Macroeconomic Variables

DanielR
DanielR
edited July 2023 in Integrations and extensibility

Hello Community,

Is there a way to source into Anaplan for modeling purposes forecasted/consensus macroeconomic variables such as GDP, benchmark rates (Fed Funds, SOFR), Unemployment, etc?

Thanks!

Daniel

Answers

  • vanreign
    vanreign
    edited July 2023

    Hi Daniel,

    Definitely. For example, sourcing GDP, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) domain has that download, which could be imported into an Anaplan Module.

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    The method will depend on which data integration option or tools are available to you.

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    If you have a third party tool like Dell Boomi, HyperConnect/Informatica, MuleSoft, or snapLogic, you can just use that platforms' Web Service Connectors to source the data for the Anaplan import.

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    You can also use Anaplan Connect, creating a batch file that imports export files that are created by a request through the source system's API and schedule that job on a server.

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    Another option, if your infrastructure landscape includes an Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Platform, is first scheduling the import of the macroeconomic data into AWS or Google BigQuery using its' Web Service Connectors. Then Anaplan Cloudwork's native integration to those platforms would allow for scheduling the imports into Anaplan.

    Or, the files can be downloaded and uploaded manually :)

    I hope that is helpful.

    Cheers,

    James

  • DanielR
    DanielR

    Thank you James!

  • vanreign
    vanreign

    just be careful because, while this is free public data domain example, companies that have a low tolerance to data anomalies such as the source server not responding usually subscribe to a service that offers an SLA of upper 90% connectivity reliability. An example that I encountered is using the API of a free government hosted Exchange Rate Site. It was okay for several years until they discontinued it or changed the API. So this solution’s vendor data would likely need an SLA buy off tolerance from the business and IT if criticality is important. If it isn’t that requirement, business may be okay with a day outage of that data refresh. I think that’s the biggest challenge here is sourcing these various metrics reliably and including fail-safes to at minimum be notified that the refresh hasn’t occurred.

  • DanielR
    DanielR

    Lot's of good information. Thank you James.

    Do you know what sources are commonly used by planners for Macroeconomic variable forecasts?

  • vanreign
    vanreign
    edited July 2023

    @DanielR I did mention it being challenging :) No, a project that I worked saved that challenge for the very end but my work on the Anaplan build had concluded prior to that point.

    I just did a search and this looks interesting: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/ It offers an API to source the data. If you do have an Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Platform, one or both of those may have a service that offers this data. I looked at that a bit on the Google side but nothing reliable jumped out (not to say there isn't).

  • DanielR
    DanielR

    Got it. Thanks, James. Will ping you/community if I have more questions

  • joycesteffen
    joycesteffen

    I recognize. @geometry dash lite, best wishes. I will ping you or the community with any further questions.

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