Top five new model building tips and additions that changed my life

ayzoha

Author: Ayesha Zoha, Certified Master Anaplanner and Manager at Cervello.

As we all have started using the new modeling experience, here are my top five features which have made model building easier and more efficient:

1. Formula indentation.
   One of the significant additions in the new model building experience is the separate formula bar pop out within the same module along with the option to see the formula indentation. With this addition, you can easily see how the formula is split and highlights a different color for every function used within the formula. With this feature, you don’t have to use any external add ins or move out of Anaplan to write the formula. This makes things much easier when working with lengthy complicated formulas including multiple functions.
   
2. Guided formula writing.
   Along with the above features, the new formula bar prompts for any formula changes or selections once you type similar line-item names, which makes selecting the item easier.
   
   
   You can choose to place this formula bar either below your screen (horizontally) or next to your module (vertically) which makes it convenient to type the formula.
   
3. Pages and details along with history.
   The new section under ‘More’ gives you the ‘Pages’ option. This feature is something that we were all eagerly waiting for, to see history of the pages associated with each model. This feature is a game changer and helps you track the origin of the page and when changes have been made. This gives you a closer look in case you want to track changes after any revision tag has been synced.
   
   
   The below screenshot shows the details of the pages you have created using this model and gives details such as the name of the page, app, last update, and when it was originally published. This makes a big difference when you have multiple apps referencing the same model, and it gives a cleaner and structured view to keep a track of these updates/changes.
   Clicking on the blue highlighted page opens the respective page.
   
   Another detailed tab gives you an overview of the status of the page and details of when it was last published/changed. By clicking on the row, you can see the right window pop up.
   
   
4. Create page directly from model.
   Since my second point was about pages, another important feature which was very much needed is creating a page directly from the model. In the classic version, this option was not available, and the model builder had to navigate to the ‘Apps’ section of Anaplan to create a page. This now eliminated and you can directly create the kind of page you need from the model.
   By clicking on ‘Create Page’, it takes to the pop up to choose the kind of page you want to build.
   
   1. Module references published on the Page
      .
      1. Another important feature that made my life easier was finding which modules are published on a specific page. Previously, you had to open the board/worksheet and go to edit mode to find out the name of the module from which a specific grid was populated.
         
      2. Now, by clicking on the row that has the page name, a new pop window opens, that shows the names of the modules published on the selected page. You can further directly open the module by clicking on its name.
         
         
5. Enhanced model search.
   For models with extremely high number of modules and saved views, this is a big value add. You can now search anything using the model search and it will show you the saved views, modules, dashboards, lists, line items, list properties and subsets.
   

Along the with the above five, I really like the feature of opening multiple tabs at once without closing the previous ones — you can now see lists, modules, dashboards etc. all opened at once, like an internet browser.

As we wait for more features to be added to Anaplan, do let me know what your favorite features are in the comments!

Tiffany.Rice

@ayzoha - thanks for the recap! The formula indent is huge for quality of life.

Also, that "Pages" section is continually growing they recently added the ability to see the views and line items included from each module. That will be helpful when trying to determine if a saved view is actually used on an App page.

ayzoha

@Tiffany.Rice - Thank you! Yes, the July updates included the saved view information on the pages, makes it very valuable.
I think we'll see more updates from Anaplan on the new modelling experience side this year.

Emmeline

Thanks for this summary!

It would be great to see on the "modules" section a list of Pages using each module (just as it was for Used in Dashboards)

drishtibanga

Formula Indentation & Guided Formula writing are my favorites. It made my life super facile.
Thanks for highlighting these @ayzoha !!