Pro tip: Process & Import IDs

AWhitworth
edited July 3 in Blog

When setting up data integrations the process or import actions are often referred to by name, however, this practice isn't robust and can cause process failures if names are changed in the model. During development and enhancements, a model builder may choose to edit the name of a process or import to the model. This would have no impact when running the actions within Anaplan, but an unintended consequence is any API imports would also need updating to reflect the new name.

Much like you would import against a Code ID instead of a possible changing name a solution, in this case, is to refer to the process by its inherent Anaplan ID which does change but is instead fixed as soon as the action is created — but how do we find these IDs? 

The IDs aren't a visible column on the actions tab for a model builder to view, but they can be found by pasting the following link into a browser and substituting (model_ID) for the id of your model (which you can find in the URL of your browser). 

  • https://us1a.app.anaplan.com/2/0/models/(model_ID)/processes
  • https://us1a.app.anaplan.com/2/0/models/(model_ID)/imports

Doing so lists out all of the imports or processes within the model by their name and shows their Unique ID. 

Imports example:

Process example:

Once you have the action IDs I have found the best practice is to copy and paste them into the notes column so that they are easy to find moving forward. The IDs are consistent between Development and Production models so this only needs doing once and can be easily referenced moving forward. Finally, you can then replace the process name with the Process ID code in the API or Connect script, future-proofing it in case of future name changes. 

How do you find and store the process IDs?

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