Unique ID longer than 60 chars

Hi,

As per Anaplan's best practice in loading data, we are trying to create unique ID, however, since the original codes are very long, the unique IDs we are trying to create by concatenating the codes of the different dimensions are longer than 60 characters long. For example, we have Cost Center, Measure, FinGeo etc, and the codes when combining are longer than 60 but Anaplan allows only 60. How do we resolve this issue. There is an option to create unique IDs in Anaplan, however, since we have different environments, not sure if the Anaplan-generated unique IDs would be a good idea.

Any suggestions?

Accepted answers

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LipChean_Soh

Hi @khoonks

You mentioned "There is an option to create unique IDs in Anaplan", which option is this? I know Anaplan can create unique NAME for a standard list (not numbered list) by adding a suffix, but the CODE still need to be unique when you load the data file. Refer to 'Adjust duplicate names to form unique names' below.

Thanks,

LipChean

alexpavel

@khoonks the only "place" where the 60chars limit can be overcome is in the Display names for numbered lists...

I would explore also these options:

- Are you sure that the source data cannot provide a different Unique ID that does not exceed 60chars?

- create per every component (Cost Center, Measure, etc..) separate lists and for very setup short codes...and use these codes in the concatenation for the big concatenated Unique ID.

Hope it helps

Alex

khoonks

@alexpavel -

Thanks for the input.

I am aware of the display name for numbered list.

Source system would not provide shorter codes as it would require extra effort on the source systems.

We do have separate lists for those different dimensions, however, the codes we have are the ones that comes from the source systems. I dont understand when you say short codes.

khoonks

@LipChean_Soh - I did not understand what you wanted to say on the response to my question. If you have had similar situation, could you let me know what you did to handle those situation. Thanks

LipChean_Soh

Hi @khoonks

I'm just wondering if we're talking about the same thing.

Thanks,

LipChean

LipChean_Soh

Hi @khoonks

I agree with @alexpavel that we should always press the IT department to come up with a CODE with the help of the project stakeholder. It's normal for IT to resist, because it adds more work for them. The very first guideline within PLANUAL says "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."

And you can try to convince the project stakeholder that even though Anaplan can come up with a new CODE, it's not advisable because TEXT manipulation results in bad performance and workspace utilization in Anaplan.

There are many instances & links within the Anaplan forum that talks about this, i'll just put the latest one written by @MarkWarren

https://community.anaplan.com/t5/Best-Practices/Memory-Usage-From-Text-Concatenation/ta-p/105881

But having said the above, below is a possible workaround for your situation:

1. Number (TEXT) extracts the number element from the numbered list.

2. New CODE adds 8 zeroes in front of Number (Text) because we can only have 999,999,999 members in a list. The formula also only extracts 9 characters from the right for the same reason above. So if you have a numbered list of #1, then New CODE = 000000001; if your numbered list is #12345, then New CODE = 000012345

3. Create CODE? is used to filter the saved view used to update the transaction list, so that only new transaction list without CODE is updated.

4. Cost Center, Measures, FinGeo are the examples of list that make up this transaction ID.

1. This is the saved view with the relevant filter used to populate CODE of the transaction list. Note that after performing the action, this saved view will become empty until new Transaction IDs are brought in from the external system.

Thanks,

LipChean

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