Boolean with summary : "all", true for parent with no child?

ChaitanyaKakara

Why is a Boolean line item with summary set to ALL true for Parent even when there are no child items?

I noticed that a boolean line item was true for a parent in the hierarchy automatically if summary was set to ALL even if it had no children. Why is this so? I thought if summary is set to ALL the parent would be true if all the children are true

M.Kierepka

Hi @ChaitanyaKakara,
It's not an anomaly/peculiarity of Anaplan, it's the expected behavior. The same rule applies within most of the programming languages and is inherited from the mathematical theory of sets. As you said, "I thought if summary is set to ALL the parent would be true if all the children are true". You are right, but for empty sets it's not that straightforward. It's because "All" should be equal to "Can you find any counterexample?" (which you can't do for empty set, so parent without children in Anaplan). Same for "Any" meaning "At least one satisfies the condition" (so it will be always false for empty sets). If you want to read more about it:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth#In_computer_programming
• https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/202452/why-is-predicate-all-as-in-allset-true-if-the-set-is-empty
  
  

If you want to do the filter which behaves as "all", but without “childless parents”, you can:
- add separate line item (B) that has formula =TRUE and summary "Any".
- add final filter which has formula =(A) AND (B) with summary FORMULA.

saket22

May be there are list members with TRUEs but not visible (because of a DCA or filter)?

A screenshot of the issue would help in answering (or discovering a peculiarity of Anaplan)

ChaitanyaKakara

@saket22 There is no filter or a DCA on the mentioned boolean line item. The formula for the said line item is as simple as line item A = variable B. I added a test parent in the hierarchy and when checked in the module it was TRUE regardless of it not having a child. I wish I could provide a screenshot but I would have to check with firm first.

saket22

@ChaitanyaKakara

I create a list with no items in it:

Next I created module with the said list and a Boolean formatted line item. Kept the summary for the line item as ALL:

This is how the grid view looks like:

In the above set up the line item is not appearing as TRUE. Is your set up different from what I created above?

ChaitanyaKakara

@saket22

This is how it is setup:

1. I have a 2 level hierarchy lets say: Product (parent level) has 2 items Chocolates and Cookies under which Chocolate has no children and Cookies has 1 child item called Chocochip.
2. The Child level list is used in a module as dimension.
3. Then in this module lets create 2 line items : Product and Check and in a Separate module we have a variable A = Chocochip

Product formula : Item(Child list) summary: none

Check formula : Product = variable A summary: ALL

In this case, what is happening is Check value for Cookies and Chocochip is true but also value for Chocolates is also true even though it has no children, which is strange.

saket22

Looks like a peculiarity of Anaplan then. Below are the screenshots of your question for a more experienced person to answer:

ChaitanyaKakara

@saket22 Thank you so much for the screenshots! Does seem like an anomaly, lets see if anyone else has faced this situation.

ChaitanyaKakara

@M.Kierepka That definitely makes sense now. Thank you for the explanation!