My journey on Workflow implementation — Part 1: the buildout
Author: Kevin Beltz has been a Certified Master Anaplanner since 2018 and is writing this blog on behalf of Wildflower Aspect.
Hello Anaplan Community!
Today I’m happy to share Part 1 of my Workflow journey. I segmented the blog into three sections: the state of Anaplan at my client, live build thoughts, and a summary section. These sections encapsulate my experiences and insights gained while understanding the technical aspects of Workflow. In the live build thoughts section, I documented my journey of setting up Workflow for the first time in April 2024. This journey is punctuated with enhancements, challenges, and moments of excitement.
Looking ahead, Part 2 is slated for a few months from now, by which time I anticipate having navigated through numerous workflow iterations with two distinct teams. Then I will present a comprehensive set of best practices, comparative metrics, and pre and post-release of Workflow to users. Stay tuned for that! Let’s get started…
The state of Anaplan at my client
The primary audience at 'my client' has been engaged with Anaplan for over two years. However, we have encountered resistance to the platform, and transitioning the team from Excel to Anaplan had proven to be a challenge at times. Recognizing this, our Anaplan Center of Excellence (CoE) identified Workflow as a cost-effective strategy to encourage users to adopt the Anaplan platform. We anticipate that Workflow — by providing a structured set of instructions — would facilitate a more complex business process. This, in turn, will encourage more users to review calculations and approve them, ultimately enhancing the Anaplan model and user experience.
Live build thoughts
Distribution v1 represented my initial foray into Workflow creation, characterized by its simplicity. I assigned myself as both the Assignee and Approver and found the process of receiving email notifications for each completed step enjoyable. I quickly realized that group tasks offered more flexibility than page tasks, providing backup coverage in case an employee is unavailable. The setup process for the Workflow was straightforward, intuitive, and quick for a linear workflow.
To gain further insights, I revisited the video #3 here: Lesson 3: Workflow Owner platform how-to and practice, a resource for Certified Anaplanners.
In Distribution v2, I experimented with the 'Assign to users from a line item in a module' feature to leverage boolean driven line items for submission and approval processes, aiming to drive Dynamic Cell Access in the model. However, I encountered a challenge when I realized that the workflow might not be synced to the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) in the same way as models, which was a cause for concern.
The first step of the planning process required users to select the L1 in page selectors, fill out a form (via grid card type), and click a process button to create the L2. I created the User Workflow Module on the L1 dimension, which is the same dimension as the form. In the Workflow settings, I referenced the same item that drives Step 2 “Create ... ” in the screenshot below.
I set myself as the Amount to Allocate and Approve (two distinct Workflow steps) user and initiated the template, and quickly realized that I did something wrong. The Workflow started for all list members of L1 instead of just one member! I’m trying to create a process for events “forecasts” that are ad-hoc and are all on different schedules for each L1 member. Unfortunately, I am not able to use the more powerful “Assign users from a line item in a module” and I will go back to Distribution V1. Good thing I used the “Duplicate Template” button!
Thank goodness for the ‘cancel Workflow’ button!
I went back into the Workflow assignment on the task and discovered the “context setting.” I picked one list member.
This would be a great spot for my purposes if I could choose this context setting when kicking off the template, instead of buried down in a task. If I have 20 tasks with the same context setting, I as the Workflow owner need to update each task. You are able to do it for the time dimension but not any other lists. Anaplan needs to stop building special functionality for native time!
Update: In mid-May 2024, I discovered this in Workflow — you can sync the dimension to the Workflow. When you start the Workflow, you can check this. It would be great if you could do this for all twenty tasks at once, instead of five clicks into each task!
Distribution V3: In this version, the goal is to create a highly detailed Workflow. The process has numerous non-mandatory tasks, leading to variability in task execution. Sometimes task X is performed, while at other times, the process jumps straight to task Y. The starting point for this version is the ideal Step 1 of the process, which begins with different users, model, and app.
The notify step was tested to understand its functionality. Initial thoughts raised questions about the need for a pre-selected user and message. While pre-selecting a user seemed logical, the inability to customize the message was seen as a limitation. Further consideration led to questioning the purpose of this step, as a change in assignee between Step 2 and Step 3 would result in the new assignee receiving a notification upon completion of Step 3.
In Distribution V3, one Page’s process has been streamlined into six sequential steps in the Workflow, mirroring the instructions on the page. The first step involves loading the most recent distribution from Model AB to Model AC. This process, which runs overnight, captures any changes from the Workflow steps "Review Process A" and "Review Process B". The machine task workflow step was utilized for this process, proving to be intuitive.
For page steps 2A and 2B, utilizing boolean driven line items to drive page step 3 could be beneficial. However, a challenge arises when the same user accomplishes all steps simultaneously, eliminating the back-and-forth interaction between User 1 and User 2. This suggests that if only one user is responsible for the entire process, it may not be the most effective solution. Further investigation is needed to understand where approvals fit into the process. Despite these challenges, the original 8 steps on the page were successfully condensed into seven workflow steps.
Upon initiating the Workflow, I discovered that it's possible to edit the users and due dates for each task, even after the workflow has started. This flexibility in editing the template post-launch is quite beneficial.
Running the detailed Workflow
Right away, I noticed is that my images are not downloading automatically in Outlook. Work with IT to get emails to automatically download from no-reply@anaplan.com, otherwise the email is ****! The second piece I noticed immediately, was that I made a typo in the Workflow name, and I am unable to change the name once the workflow is running! This is quite unfortunate, but I will carry on.
As a training exercise, I found keeping the Workflow task menu open by clicking “Go to Task Inbox” is a better experience than clicking emails that open up new tabs.
I am dazzled by the machine task. It automatically triggers when the step before it is completed. I have a UX choice — should I separate all of the pages to apply to each Workflow step and remove the blue action buttons from them? I almost triggered Step 3 process instead of hitting the “complete task”.
Early lessons learned
- It is more effective to rewatch the Workflow trainings and follow along while building live, rather than just watching the videos and their prompts.
- Group tasks are preferred over page tasks, as they allow for writeback into the Anaplan model and facilitate easier task user setup in a module.
- Users can complete the Workflow using the app/pages instead of the Workflow dropdown. This was observed during a test workflow where users insisted that the capital event was complete and data was extracted to load to our accounting system, even though the team was only at Workflow step 2 of 10.
- It may be necessary to work with IT to enable automatic email downloads from no-reply@anaplan.com, or adjust settings to automatically download if permissions allow.
- Creating Workflow-friendly pages is beneficial, especially when the page has one or more process buttons that are part of that page's workflow. Machine tasks can be used to run the process instead of a user clicking the process.
- Users should be trained to keep the Workflow menu open in their browser and navigate to the next steps from there.
- It is recommended to run through the entire workflow individually, then with power users, before opening it up to the team.
- Create a page that displays the Workflow steps and the current progress in the process is helpful.
Great things about Workflow
- Setting up Workflow in Anaplan was straightforward, with a 21-step process created in about an hour.
- Reviewing the entire planning process for a model/app is beneficial. It helped identify pain points in the processes and app that were not previously expressed by users or caught by me. At the very least, this is a great review exercise.
- The ability to export the Workflow steps after completion was appreciated, as it will be useful for audit purposes.
- Machine tasks were found to be highly effective, as they can eliminate all the buttons on pages that users often forget to hit.
- The flexibility to edit users and due dates mid-process was a valuable feature.
My thoughts on future enhancements for the Workflow team at Anaplan
- Page selectors within Workflow should sync from one workflow step to another, similar to how they do in apps.
- When initiating a Workflow based on a template, it would be beneficial to input a due date for when the Workflow needs to be completed.
- In addition to linear Workflow, branching Workflow should be considered.
- It would be advantageous to have dynamic text capability in the title and instructions to match a list selection or a key input when duplicating or initiating a template.
- The ability to edit Workflow steps in the middle of the Workflow would be helpful, as most Workflow steps are quite similar and recreating them for changes can be tedious.
- Workflow templates should be ALM enabled and synced.
- The ability to change Workflow names and descriptions after they have been created would be beneficial. This would prevent the need to restart the entire process due to minor errors like typos.
- Integrating Cloudworks processes into Workflow should be considered.
- Decision tasks should be able to reference a module, similar to group tasks.
- The name and description of a Workflow template should be written into a module, ideally the same module where users are selected and their progress is tracked.
- When using a module with dimensionality, all tasks should be set to "sync to Workflow" instead of individually.
Stay tuned for part two later this year — I’ll cover best practices, comparative metrics, and the pre and post release of Workflow to users. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have questions!
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Appendix
: This is what I am calling “Workflow steps”:
Comments
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This should be added to the Planual. Thank you @KBeltz - epic journey for sure.
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