of people to lean on helps us meet challenges through a shared purpose and journey. Our Anaplan…
Capture the Value of Rebates Through Connected Planning
Large organizations receive a variety of discounts in the form of rebates. And while these rebates present a great opportunity, it’s far too easy for the company to lose track of the many offerings, receipts, invoices, and payments that come with them. This problem results in a decentralization of data—with information…
Planning From the Ridge
In February of this year, I was in the middle of the third grueling 2,000-foot ascent up a mountain on the second day of a three-night backcountry yurt trip when I conceptualized the power of Anaplan’s Connected Planning solution. “Strategize and collaborate with agility amid constant change"—the words on Anaplan’s…
Scenario Planning in Anaplan, Part II: From Insight to Action
In my recent blog post titled Scenario Planning in Anaplan, Part I: The Power of 'What If', I introduced the key steps needed for effective scenario planning in Anaplan and focused on the mechanisms to develop a forecast ('what') and evaluate the impact of forecast events ('so what'). In this second part, we look to move…
The 3 Pillars of Connected Planning: Part 4—Connecting the Pillars
In the first part of “The 3 Pillars of Connected Planning” series, the Community team spoke with Chief Planning Officer Simon Tucker ( @simon_tucker) about the importance of the 'people' pillar of Connected Planning and the need for a cultural shift within an organization. In part two, we took a look at the 'data' pillar…
The Key to Aligning Missions at Academic Medical Centers
Disjointed manual spreadsheets are common pain points expressed by our higher ed clients. You may be able to consolidate all academic departments using the same templates on separate tabs, but what if you have a completely separate operating unit with an entirely different model? Or perhaps you have a legacy system in…
#ChooseToChallenge on International Women's Day
Today we celebrate International Women's Day. On March 8 every year, we celebrate the social, political, and economic achievements of women. Beyond celebrating achievements, the day helps raise awareness about women's equality, lobby to accelerate gender parity, and fundraise for women-focused charities. This year's…