Community Knowledge Base

Advance your overall Anaplan knowledge and understanding

Optimizer Inventory Rollover Exercise
Inventory Rollover setup is required to avoid circular references when using previous function and will allow for rollover within dynamic time construct that the Optimizer requires. Review and complete the Dynamic Time portion of the exercise prior to starting Inventory Rollover.
Optimizer: Hands-on exercises
Now that we know what Optimizer is and how it can help your organization solve complex business challenges (quick reminder here) it's time to get under the hood and practice. We curated for you 3 different exercises based on different use cases; we also have an available E-learning course. Immersion Optimizer overview…
OEG Best Practice: Integration Scheduling in Anaplan CloudWorks
Introduction: Anaplan CloudWorks enables seamless data integration between Anaplan and other cloud-based applications. To optimize performance and efficiency, it's crucial to follow best practices when scheduling integration tasks. This article outlines recommended guidelines for creating integration schedules in Anaplan…
PlanIQ - Deep dive on the algorithms under the hood
Baseline time series algorithms Advanced statistical time series algorithms Flexible local algorithms Neural network algorithms Summary Companies often develop plans and business strategies to drive decisions and actions around finance, operations, supply chain and other areas. They do this based on how they perceive the…
Survey invitation: BPM Pulse 2023
As model contributors and Community members, your responses to the BPM Pulse survey will play a crucial role in shaping BPM Partners' annual Vendor Landscape Matrix for business performance management. Please note: this survey is exclusively open to customers, and the deadline for completion is Friday, May 5, 2023.…
OEG Best Practice: Anaplan Python OAuth Example
The Anaplan Python OAuth Example demonstrates using the Anaplan REST API with OAuth with device-based authorization. The code highlights how to generate a device_id, access_token, and refresh_token. Additionally, the code highlights a multi-threaded approach to request a new access_token while performing other,…
Variance Analysis With Native Versions Made Easy
When creating a model using versions, one of the first questions is, “Should I use Native Versions, or should I create a Custom Versions list?” Will I need to do version comparisons; do the comparisons need to be dynamic? With Native Versions, I can create another Variance version and create a formula, but a) it is not…
OEG Best Practice: Filter best practice
Filters can be very useful in model building and are widely used, but they can come at the expense of performance—often very visible to users through their use on dashboards. Performance can also hit imports and exports, which in turn may lead to the blocking of other activity, causing a poor perception of the model. There…
OEG Best Practice: Best practices for module design
Introduction Hopefully, by now you've heard of the D.I.S.C.O. methodology for model and module design, but do you fully understand how to put it into practice? D.I.S.C.O. is part of the wider P.L.A.N.S. standard for Anaplan model building and falls under the L for Logical. D.I.S.C.O. provides a logical structure for one to…
Save incomplete changes when synchronizing in ALM
Imagine this scenario: You are in the middle of making changes in your development model and have been doing so for the last few weeks. The changes are not complete and are not ready to synchronize. However, you just received a request for an urgent fix from the user community that is critical for the forthcoming monthly…
OEG Best Practice: Reduce calculations for better performance
Reducing the number of calculations will lead to quicker calculations and improve performance. However, this doesn’t mean combining all your calculations into fewer line items, as breaking calculations into smaller parts has major benefits for performance. Learn more about this in the Formula structure for performance…
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…
Community perspective: Building two approaches to ragged hierarchy
In Two approaches to ragged hierarchy, I presented two ways to fix a ragged hierarchy into a balanced one. Now let's proceed with building based on these two approaches. 👀 Blueprints are included for your reference. Building Hierarchy - Loop20230207.xlsx 1. Common preparation Many platforms with a hierarchical structure…
Get to know the model experience as an end-user
Welcome to the updated Anaplan model experience! The Anaplan functionality you are used to, now with a modernized appearance and simplified navigation. In February 2023, the updated model experience will become the default for all users. When you access Anaplan your models from Home or the Models screen, the new look and…
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…
RESTful API How To
You can interact with the data in your models using Anaplan's RESTful API. This enables you to securely import and export data, as well as run actions through any programmatic way you desire. The API can be leveraged in any custom integration, allowing for a wide range of integration solutions to be implemented. Completing…
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…
Easily Get Current Date Using CloudWorks
Almost any model builder has had to come up with a solution to get the current date in Anaplan. We used to build integrations and use API for that. @JaredDolich posted a great article about using python for getting today's date. But this approach has some cons: * You must learn to code or involve someone who can do it.…
PlanIQ – Considerations Before Starting to Forecast
Before starting to forecast with PlanIQ, there are a few topics we recommend considering around the data, properties of the forecast, and forecast evaluation. While it is important to define clear goals for each forecasting scenario, PlanIQ's forecast accuracy will mostly be determined by the quality of the available data.…
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…
How to traverse hierarchies: The power of loops
Introduction Whenever you use a hierarchy, there will often be times when you are required to seek specific information which will necessitate some way to traverse the nodes and map out their connections. What you seek may be a list entity, a specific value, or a unique identifier, and this can become complicated if the…
Demystify non-linear optimization: Episode 1
Prologue The Anaplan community has been facing more and more interesting optimization problem statements every day while they solve complex business problems. Business challenges often involve finding optimal assignments such as sales reps to customers, demand to production capacity, or workers to shifts – all while…
Automatic DocuSign Workflows
The native DocuSign integration with Anaplan makes it simple to share information between Anaplan and Docusign, but the process to issue envelopes or track changes back in Anaplan can sometimes be quite manual and time-consuming as envelope counts begin to increase. This article will walk through a script to automate this…
Building Anaplan CoE
After spending 6-7 years with Anaplan in different roles I would like to share some of my practical knowledge on setting up a CoE. In a series of videos I will try to help you ask the right questions that hopefully will help you with your CoE. The first one is on Anaplan being Business vs IT Asset. I am planning to talk…
Production Lists and Ragged Hierarchies Logic
Assume the following Non-Composite list, ragged hierarchy, needs to be set to Production Data. We need to refer to the ultimate parent to define the logic calculation. In the example, we have assumed that children of Parent 1 and Parent 3 need to return the 'logic 1' value from the constants module below, and those under…
Community perspective: Smart Data Storage
We’ve all been faced with that question: to version or not to version. The requirements you face, together with your previous experience, will be taken into consideration to make that decision for each new model. But whatever route you decide to take, I think we can all agree that versions shouldn’t be used as storage.…
Alternative Uses for the Management Report UX Page
Introduction With the addition of the Report UX page type, it is now possible to create highly formatted, customized slides to deliver key insights and clear reporting to your organization. As with many Anaplan features, our customers always come up with innovative ways to use this feature and this post will look at two of…
Multi-select filters and their extension
If you are asked to name a few features which you use very often in Anaplan, there is a high chance that FILTERS will find its way to that list. There are so many places where they are used: saved views for imports/exports, report creation, calculations, and the list goes on. They are basically ubiquitous! Premise: Ability…
When do your integrations require workspace administrator privileges?
Generally, you don’t need to have Workspace Administrator (WSA) privileges to run integrations; however, there are still some specific instances when they are required. This guide will provide an overview of when your integration user requires WSA privileges. Anaplan user types involved in integrations First off, let us…
How to apply Conditional Formatting on multiple line items using one rule
I found this cool hack to apply similar conditional formatting to multiple line items by using just one rule! Generally, we need to make a line item for each conditional formatting or add one rule each line item which gets very tedious when there are more than 20, 30 of them. Here’s a simple yet effective hack to make this…