Get self-service and lower cost of ownership using CloudWorks
Now that Anaplan has rolled out CloudWorks, more clients are asking about how to leverage it as the main data integration tool for their Anaplan platform. After years of implementing Anaplan at a partner firm using mainly Anaplan Connect for integrations, I have been pleasantly surprised at how CloudWorks performs and how smoothly we are able to incorporate it into models. For anyone who has not had experience with the tool or would like to know more about the benefits of CloudWorks, I have highlighted three areas below that might make you consider CloudWorks for your next Anaplan project.
You already have access to it
For anyone that is unaware, CloudWorks is free with an Anaplan license. Obviously, an attractive option when considering other integration tools that come with a price tag. Even when compared to Anaplan Connect, which is also available at no additional cost, CloudWorks does not require the procurement of a certificate that provides secure access for the integrations user executing an Anaplan connect action.
To access CloudWorks, it is as easy as clicking the dropdown on the Anaplan home menu and selecting the menu item labeled “CloudWorks.” In order to configure, you will need to have the integrations admin role.
Leverage the cloud, remove the need for servers
CloudWorks now integrates externally with all major cloud data warehouse providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3, Google BigQuery, or Microsoft Azure Blob. Furthermore, we are seeing more and more clients with licenses for cloud data warehouses like these. Even if the data you need to source for Anaplan models might not yet be on AWS, GBC, or Azure Blob, Anaplan customers have shown a willingness to figure out internally how to get the data files on a cloud warehouse if their company has access to one. After all — CloudWorks is free. Once the data is staged, all you need is a token or access key to AWS, GBC, or Blob to create the connection. Once the connection is set up data, integrations are fairly straightforward and seamless.
Schedule and own your own integration without the need for IT
CloudWorks is so simple to set up and use that we have defaulted to asking clients if they have access to a cloud data warehouse. Once you have a connection to a data warehouse, setting up the integration in CloudWorks is as easy as clicking a button:
In addition to an easy setup, users can also decide when to automate data loads by leveraging the CloudWorks scheduling tool. The scheduling tool allows users to run actions that bring in external files and also allows for the scheduling of Anaplan model-to-model processes.
Keeping in mind that the usual arrangement for scheduling processes involves an IT resource, CloudWorks can reduce your reliance on IT significantly. With CloudWorks, you do not need to coordinate with IT to alter the process frequency or freeze data loads. It can all be managed by the Anaplan administrator.
Hopefully, these three reasons have captured your interest in Cloudworks! In summary, CloudWorks is free with an Anaplan license, it is set up for the ever-present shift to the cloud, and it is intuitive and simple enough for any Anaplanner to use in an effective way.
Do you have a question about CloudWorks? Leave a comment!
Nicholas Mascia is a Certified Master Anaplanner and Anaplan Practice Director at Platform Specialists, an Accordian company. He enjoys focusing on implementing forecasting and planning solutions using Anaplan, and is happy to connect with the Anaplan Community.
Comments
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Additionnally we are finding that cloudworks is opening other possibilities and/or make easier to :
- integrate rather big source data without having to chunk split files before sending them : we processed recently a 5gb of data using cloudworks successfully.
- allows to automate process running on schedule natively without needing to provision anaplan connect and other ressources.
- for simple data needs, if you can have access to your data lake storages, you can easily build your own data needed without much it requirements (if using aws, you can leverage on aws athena service to query source data, build a view corresponding to your anaplan needs and run cloudworks on the resulting dataset stored in s3)
I wish we could trigger cloudworks on event triggers instead of schedulers or manual launch and we would be golden
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