Blog

Virtual event: Unlocking the Power of ACE + Anaplan Connect
Are you in interested in possibly attending our upcoming ACE event in San Diego June 5-7? (SoCal folks, we’re specifically talking to you!) Join us for a sneak peek into all that’s happening in San Diego for ACE! Date: Thursday, May 18 at 11 a.m. PST This event has ended. View the recording: Featuring team members from the…
Mentorship: Tips for creating self-sufficient Anaplanners
Author: Alejandro Gomez Sanchez, Certified Master Anaplanner, and Principal Consultant at Mentat Technology. Introduction I have been working as Anaplan consultant since January 2015. Before that — probably like many of you — my mind was arranged in a way that two-dimensional tables made perfect sense, while…
In memory of Matthew Kuo
It is with great sadness that we inform you of the unexpected passing of Matthew Kuo, a valued member of our community. Matthew became a Certified Master Anaplanner in 2018 and worked on the Anaplan platform for four years prior to that. During his time with us, he made a lasting impact on many individuals and contributed…
A conversation with Jared Dolich — Journey | Anaplan Community Podcast
Join Dennis Lemoine, Sr. Program Manager of Community Events, for our second episode of Journey, an Anaplan Community podcast. This month we are excited to feature a name many of you know — one of our most helpful Community members — Jared Dolich! Jared is a Certified Master Anaplanner, and partner and founder of…
How I Built It: Optimizer for work and play
Author: Brent Orr, Solution Architect at Anaplan. Hello Anaplanners! I’m excited to share a video that I created as part of the ‘How I Built It’ video series — diving into Optimizer and how it can help solve complex problems. In the video, I give a live demonstration of how to use Optimizer. I show an example of creating…
PLAN Ahead [May 2023 Community Newsletter]
Greetings, Anaplan Community! 🤗 We're delighted to bring you the latest edition of our monthly newsletter, where we showcase insightful articles, engaging discussions, our exceptional spotlight user, and more. Discover practical tips and valuable insights to help enhance your Anaplan experience and continue fostering…
ACE is back and in person in San Diego June 5-7!
The Anaplan Community Experience (ACE) will be joining together with Anaplan Connect in San Diego, to offer an incredible experience for Anaplan community members and users. Featuring inspiring keynotes and multiple breakout sessions focused on Your Anaplan Journey, a deeper look into Modeling & Data Management, plus…
Removing unnecessary Top Levels
Removing unnecessary Top Levels (or better yet, not adding them in the first place!) Author: Allison Slaught, Certified Master Anaplanner and Principle Solution Architect at Anaplan. To improve efficiency in your models, it’s important we only calculate where necessary. One way we can do that is to only use Top Levels…
April 2023 Community Member Spotlight: Bruno Rodriguez
In our monthly tradition of honoring our Community members, we're pleased to introduce our April Member Spotlight: Bruno Rodgriguez! Bruno has been an active Community member for 1.5 years and recently became a Certified Master Anaplanner in early 2023. Get ready to learn about Bruno as we highlight his talents and…
A conversation with Prince Ayinde — Journey | Anaplan Community Podcast
Join Dennis Lemoine, Sr. Program Manager of Community Events, for our first episode of Journey, an Anaplan Community podcast. If you joined us last fall for our ACE event, we premiered this episode back then, but never shared it with the broader Community — until now! We are thrilled to share episode one, featuring Prince…
Join our new ESG and Sustainability Group!
We are excited to announce that the Anaplan Community has a brand new group, focusing on topics of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Sustainability modeling. You can request membership here. If you’re interested in this space, you might also want to read the series of articles that group leader Steve Bows…
How I Built It: Data validation
Author: Matt Liffmann, Certified Master Anaplanner and Senior Solution Architect at Deloitte Consulting. Hi Anaplanners! My name is Matt Liffmann, and I’m a Senior Solution Architect at Deloitte Consulting. Today I’m excited to share a ‘How I Built It’ tutorial on data validation. Data validation in an upfront Data Hub is…
Five mentorship best practices from a Certified Master Anaplanner
Author: Mikhil Agarwal, Certified Master Anaplanner and Senior Solutions Consultant at VISEO. “With great power, comes great responsibility." Have you come across this popular adage? Being a Certified Master Anaplanner, I have always appreciated this saying. Why? Well, we are all aware of the countless benefits of being a…
Community perspective: Automate List Nodes Selective Access
Consider the following situation: There are times when we need to enable selective access for flat list nodes. Although Anaplan has native Users settings tab to manage list nodes access but if the number of list items are huge then managing the security using Users settings tab becomes challenging. This article will cover…
How I Built It: Data Hub basics
Author: Josh Baker, Certified Master Anaplanner and Senior Vice President at PJT Partners. Hi Anaplan Community! I’m excited to share my new ‘How I Built It’ video on Data Hub basics, including setup, automation, and model to model data/attribute loads. For some background: The demo utilizes comma separated files…
PLAN Ahead [April 2023 Community Newsletter]
Hello, Anaplan Community! Welcome to your monthly dose of all things Community, packed with thought-provoking articles, the latest discussions, member spotlight, and more. We hope these tips and tidbits elevate your Anaplan learning! 🚀 Have you seen the great thought-leadership and technical guidance in Community this…
Carbon footprinting: Building ESG metrics into your financial plans [Part 3]
Part three: Scope 3 planning using Input-Output Analysis (IOA) Author: Steve Bows, Certified Master Anaplanner and Managing Director, Zooss Consulting. In the first article of this series, we looked at the difference between Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 carbon emissions, and how you might incorporate Scope 1 (direct) and…
March 2023 Community Member Spotlight: Tiffany Rice
We are excited to continue our celebration of Community with our monthly Member Spotlight for March, Tiffany Rice! Last month we introduced this new series with our first spotlight on Mishbah Ansari. Tiffany, Anaplan Model Builder at Prudential, is a Certified Master Anaplanner for the last four years, and an active…
What does a home run ball look like?
Author: Aaron Overfors, Certified Master Anaplanner and Principal Architect at Spaulding Ridge. Not every software system is designed to do everything. In the early 2000s, however, this was the focus — one platform that could handle everything: resourcing, customer relationships, supply chain, HR, financial planning,…
How I Built It: Integrations using CloudWorks
Author: Gokul Selvam Sadasivam, Certified Master Anaplanner and Senior Manager, Business Platforms at Okta. Hello Anaplanners! I’m excited to share a video that I created as part of the ‘How I Built It’ video series — diving into Integrations using CloudWorks. In the video, I give a live demonstration of how to use the…
Best practices for technical documentation of a model
Author: Arun Thakar, Certified Master Anaplanner and Vice President in the banking industry. As go-live approaches and admin and end user training gears up, the question of ‘how do we document the model?’ might be front and center in your daily standups. Fear not! This article will cover some of the best practices on…
Day in the life of a Certified Master Anaplanner (Part 2): CoE Administrator
Author: Joel Bangalan, Certified Master Anaplanner, Solutions Architect, and Systems Administrator in the consulting industry. Hello Anaplanners! This article is the second of two parts on my experience as a Certified Master Anaplanner. I’ve worked as an Anaplan implementation consultant and as an end user, I’m hoping to…
Meet Certified Master Anaplanner of the Year, Asslam Umar Ali
Meet Asslam Umar Ali (@Asslam) — our Anaplan 2022 Certified Master Anaplanner of the Year, and Manager, Financial Performance Management with over 15 years of experience. Asslam currently manages the enterprise planning program, including the Center of Excellence, at Fortescue Metals Group. Asslam is passionate about…
Community perspective: Flat-file Data Load - CSV Encoding Issues
Problem: In the same way we cannot load .txt files (usually tab-delimited) through a data load action originally created with a .csv (comma delimited file), trying to load .csv files with different encoding parameters can result in an issue too. This is the error message you will get in both cases (attempting to load a…
Top three underappreciated features of the UX
Author: Kait Chura, Certified Master Anaplanner and Solution Architect at LiveRamp. Reflection is a common practice for me when entering a new year. It's important that I find appreciation in both my personal and professional life, so I know what made my year better. Then, I can either build upon good behaviors in the…
PLAN Ahead [March 2023 Community Newsletter]
There's a lot happening in the Anaplan Community, and it’s easy to miss new articles or the opportunity to share your perspective and help a peer. Take a look at what’s been going on lately. Have you seen the great thought-leadership and technical guidance in Community this month? Here are recent articles you may have…
February 2023 Community Member Spotlight: Misbah Ansari
Congratulations to our very first member we are featuring in Anaplan’s Community Member Spotlight, Misbah Ansari! As one of our top contributors over the course of the past five years he’s been part of the Anaplan Community, Misbah can be seen continually helping members and sharing valuable insights. About Misbah We asked…
Community perspective: Time Settings impact on PERIOD function
When changing the model calendar or available time ranges beware of the unintended consequence on any PERIOD functions in your model. Here are the details on what caused a phantom issue at a customer and how we solved it. Problem While working with a customer to reduce model size we took a hard look at how they were using…
Community perspective: How to achieve multi-app accessibility from a single dashboard
As Anaplan moves forward, many companies are implementing Connected Planning across their entire organisations. This means that as the Anaplan implementation grows - multiple models or multiple functional areas across a single model- generally arise. This is currently being resolved through the use of multiple Apps to…
How I Built It: Beginners guide to integrating with Anaplan using Python
Author: Matt Budd, Certified Master Anaplanner and CIO at Nightingale College and Solution Architect at Dialed Solutions. Hello Anaplan Community! In the last year, I've done a lot of work around creating automation and integrations with Anaplan using Python. Several solutions I've built using Python include: Creating a…