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Leveraging Anaplan Workflow and ADO for controlled financial sign-off reporting
Author: Dinesh Gupta is a Certified Master Anaplanner and Lead of the Anaplan CoE at PTSB Ireland.
Financial planning models are constantly evolving throughout forecast and budget cycles. New requirements, model enhancements and business changes are essential to support better decision making. However, these ongoing developments can create a challenge when approved numbers used for management reporting remain directly linked to live planning calculations.
To address this challenge, the Finance Transformation team has designed a governed reporting process using Anaplan Workflow and Anaplan Data Orchestrator (ADO). The solution introduces a structured approval framework that separates active planning activities from approved reporting outputs, ensuring that stakeholders always have access to trusted and auditable financial information.
The challenge
During the planning cycle, P&L and Balance Sheet forecasts are continuously updated and refined. While this flexibility is critical for planning, it can also result in previously reviewed and approved numbers changing due to subsequent model developments.
This creates a risk where management information, dashboards and reporting packs may no longer reflect the exact figures that were formally approved by business stakeholders.
The solution
The new process establishes a controlled end-to-end workflow for forecast review, approval and publication.
Business users create and update forecasts within Anaplan planning models. Once forecasts are ready, they are submitted through Anaplan Workflow, where they progress through multiple review and approval stages.
After the final executive approver signs off on the forecast, Workflow automatically triggers the creation of a Snapshot, capturing the approved P&L and Balance Sheet values at that specific point in time.
The approved snapshot is then extracted using Anaplan Data Orchestrator (ADO) and loaded into a dedicated Reporting Module. This reporting layer is maintained as a read-only environment, ensuring that approved numbers remain unchanged even when further development activities continue within the planning models.
Key benefits
Single source of approved numbers
Only formally approved forecasts are transferred into the reporting layer, ensuring consistency across management reports and dashboards.
Stable and read-only reporting
Once published, approved figures remain protected from subsequent model changes, preserving reporting integrity.
Enhanced governance and auditability
Every submission, review, approval and publication step is tracked, creating a transparent audit trail and strengthening governance controls.
Separation of planning and reporting
The solution decouples active planning models from approved reporting outputs, allowing model development to continue without impacting signed-off results.
Reusable reporting foundation
The approved reporting dataset can be leveraged across MI packs, executive dashboards and regulatory reporting processes, improving efficiency and consistency.
Business impact
By combining Anaplan Workflow and ADO, the Finance team has established a robust framework that supports both agility and control. Planning models can continue to evolve while approved reporting remains stable, trusted and fully auditable.
This approach strengthens stakeholder confidence, improves reporting reliability and provides a scalable governance pattern that can be extended across future Finance Transformation initiatives.
Conclusion
The combination of Anaplan Workflow, Snapshot Management and Anaplan Data Orchestrator creates a controlled bridge between dynamic planning and dependable reporting. The result is a trusted, read-only reporting dataset that preserves the integrity of approved financial information while enabling continuous innovation within the planning environment.
Develop dynamically. Approve formally. Report with confidence. 🚀
Finance Transformation Spotlight | Anaplan Workflow & ADO | Trusted Numbers.
Better Decisions. Stronger Business.
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2026 certificate maintenance for Certified Master Anaplanners
The 2026 Certified Master Anaplanner Program has begun, and there is incredible opportunity for 2026 Certified Master Anaplanners (CMAs) to demonstrate their thought leadership, technical expertise, Anaplan championship, and mentorship capabilities across the entire Anaplan ecosystem.
At their core, a Certified Master Anaplanner is someone who elevates others across the Anaplan ecosystem through the many ways they share their expertise. This includes mentoring others, sharing community perspective and technical architecture thought leadership, demonstrating innovative solutions, providing product feature insight, ideating and inspiring others in the Anaplan Community to help define the future of the platform, leading CoE development, building innovative roadmaps to scale the platform for business decision-making, and championing Anaplan in the competitive market.
Engagement zones
The 2026 CMA contribution activities list is attached to this post and available for CMAs to download:
Download the list of 2026 Contribution Activities
2026 CMA Contribution Activities.pdf
Each contribution activity is mapped to four engagement zones to help articulate how Certified Master Anaplanners are driving impact within the Anaplan ecosystem. As mentors, thought leaders, Anaplan Champions, and technical experts, Certified Master Anaplanners play a critical role in elevating the broader ecosystem and driving value through the ways they share their expertise.
Each engagement zone is important to the Certified Master Anaplanner community, the entire Anaplan ecosystem, and the Anaplan Community. Highlighting these zones is intended to help you easily align your experience and interests with activities that best suit where you want to make impact. CMAs are encouraged to focus on a primary engagement zone or pursue a blend of activities across zones — with the opportunity for some to complete activities in all four engagement zones during 2026.
Contribution activities will continue to be reviewed and updated throughout 2026 to reflect evolving priorities and areas of impact across the Anaplan ecosystem.
Contribution activities will continue to evolve throughout 2026, with new opportunities introduced regularly to reflect where Certified Master Anaplanners can have the greatest impact. This list will be refreshed at least quarterly, giving CMAs ongoing ways to engage, contribute, and be recognized for the value they deliver across the Anaplan ecosystem.
CMAs are encouraged to check back regularly and plan contributions early to take advantage of new opportunities as they are introduced.
Certification maintenance requirements
Certified Master Anaplanners are expected to actively contribute throughout 2026 and must meet two requirements to renew certification for 2026. These requirements remain consistent with prior years.
Contribution activity requirement
* Complete contribution activities totaling 400 points by December 15, 2026.
* The full contribution activity requirement is due in December; however, CMAs are strongly encouraged to show progress or have a communicated plan in place by the mid-year check-in.
* To support proactive planning and visibility, a mid-year check-in will be conducted between June and July 2026, with 200 points completed or confirmed by July 31, 2026 through planned, communicated activities
* CMAs are encouraged to report contribution activities as they are completed rather than waiting until deadlines
Technical (recertification exam) requirement
* Pass the proctored Certified Master Anaplanner recertification exam by December 31, 2026 (the exam must be passed, not just scheduled)
* The study guide and recertification exam will be available beginning July 8, 2026
* Recertification exam details are available in the 2026 Recertification Information resource
* CMAs should review the Recertification Exam Registration Instructions course in the Anaplan Academy CMA Program Maintenance learning path, which includes step-by-step guidance and the required registration code
Important clarification on recertification exam timing
The Certified Master Anaplanner recertification exam is required every two years. For 2026, the following applies:
* Certified Master Anaplanners who did not take the proctored recertification exam in the prior year — including Japanese-language learners awaiting the release of the Japanese exam and individuals who were granted a one-year extension due to extenuating circumstances — will need to complete and pass the proctored recertification exam in 2026.
* Certified Master Anaplanners who took and passed the proctored recertification exam to renew certification for 2026 have fulfilled the technical requirement for the two-year cycle.
* Newly certified Master Anaplanners in 2025 or 2026 have two years from the date of their initial exam before their first recertification exam is required.
If you are unsure if you need to take action to fulfill the technical requirement in 2026, please contact MasterAnaplanners@anaplan.com for confirmation.
Program terms, conditions, and contact information
Certified Master Anaplanners are responsible for remaining informed of the program policies and requirements that govern certification maintenance and participation.
Please review the 2026 Certified Master Anaplanner Program Terms and Conditions.
Please download and review the 2026 Certified Master Anaplanner Program Terms and Conditions
2026 Certified Master Anaplanner Terms and Conditions.pdf
CMAs must also ensure their contact information remains accurate and up to date, including the email address associated with their Certified Master Anaplanner Program participation. Changes to employment or email address should be addressed promptly to avoid disruptions to program communications.
For guidance on updating your email address, including temporary updates during employment transitions, DO NOT CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT. Instead, email the Academy help desk (academy@anaplan.com) to request an update to your learner and Community email address.
If you are a Certified Master Anaplanner who has any questions about the requirements for annual certification maintenance, your status, or how to engage, please email MasterAnaplanners@anaplan.com
If you are interested in the Certified Master Anaplanner Program and wish to learn more about how to become a Certified Master Anaplanner, please review the resources here.
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Beyond the build: Sustaining user adoption through CoE governance
Author: Ajinkya Pawar is a Certified Master Anaplanner and Senior Manager at Genpact.
Most Anaplan practitioners focus on four cornerstones, data, process, model, and deployment, throughout the engagement journey. In an ideal implementation, data ownership is clearly defined, processes are agreed upon, the model is built with best practices, deployment is closely monitored and go-live is celebrated. In two of my past engagements, platform usage looked healthy after go-live, but six to eight months down the line we noticed login frequency decline, business users resorted to Excel for quick reconciliations, and leadership started questioning the gap between platform investment and the value delivered.
This pattern is common across many Anaplan engagements, and it points to foundational problems rather than isolated exceptions. The essence is to ensure deployment is not treated as the finish line. It is a starting point to maintain solution relevance and platform trust. The decline in adoption does not happen in a single moment but is a series of unchecked and unaddressed gaps.
Root causes for the decline
In my experience, there are many reasons that can cause adoption deficit but following are the usual suspects:
* Inconsistencies or delays in data pipelines causing numbers to be questioned and trust collapsing fast.
* Challenges faced in UX application navigation impacting ease of use.
* User feedback not addressed in ongoing releases making them feel unheard.
* Training/workshops delivered only once, at project launch, and never refreshed thereby new joiners never really get acquainted with the solution whereas long-time users forget about valuable features they seldom use.
* The business case made for the platform investment at start of the project was never revisited so whenever budget conversations resurface there is inability in the room to convey clear story with a consensus of value delivered.
All these issues may appear unrelated, but they are connected and call for a coordinated governance approach. The goal is to overcome the misconception that go-live equals success and usage equals value. This is exactly where you need Center of Excellence (CoE) governance to play a pivotal role in preserving adoption.
Six governance pillars to sustain adoption
1️⃣ Technical UX design: Adoption depends on daily user experience. UX design must include role-based landing pages, simple navigation, unambiguous instructions, sensible filters and process buttons aligned to planning workflow creating an intuitive and efficient user experience. Moreover, this should not be one time exercise but paired it with governance discipline via ALM hygiene, proper revision tags and production data rules so that consistency survives through every new release.
Role of CoE:
* Draft and maintain a working design playbook built on Planual standards, naming conventions, page templates on when and how to use board/worksheet/report, type of filters, charts and corresponding relevance, navigation patterns that can be reused by model builders rather than reinvent.
* This is more beneficial in a federated CoE structure to ensure UX consistency and uniformity as a byproduct across models through various use cases.
* CoE can spot check few UX dashboards in quarterly audits reviewing adherence to playbook standards.
2️⃣ Data quality and integrity: Polished UX and fancy reporting dashboards can never compensate for inaccurate numbers. Clear data lineage, automated reconciliation routine, visible data quality checks instill confidence amongst end users persistently reinforcing platform as a single source of truth in lieu of competing with parallel planning systems.
Role of CoE:
* Promote data integration initiatives (among internal tech teams) to run automated data reconciliation jobs to tie-out source systems totals to spoke models totals.
* This is a proactive measure to ensure errors are flagged to respective data owners/model builders with a defined SLA resolution.
* This closes the gap before users catch it and promotes usage of the platform.
* Incorporation of new features like ADO, Workflow, Anaplan XL should be encouraged in these data quality checks.
3️⃣ Change management: Technically sound solutions are necessary but not sufficient to preserve adoption. A human layer in the loop is essential for communication, periodic end user training and change management planning.
Role of CoE:
* Disseminate requisite knowledge on maintaining fixed checklists of training plan, change management plan, feedback channel before and after any use case goes live.
* Establish and promote practice of structured intake of end user requests amongst tech teams to see their input/requests reflected in upcoming sprints.
* Invest early in internal model builders so that once they combine platform fluency with business context, they can run training sessions reducing CoE’s workload over time.
4️⃣ Model governance and security: Absence of access control, workspace segregation, model governance has negative implications in preserving platform adoption. Users facing permission errors, access to unauthorized data or experiencing constant outage are bound to lose trust on the platform.
Role of CoE:
* Automate access provisioning either via custom APIs, or identity providers like SailPoint, Okta or a dedicated central security hub automation depending on the convenience, cost and scale of your business.
* Institutionalize mandatory peer reviews for compliance checks of PLANS methodology, model performance logging tests on intermittent basis.
* Seek support from Anaplan customer success Business partner on a quarterly basis to pull Best practices Infraction (BPI) score tracking breaches against Anaplan Planual standards.
5️⃣ Executive ROI: Sponsorship is not secured once but is renewed yearly. The leadership needs to see constant tangible value from the investment made. Performance metrics such as forecast accuracy, planning cycle time reduction, reduction in efforts, speed to outcome must be tracked and reported on a cadence.
Role of CoE:
* Build a value scorecard or performance dashboard accessible to executive leadership that reflects top 5 key metrics (example: # of business process supported, planning cycle duration) that get calculated based on data pulled automatically each month from existing models.
* This way CoE can eliminate the need of justifying every new initiative from scratch and helping leadership get answer to “What are we getting out of this investment?” with a single click.
6️⃣ Continuous enablement: As business evolves, use cases expand, new platform capabilities released, it becomes imperative to maintain ongoing enablement through periodic training sessions, role-based learning paths keeping model builders aligned with end users and stakeholder expectations.
Role of CoE:
* Launch an internal champion network that encourages model builders, architects build accelerators or MVPs on new use cases using new platform features. This fosters innovation and opens avenues to translate into positive business impact.
* Release biweekly/monthly newsletter to stakeholders, end users, model builders, capturing “what’s new” in the Anaplan space, internal innovation initiatives, cross-unit success stories to aid drive engagement.
Measuring adoption
Experience says if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Following table gives my perspective on few KPIs that can be internally tracked by a CoE to measure platform adoption and not just rely on numbers of users logged in:
* Number of data quality incidents
* Number of enhancements in the backlog and Average resolution time
* Active usage by role/business unit
* Training completion and proficiency
* Number of recurring excel workarounds
* Business value delivered in USD
Bringing it all together
Together, these pillars address usability, enablement, trust and sponsorship, essential for driving adoption over time, not just at launch. The intent is not for CoE to own everything, but it is to define standards and establish guardrails to be followed. The path forward is to perform transparent assessment on each of the pillars, identify weakest of them, create an action plan to address them and prioritize execution to see right results.
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How I Built It: Creating functional P&Ls using line item subsets without COLLECT formula
Author: Austin van der Linden is a Certified Master Anaplanner and Senior Model Builder at Hubspot.
Hello Anaplan Community!
In this 'How I Built It' Tutorial, I show how you can build functional P&Ls using line item subsets as a mapping tool. One of the cool functionalities provided with line item subsets is that you can leverage them as a list for mappings. What is even more useful is that you can use a SUM formula to aggregate based on those mappings in the same module you used to create the line item subset. By doing this, you create a simple, dynamic, and flexible method of aggregating from base level data to a line item.
Key features:
* Dynamic properties mapping.
* Model cleanliness and efficiency by using SUM on a mapping.
* Best of both worlds: structure and mapping ability of a list AND flexibility and formatting of a line item.
* Solution does not need COLLECT() formula to work.
Check it out and let me know if you have questions!
https://play.vidyard.com/FEPf6mDiLebqicZtPpwwwd
Check out all the 'How I Built It' tutorials here.
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Using Anaplan as a monitoring layer for Workday processes
Author: Josh Baker is the Head of Finance Operations and Transformation at PJT Partners, Master Anaplanner and Workday Financials – Pro. Currently leads accounts payable, accounts receivable, expense, and finance transformation.
Reporting is not actionable or intuitive
Most finance operations teams have the same problem, and it isn't a data problem. Workday knows the status of critical documents: which invoices are unpaid, which expense reports are aging for days, or which supplier records were created without required data. The information exists. It just doesn't reach anyone in a form that provokes action.
We tried the usual answers first. Scheduled reports that arrive as attachments and worklets to visualize the critical data. Reports are static and worklets show a count but not a story. Dashboards require each team member to work in the same structure and are limited by several factors. Each one told us something true and left us doing the same thing we had always done exporting to a spreadsheet, adding columns, and emailing it around.
So, we stopped trying to make Workday do the monitoring and used Anaplan for that layer instead.
How it's wired
The mechanics are deliberately simple. A Report-as-a-Service (RaaS) report in Workday exposes the process data we care about. Azure Data Factory calls it on a daily schedule, handles authentication and any light reshaping, and pushes the result into Anaplan through the Integration API v2.0. No middleware to babysit, no manual export, and finance controls the source and the target data.
The point of describing it plainly is that the interesting part isn't the pipe. Almost anyone reading this could stand up the same pipeline in a sprint.
Filtering should follow the business question, not the report definition
This is the key differentiator. In Workday, a hub or a worklet is largely bound to how the report was defined. Want to see the same population sliced a different way, or compared to last week, or filtered by a threshold that varies by business unit? You are usually setting up a series of custom prompts, global objects, and not usually visible to end users.
In Anaplan, filtering logic lives in the model, and the model is owned by finance operations. We can hold multiple days of the same extract and show movement rather than a snapshot, so an aging bucket becomes a trend instead of a number. We can apply approval thresholds that differ by business unit and by rank without rebuilding the source report. We can flag exceptions using rules that combine data from more than one Workday process, which no single report was ever going to do on its own.
The dashboards naturally sync on each click to users can follow the natural flow of data and process to get to an answer and add context.
A link removes the excuse
The single change that moved adoption most was also the simplest. Every row in our monitoring views carries a hyperlink back to the exact object in Workday: the specific invoice, the specific expense report, the specific supplier record.
Before, finding what approval step or which approver an item was stuck at started a small scavenger hunt. They had to open Workday, search individual records, open in new tab, click through business process.
Now the item is one click away with its full context intact and a user can triage large populations with dynamic sync. Nobody has to trust the data, because they can click the relative link and verify at the source. That turned out to matter more than any formatting choice we made. If you want a monitoring tool to be used, make the distance between seeing a problem and acting on it as close to zero as you can.
Enrich what the ledger isn't allowed to hold
Every finance organization has knowledge that is useful but has no legitimate home in the general ledger.
Examples include: Why is this vendor an exception? Which of these coding errors are the same root cause? Who is the blocker on this follow-up vs who happens to be the approver of record?
Putting that into Workday would mean utilizing precious custom worktags and creating audit question we do not want to answer. Leaving it out means it lives in a spreadsheet or email and is not consistent or reportable.
Anaplan unlocks these capabilities, we layer commentary, custom tags, and internal categorizations on top of the Workday data without touching the ledger. The ledger stays clean and authoritative. The monitoring layer carries the institutional knowledge that makes the data actionable. When an item resolves, the tag history explains what happened, and the native audit trail proves useful for understanding when data points changed.
Advice to someone looking to launch this
Build the pipeline last. Start by writing down the three questions you want to answer every day then work backwards to the extract that supports them.
Resist the urge to move everything. A monitoring model that covers key processes well beats one that mirrors thirty and gets ignored.
Keep Workday as the system of record; the goal is not to replicate it. The goal is to make the exceptions impossible to miss and easier to remediate.
Move spreadsheets to the UX worksheet to improve collaboration, audit trail, advanced search.
Address exposed process problems that may have gone unnoticed, and tweak upstream and downstream workflows accordingly.
Some key metrics that improved from our deployment in accounts payable, was Avg Days Past Due from 45 to 5 days, Avg time to approve from 30 days to 15 Days, % of Invoices Sent back from 20% to 10%. Many of these patterns were not visible when we looked at static reporting because of the volume but with logic based, dynamic dashboards they became obvious.
Questions? Leave a comment!
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Re-enabling model history rollback after a recent ALM sync
Author: Sayontan is a Certified Master Anaplanner and EPM Director responsible for growing US GenXAI. He has been working on the platform since 2013 and has experience across all domains of Anaplan solutions — Finance, Sales Performance & Supply Chain. He is also PMP certified and operates as Supply Chain SME.
In a Production model, enhancements and day-to-day operations usually go hand in hand. Most deployments go smoothly, but every now and then, a change turns out to be more complex than expected, or a test case manages to hide until Production. Because, of course, that is sometimes when it decides to make an appearance.
In situations like this, restoring the model to an earlier History ID can be the quickest way to recover.
There is just one catch.
If an ALM revision tag has already been synced, Anaplan does not normally allow the Production model to be rolled back to a History ID before that revision.
And if you have ever seen that message while trying to recover a Production model, you probably know the feeling:
“Wait… you mean I can’t roll this back?”
For a few seconds, the heart rate goes up, the coffee suddenly feels necessary, and everyone starts looking very carefully at the deployment history.
Fortunately, there is a workaround.
It is not necessarily the most intuitive process, and there are a few important precautions to take, but it is possible to restore the model and continue using ALM afterwards.
How to restore a model to an earlier history ID
1️⃣ Temporarily switch the model to Standard Mode
Go to:
Model Settings → Manage Models
Change the Production model mode from Deployed to Standard.
This temporarily removes the structural protection provided by Deployed Mode, so this step needs to be handled carefully.
2️⃣ Start the restore
Navigate to:
History → Save History / Restore to ID
Enter the History ID representing the point you want to restore the model to.
Double-check the ID before continuing. Production is probably not the best place for a “close enough” moment.
3️⃣ Unlink revisions created after the restore point
Select:
“Unlink revisions created after this restore point.”
Then click Restore.
This allows the model to move back to the selected History ID even though later ALM revision tags had previously been applied.
4️⃣ Put the model back into Deployed Mode
Once the restore is complete, return to:
Model Settings → Manage Models
Change the model mode from Standard back to Deployed.
This is an important step. You do not want the Production model sitting in Standard Mode any longer than necessary.
5️⃣ Resume ALM deployments and test
Once everything has been validated:
* Create a new revision tag in the Development model.
* Sync the revision through your normal ALM path, for example DEV → SBX → PROD.
* Validate the model carefully before normal operations resume.
A CoE best practice reminder
From a Center of Excellence (CoE) perspective, this should be treated as an exception rather than a regular deployment technique.
Ideally, the restore should be performed only when necessary and under the supervision of an experienced Anaplan Architect.
Why?
During the short period when the Production model is in Standard Mode, direct structural changes become possible. An accidental formula, list, module, or other structural modification could create differences between DEV, SBX, and PROD and potentially cause future ALM synchronizations to fail.
A safer approach is to take the model offline while the restore is being performed. This minimizes user activity and reduces the chance of accidental structural changes or ALM misalignment. If someone makes a direct structural change—such as modifying a formula, list, module, or other structural component—the Production model may no longer match the Development model.
And that is how a rollback problem can turn into an ALM problem.
Nobody wants the sequel.
Final thought
Rolling back a Production model after an ALM revision tag has been deployed can initially look like a dead end. Fortunately, it isn’t.
By temporarily switching the model to Standard Mode, restoring the required History ID, unlinking later revisions, and carefully returning the model to Deployed Mode, it is possible to recover while preserving the ALM deployment path.
Just remember: this is less of an everyday Anaplan technique and more of a “break glass in case of deployment emergency” procedure.
Use it carefully, keep the model offline, involve the right people, and hopefully keep those Production-deployment heart attacks to a minimum.
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How I Built It: AdHoc Hub Framework
Author: Saurabh Kapoor is a Certified Master Anaplanner and a Technical Lead at HCLTech.
Hello Anaplan Community!
Thank you for checking out my 'How I Built It' tutorial. In this video, I demonstrate how I built an AdHoc Hub, a self-service integration framework that enables planners to execute data load processes on demand while reducing dependency on support teams and manual intervention.
This solution combines Anaplan UX, CloudWorks, AWS S3, Anaplan Connect, and batch automation to create a seamless end-to-end process. Planners can select a planning activity, generate a trigger from Anaplan, and automatically execute the corresponding data load process through a centralized hub.
A great example is Demand Planning and Supply Planning, where planners regularly need to upload forecast, inventory, capacity, or override data as part of their planning cycle. Instead of relying on scheduled integrations or technical resources, planners can trigger these processes directly from the AdHoc HUB and monitor execution status in real time.
This approach is especially useful for organizations that require flexible, user-driven integrations while maintaining governance, auditability, and process standardization.
Key features:
* Planner-driven self-service execution
* CloudWorks integration with AWS S3
* Trigger-based automation framework
* Dynamic action execution using metadata-driven design
* Automated timestamp logging and execution tracking
* Scalable architecture for multiple planning processes
* Centralized monitoring and audit visibility
Key planning use cases demonstrated:
* Upload Sales Forecast
* Upload Demand Override
* Upload Inventory Position
* Upload Production Capacity
The same framework can be extended to support Financial Planning, Workforce Planning, Sales Planning, and other business processes requiring on-demand data integration.
‘How I Built It’ tutorial
https://play.vidyard.com/ifXRGLYpRriqBHm3RY6JvQ.html?
Drop a comment if you have any questions!
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The Decision Contract, Part 2: Translating better decisions into better Anaplan design
Steven Barry is a Certified Master Anaplanner and Connected Planning Sales Lead at Kearney.
In Part 1 of the series, I introduced the decision contract as a way to clarify what decision a planning process must produce before the team begins designing the Anaplan solution. The contract defines the decision, owner, timing, required evidence, guardrails, and downstream commitment.
The real benefit appears when the contract begins to shape the solution. A decision-centered design focuses the model on the right business intersection, routes work based on materiality, and connects each decision to its broader impact.
The following principles can help translate a decision contract into practical Anaplan design choices.
* Model the decision at the correct level.
The dimensionality of the solution should reflect the level at which the decision is made.
A regional revenue commitment may exist by region, period, and scenario. A demand override may exist by product, location, and week. A hiring decision may exist at the individual position or requisition level.
This does not mean every supporting calculation must use the same dimensionality. It means the final decision, its owner, its status, and its rationale should be identifiable at the appropriate business intersection.
When the decision level is unclear, models often become larger and user experiences become more complicated than necessary.
* Calculate before asking the user.
Users should not be asked to manually provide information that the platform can calculate or derive.
Anaplan should establish a credible starting point using available actuals, assumptions, statistical outputs, prior decisions, and business rules. The user should then apply judgment where judgment is valuable.
This changes the role of the planner. Instead of rebuilding a forecast from the beginning, the planner reviews the baseline, evaluates exceptions, and makes targeted adjustments.
It also creates a measurable comparison between the system recommendation and the final human decision.
* Escalate based on materiality.
Many approval processes are designed around organizational hierarchy. Every submission moves from one level to the next, regardless of its value, risk, or complexity.
A decision contract allows the solution to route work based on materiality.
A routine adjustment within tolerance may not require additional approval. A large override, a change affecting a strategic customer, or a decision that creates a capacity constraint may require further review.
This reduces unnecessary work for leaders and gives them more time to focus on the decisions that could materially affect the business.
* Capture the reason, not just the number.
A numeric adjustment without context is difficult to review and even harder to learn from.
The solution should capture why a decision was made. Structured reason codes can identify common drivers such as pricing, timing, customer behavior, supply constraints, hiring delays, or changes in demand. Commentary can provide additional detail when it is needed.
Structured rationale also creates information that can be analyzed. Over time, the business can determine which assumptions are most frequently wrong, which risks are recurring, and which types of overrides tend to improve the outcome.
* Make the downstream impact visible.
Decision-makers should be able to see what their decision changes.
A demand increase may improve projected revenue while creating an inventory or production constraint. A delayed hiring decision may reduce near-term cost while putting a strategic initiative at risk. A sales forecast adjustment may affect workforce capacity, cash expectations, or delivery commitments.
Anaplan is particularly valuable when it connects these consequences across functions. The decision page should provide enough visibility for the owner to understand the broader impact before committing.
* Close the loop when actuals become available.
Most planning processes move quickly from one cycle to the next. Teams spend significant time producing a plan but much less time evaluating the quality of the decisions made during the prior cycle.
The decision contract creates a structure for that evaluation.
Once actual results are available, the business can compare the baseline, the human adjustment, the approved decision, and the final outcome. This helps determine whether overrides improved accuracy, whether guardrails were appropriate, and whether additional review created value.
The purpose is not to penalize decision-makers when circumstances change. The purpose is to make the planning process smarter over time.
Measure decisions, not just task completion
Many Anaplan implementations measure whether users logged in, completed their inputs, submitted their plans, or received approval.
These metrics are useful for administering a process, but they do not prove that the process is working well.
A decision-centered process should also measure how long it takes to move from a business signal to a committed decision, how many decisions require manual review, how often submissions are returned for rework, and how frequently approved decisions change before execution.
Where possible, organizations should also evaluate whether human overrides improved the baseline and whether the agreed downstream action was completed.
Not every metric needs to be automated immediately. Tracking a small number of these measures for one planning cycle can reveal where the real bottlenecks exist.
A high submission rate may hide a large amount of rework. A fast approval process may hide unclear accountability. A highly accurate forecast may still arrive too late to influence the business.
A better conversation at the start of an implementation
The decision contract changes the questions asked during requirements gathering.
Instead of beginning with, “What spreadsheet do you use today?” the team can ask, “What decision does this spreadsheet support?”
Instead of asking, “Who approves this input?” the team can ask, “Who has the authority to make the final commitment?”
Instead of asking, “What fields should be mandatory?” the team can ask, “What evidence is necessary to make this decision responsibly?”
Instead of asking, “Which dashboard should we build?” the team can ask, “What information and actions does the decision owner need at the moment of decision?”
The answers provide a stronger foundation for user stories, solution architecture, workflow design, and adoption planning.
Conclusion
A well-built Anaplan model can make an existing process faster, more controlled, and easier to maintain. That is valuable, but it should not be the limit of the ambition.
The greater opportunity is to improve how the organization makes decisions.
Before beginning the next use case, take one critical planning decision and write its decision contract. Define the decision, owner, timing, evidence, guardrails, and downstream commitment. If the stakeholders cannot agree on those points, the process is probably not ready to be built. If they can agree, many of the model and user experience design choices become much clearer.
What is the most important decision supported by your Anaplan solution, and what changes in the business once that decision is made?
