Lag Function without Time Demensions

felixchu

Hi Anaplanners,

I am trying to model a queue building up in Anaplan and I am wondering if there is any way I can use the Lag function to return the adjacent value without time dimensions. The principle is to add the queue from the previous segment and add to the current segment, however the model does not have any time dimension, so there is an error when using the Lag function.

I was trying to use Lookup but it caused a circular reference.

Any ideas on how to use Lag function without a time dimension will be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Felix

rob_marshall

@felixchu

Sorry, but LAG(), Previous(), Next() only work with native time...Something to think about is having the calculations using the native time functionality and then referencing the results via a mapping module using lookups.

Not saying this link is your silver bullet, but it might give you an idea. Flexible Time

AjayM

Hi @felixchu ,

I hope this workaround gives you some alternate idea to your requirement, if not exactly the same. A couple of things to please note:

1. Codes of Segment list items, or the list against which you do the calculation has to be in a sequence
2. This is not exact replacement to LAG functionality

Workaround:

1. My Segment list items have codes in a sequence, that are helpful enough to find previous item for every list item
2. I have two ways of cumulating the values here - one that adds previous segment value to current segment value, the other that cumulates segment values along the Segment list

Cheers!

felixchu

Hi @rob_marshall ,

Thank you for the suggestion. As a workaround, I created the date and map the column header to the date so I can now use the Lag () function.

Thanks

felixchu

Hi @AjayM ,

Thank you for the suggestion.

I did give it a goal but unfortunately it is causing circular reference as I had formulas built in the previous lookup.

As a workaround, I created the date and map the column header to the date so I can now use the Lag () function.

Thanks