Managing number formatting between countries

Error404 · 2024-09-25T06:17:32+00:00

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Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice on how to dynamically change number formatting in both the Anaplan model and UX based on the region or country. We have a development model that will be deployed across two countries, but they use different formats for decimals and thousands separators.

For example:

Canada uses a comma for thousands and a dot for decimals.
Many European countries use a dot for thousands and a comma for decimals.

I’ve searched through the forums but haven’t found a solution besides creating separate development models. However, we prefer to have just one model to serve multiple countries. Does anyone know of a way to handle these differences dynamically within a single model?

Any insights would be much appreciated!

Accepted answers

All comments

Akhtar.shahbaz

Hi @rob_marshall, do we have this feature available in Anaplan?

Rnilsson

I would also like to hear if someone has any better insight.

But what we have done to solve this issue in past projects have been to implement a solution to create the least amount of confusion (not using both comma and dot) and substituted the thousand separator with "space".

headquarters in US
thousand separator = space
Decimal separator = dot

headquarters in Europe:
thousand separator = space
Decimal separator = comma

rob_marshall

@Error404 @Akhtar.shahbaz

No, we don't have that at this time.

@Rnilsson yes, that'll work, but I believe you are opening yourself up to a lot of issues down the road (sum's won't work, not to mention all of the text manipulation that you are having to do).

Error404

@rob_marshall
Just to confirm, would the best approach here be to have two Development models that we keep in sync manually during development and for any future enhancements? This way, we can still use ALM to deploy to the respective production environments for each country.

rob_marshall

@Error404

No, I don't think two models are necessary. Are you thinking you need the two models because of the loading of data (files)? If so, you can click the Production Data checkbox for the file loads. If it is reviewing data, that is done by the settings on the browser.

Error404

@rob_marshall
For both, Canada and Spain need to load their data in their local numbering format and also the user need to view and input data using their local format. I've tried to look for the setting in Chrome, so far I only found language settings. When I experimented with it, E.g put Spanish and remove every other language, it failed to display the expected format. It still display what's been setup within the Line Item format setting.

pratiksahaps

Hi, I don't think we have this provision available on Anaplan yet where the number formats would change based on region selections.

One way of handling it would be creating different line items based on regions.

Let's assume line item X (USD), X (EUR).. and likewise.. But then again, this is a bad design..

AdamSayyad

Hi @rob_marshall, is this feature available now? I had similar challenge for Spain Payroll model.

rob_marshall

@AdamSayyad

The checking the Boolean for Production data on the actions? Yes, it is as well on the files.

AdamSayyad

@rob_marshall- Sorry for the confusion. I was referring to Decimal separator option, can we switch for all number formatted line item at once.

I built the entire module with as Dot Decimal separator and once the model is live, now end user requested to change decimal format. So instead of changing all modules working, I changed only output model which is published on UX pages. And its working fine.

Any suggestion

rob_marshall

@AdamSayyad

If I am understanding you correctly, yes.

In Dev

Format of the data

Sync'd the data to Prod

Changed the file import definition in Prod as the format of my Time column changed to numbers, but as you can see, you can change it from Dot to comma as the decimal separator.

seymatas1

A new feature was released in boards and worksheets. This was available in reports for over 2 years.

Instead of adjusting number formats in the back end, consider creating separate UX pages for each country and setting up the appropriate number formats directly within the UX pages. Then create different landing pages for countries that use different number formats.

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