Anaplan UX: Offerings and Roadmap

Misbah

It has been more than two years since the inception of the UX (formerly, New UX). Anaplan has taken a huge step in the right direction as reporting was one of the key areas where Anaplan had to show improvements. Fast forward to 2021, Anaplan has delivered a modern look-and-feel with an ever-increasing list of new features that we can benefit from. As companies transition from Classic to UX, it is very important for all of us to understand the current offering and the near-term roadmap for the UX.

Offerings

• Not one, but three page types to choose from:

1. Boards:

- KPI review 
- Graphical, visual reporting 
- Viewing data 
- Reviewing related data from multiple modules 
- Call-outs of specific metrics
- Landing pages

2. Worksheets:

- Entering or editing data within a module  
- Reviewing large, detailed, data sets 
- Filtering large data sets 
- Running actions on data sets 

3. Reports:

- Access a highly formatted and structured report page to achieve clear visuals for executive and financial reports.
- Enhanced flexibility in styling and formatting help showcase key data.
- Present financial reports such as profit and loss (P&L) in standardized tables.
- PDF reports export as a single or multi-page report pack.
- Presentation mode enables Powerpoint style display of reports.
- Dynamic text, multiple formats & themes for grids, stacking of multi-varied cards and images.

• Cards unique to UX such as KPI cards & Field cards. These cards enhance the visual appeal of the pages.
• Conditional formatting options such as Morse & Border can be used to make the pages more presentable.
• Row heights can be adjusted for lengthy descriptive rows.
• Additional charts types, e.g. Scatter and Bubble, and Gantt charts.
• Additions to maps, e.g. Germany and France.
• Forms are a UX-only feature used when there is a need for an end-user to create a new list item directly within a UX page, and populate information related to that item. It is similar to the CREATE function in Classic, but FORMS work with general lists as well as numbered, and can incorporate validation of data entered into related fields in a module (e.g parent, code, attributes).
• Collaboration features: The UX offers many features which help in collaboration. These features include:

• Notifications: This feature doesn’t need anything to be configured within the model. It can be configured directly from the app and can be published as a radio button on the dashboard. It sends out the email to the recipients.
• Comments: You can directly tag the person in the comments section of the cards. You can only tag the people who have access to Anaplan.
• Sharing: You can copy unique page links to the clipboard to share via email or chat.
• Slack integration: Integrate Anaplan with Slack to share pages directly with colleagues and reach new users via Anaplan Slackbot.

• Security features: Apart from the security features at the model level, the app also allows page designers to configure access to the pages at the role level. You also get an additional security feature for managing the writing ability of grids. Even if the user has the ability to write/edit the numbers within a grid, you can still lock the grid from the app directly without changing the access in the model.
• Card template library: Page designers can save the cards in the card library for future use if there is a need to reuse the card in any other dashboard.
• Retrieve deleted apps: Page designers can retrieve deleted apps within 90 days from the date of deletion.
• Filter context selectors: Page designers can filter the context selectors by using the Filter or Show/Hide option directly from the app.
• Edit action label: Unlike Classic UX, New UX offers you an option of editing the action label, which means you can rename the action which suits the business better without changing the name of an action in the model.
• Changing the format of the primary grid: This feature is available on the worksheet page which allows you to change the format of the primary grid across three different options (i.e., Small, large, and default).

Roadmap:

Innovation continues at a pace with an impressive release schedule. Some features you may be using in Classic, which are on the way, include—but are not limited to:

• Pasting into breakback enabled cells
• Breakback hold and release
• Assign action
• Copy across and down

In addition, there are some clever workarounds for some other classic functions not yet available in the UX on Community:

https://community.anaplan.com/t5/How-To/Copy-Branch-Workaround-for-the-User-Experience/ta-p/98143

If you have just started using the UX and wish to read more about the terminologies that we use in UX, I recommend reading Understanding Anaplan's UX with Analogies.

rob_marshall

@Misbah 

 

Well done!