Best way to capture updates on line items and time of updates

Sachinsourav02

Anaplanners, 

 

what would be the best way to capture updates to line items and the date in which line item is updated:- 

 

the ask is if line item is updated we have to capture the date on which it was updated. 

So one way I thought of is that if I can replicate the line items with copy line items, and then an action to paste values from input screen to copy line items, while also taking a date of today copy.

 

But is there a better way to do this ? Or can use any new functionality/feature available ?

rob_marshall

@Sachinsourav02 

 

You aren't going to like my answer, but why do you need this?  Anaplan is not an ERP or transactional system.  What will that date tell you that doing an audit (Show History) of the cell can't give you?  Are the requirements needing to know what day someone updated that cell?  And what if multiple people updated that cell within the same day since our Date format doesn't go down to the hours/minutes? 

 

If you create an action to "snapshot" the data with a date, you are running the potential of crushing the end-user experience because they will have to run an action which could be a concurrency issue for other users.

 

I guess at the end of the day, why is this requirement truly needed?

 

 

ryan_kohn

Per @rob_marshall, Anaplan is not a transactional system and you will run into issues trying to configure it to be so. It's best to leverage existing native functionality for this.

 

1. If you are looking to have a record of changes to data inputs, you can leverage the Anaplan model history to do this.
2. If you are looking to have a record of changes to the model structure (including formula changes, for example), then you can use the Comparison Report that is generated when you do a model synchronization via Application Lifecycle Management (ALM).

Sachinsourav02

I agree with your fundamental point, Anaplan isn't that kind of a system. However, the use case did make demand such logic, 'end user A' does his or her action in the system based on the inputs from 'end user B'.

Now this is where i wanted to capture the time at which 'End user B' updated the field, so that 'End user A' is aware that field X is updated on XX/XX/XXXX End user A is also not a workspace admin to be able to check model history.

Sachinsourav02

I agree with your fundamental point, Anaplan isn't that kind of a system. However, the use case did make demand such logic, 'end user A' does his or her action in the system based on the inputs from 'end user B'.

Now this is where i wanted to capture the time at which 'End user B' updated the field, so that 'End user A' is aware that field X is updated on XX/XX/XXXX End user A is also not a workspace admin to be able to check model history.

ryan_kohn

Ah, the added context on what you're trying to accomplish certainly helps! It sounds like you're trying to build out a lightweight version of workflow capabilities. A couple suggestions that may offer some inspiration.

 

1. You can include a Boolean or a list-formatted status line item that users can set when they are done their work. You can further enhance the usability of this by using a Data Write Action to allow them to date-stamp their completion with a button press, or to populate a specific completion status into that field. @MikhilA also has a nice article on using the data write action in Anaplan.
2. You can take the above one step further by allowing end users to send notifications to a target recipient using a Notify Action.
3. You may also be interested to know that end-users can view the history for a specific cell via the UX, in case they want to see the specific date/time the status of an item was changed.