Top 25 Anaplan features released in 2022
Authors: Misbah Ansari (@Misbah), Certified Master Anaplanner and CEO/Founder at Miz Logix and @WajidAli .
Within this fast-pacing world, it is important for technologies to move even faster. Anaplan, being a leader in the Connected Planning world, released a plethora of changes and/or updates in 2022 to almost every aspect of its capabilities which includes modeling, UX, extensibility, collaboration, intelligence, and integration. If you are NOT an Anaplan geek you probably would have missed some of these updates and releases. In this article, we are going to share more about the top 25 features that Anaplan released in 2022. These features are separated into the respective areas of their capabilities so it is easy to understand. Let’s jump in!
Modeling
1. Model object search: This helps you find any artifact of the model including Modules, Saved views, Line items, Line-item Subsets, Lists, List subsets, List properties, Dashboards, etc. Press “CMD+SHIFT+F” in Mac or “CTRL+SHIFT+F” in Windows to pull up the search bar or you could also click on Model Object Search in Task bar of Anaplan.
2. Auto complete: Create formulas faster and more speciously with automatic suggestions for functions and model objects during development. With this feature, you don’t have to open modules or lists to click on line items or list items to complete the formula. Here are two resources if you need additional guidance: Formula Autocomplete and Did You Know.
3. Formula indentation: Anaplan now shows “IF ELSE STATEMENTS” with clear indentation which helps the model builder to read and view the formula better.
4. Tab split view of modules: Formerly known as “Dock” in classic modeling experience. Now model builders can audit their work, compare items and verify results with tab split view.
5. Import Time out for Optimizer: Anaplan has enhanced the Time out feature for Optimizer. It allows planners to access partial results in case of a time out, without having to change optimizer action settings. This will enable users to save time while being able to still review and leverage some of the results as applicable.
6. Improvement to Platform messages: Anaplan improved the way in which messages are displayed to users or model builders, including informative and error messages like access issues and processing messages. Messages that previously appeared in the blue “toaster” now appear as pop-out messages in the top right. System processing messages through long-running actions or blocking actions appear in a new message banner across the top.
7. View modules used on UX pages: Model builders can now use this feature to know which modules have been used to create a UX page. You can click on a source module to open it in a separate tab.
User Experience (UX)
8. Assign action and its enhancements. Two sub-features of Assign function made it to the list:
- Filter list items when using the Assign action: With this feature end users are able to filter the view of available list items to assign using nominated list properties. This makes the assignment process even faster, streamlining the experience for planners.
- Quickly assign list Items by pasting their codes: Planners can assign multiple items by pasting the codes of list items into the assign action interface with just one operation or command.
9. Synchronize scroll: If there are multiple grids published on the UX, it used to be frustrating for end users to scroll grids multiple times to see the relevant and meaningful data. Anaplan released this feature which allows page builders to sync scrolling multiple grids on boards and worksheets, making it a better user experience. Watch this short video for more information.
10. Include List properties in grid exports: End users have now the ability to control what they see in the exports directly from the UX. Gone are the days when in order to export the list properties, model builders alone could include list properties in the export action from the backend. Now, end users don’t need to rely on model builders to include list properties, they too can do so directly from the UX. Note: This feature is available while exporting the grid from UX and regular export (export button) will perform the way it has been built by model builders. This video explains this more.
11. Variance reporting and other management report enhancements. There are a lot of features that were released to management report pages. Quite a few made our list:
- Variance reporting: This enables the face-of-the-report variance calculations without modifying the underlying model.
- Lock cards: You can now lock cards in place such as background images so they no longer get moved by mistake when changing the layout.
- Copy and paste cards: Copy and paste cards across slides on the same report to save time recreating common cards. The cards will paste in the same location as the original on a separate slide.
- Enhance zoom: More granular zoom settings to focus on a particular area of the report.
- Short-cut keys: You can now perform a number of layout option actions using short-cut keys.
- Row and column styling: Change the background, font color, or emphasis a row or column in the presentation table.
- Number scaling: Change the numbers on your report table to display in millions or thousands depending on the most relevant to your audience.
- Number formatting: Update the number formatting to % or apply a suffix or prefix directly on the report depending on your needs.
12. Additional options for run model actions: Anaplan added this feature to UX actions which ensure end users are always prompted before their action runs and always shown a summary of the action, even when it completes successfully. Note that the default behavior of UX is that once the actions are run by end users it straightaway starts processing the action without any prompts and it also doesn’t give you the break-up of status. Watch this video to learn more.
13. Breakback, hold, and release: For customers that use breakback, the ability for their planners to make hold and release adjustments is a critical part of their planning process. To better support this Anaplan has released this feature to hold single and multiple cells in UX grid cards and worksheets where breakback is enabled.
14. Drive the click ability of import actions: Model builders will be able to define whether an end user action button can or cannot be clicked using a boolean line item in their model. This offers maximum flexibility when modeling and can support use cases such as validating required data inputs before running an import, testing completeness of data before actioning a process, and ensuring all inputs meet correct thresholds before allowing others to be alerted with a notification action. Watch this video to learn more.
15. Dynamic text added to Boards and worksheets: Text cards on Boards and worksheets have been updated to allow you to add static text, including rich text formatting capabilities, alongside data from the model.
- Dynamic content: change the numbers or narrative on your page based on the dimensions or time period selected.
- Format your text on the page to emphasize key points or improve the look and feel. Including bold, italic, underline, font sizes, and colors.
Extensibility
16. Anaplan for Microsoft 365: AM365 offers a new way to interact with Microsoft Office tools like Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. Designed to bridge the Anaplan user experience and Microsoft 365 applications, these new extensions enable users to perform fast, flexible ad-hoc analysis and reporting, by leveraging Anaplan UX cards and templates, driving consistency and speed of decision-making while leveraging Anaplan as the single source of planning truth.
17. DocuSign connector enhancements: Anaplan users don’t need to log into Anaplan DocuSign integration to update sent document statuses to their Anaplan models. The automated status refresh will work at scheduled intervals and users will see statuses updated to Anaplan models at regular intervals. This is particularly useful in case the user who initiated the documents for e-signing is not available and other Anaplan model users need to see the updated statuses.
18. Anaplan SSO for Power BI: The Anaplan Connector for Power BI is a user-friendly native connector for Power BI. It allows you to easily connect your Anaplan data and models to Power BI for enhanced data visualization and report creation to align with your specific KPIs and brand. This new version of Anaplan connector for Power BI supports Anaplan OAuth APIs for authenticating with Anaplan. Users will now be able to use either Basic Authentication (User ID, Password) or Anaplan Single Sign On (SSO).
Collaboration
19. In-product notifications for scheduled maintenance: Anaplan has enhanced collaboration capabilities to directly share information about planned events, such as scheduled maintenance windows or releases. With in-product notifications, Anaplan users will be proactively and directly alerted by planned events with a single source of truth. This gives users a simple way to gain greater visibility into upcoming planned downtimes.
20. Comment summary view: Discover all comments on a page and context selection with the new summary view. Easily drill down to an individual comment thread, or keep an eye on the bigger picture and watch conversations update in real-time.
Intelligence
21. MVLR algorithm and explainability added to PLAN IQ:
- Feature importance (explainability): It provides an “impact score” on how each “driver” impacts the forecast results. This measures the relative impact a driver has on the forecast, compared to the other drivers to help you understand forecast results and drive confidence in the forecasts provided.
- MVLR: Multi-Variate Linear Regression is fast, advanced statistical forecasting with feature importance, providing insights on how and which drivers most impact forecast results. Based on the statistical forecasting technique of regression, this new capability enables you to accurately predict a dependent variable based on multiple independent variables.
22. Backtest reimport: PlanIQ backtest import allows planners to evaluate forecast model performance using historical data. PlanIQ now allows the users to re-import the backtest data in case this is needed.
Integration
23. Transactional API updates: Large volume read APIs allow customers to export any-sized data from Anaplan modules and lists. They can effectively replace the current export actions. These large-volume APIs will be ideal for larger data loads and will be eventually supported by a wide range of connectors. Anaplan has released large-volume read APIs that will allow users to:
- Trigger large volume List read
- Monitor large volume List read tasks
- Download pages from large volume List read
- Clear up intermediate space (an explicit Delete call)
24. Download failure log in CloudWorks: Admins can now download failure logs for select CloudWorks integration failures.
25. Anaplan Connect 4.0 OAuth: This enhanced version of Anaplan Connect includes support for Anaplan OAuth APIs, and enables users to authenticate in their Anaplan Connect scripts without using user ID, password, or CA certifications. Some benefits of using OAuth for authentication are:
- Centrally managed Anaplan OAuth credentials. Credentials can be deactivated from Anaplan admin UI if needed.
- No need to save user credentials (user id or password) in integration scripts.
- No need to procure and set up CA certifications in integration scripts.
- Users can continue to be SSO enabled in an Anaplan model while using OAuth for authentication.
Note that this list is not exhaustive and there are many more other features that were released to the platform which did not make it to our top 25. If you wish to know about all of them, check out the new Anaplan Product Releases website.
Let us know in the comment section about your favorite release of 2022!
Comments
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Hi @Misbah & @WajidAli Thanks for explaining the features in detailed manner. Though I've come across a different opinion on Formula Autocomplete feature.
I could see more than 100 of maximum suggestions (138). This count also contains the results of No Data line items in our modules which are just used as headers or sections. Any thoughts?
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Good Summary, Thanks!
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Anaplan has mentioned that maximum of 100 searches will be displayed per object type. Now if you are saying that you that are seeing more than 100 line items including No Data formatted lines then It could possibly be that they might have enhanced this functionality, since we recorded the session, to remove that upper limit or another reason could be that No Data formatted lines don't count in that century mark.
Thanks,
Misbah
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Tremendous article @Misbah! This is such a helpful recap and really impressive when you see all the progress laid out on one page. Thank you for all your support of the community, you do so much to help all of us!
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@Misbah Hold and Release! Number 13. Thanks for this awesome post!
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@nikolay_denisov Thank you.
@EricS Thanks a lot! I hope so too that our community members might find some time to go thru it.
@Stephen Data Write is another beautiful feature but unfortunately it couldn't make it to Top 25. Thanks for posting it here.
@Tiffany.Rice I am glad that you found it helpful. Cheers!
@JaredDolich Champ! You are rockstar of our community. Glad that you liked it
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