Custom Calendars

sjkabak

Is there a way to create custom calendars in Anaplan? Our customers work out of different calendars and we would like to be able to enter and report data according to each specific customer's calendar, while at the same time being able to enter and report data according to our corporate calendar. Any advice or links to articles will be appreciated. Thanks!😀

seymatas1

Hi,

Is there a way to create custom calendars in Anaplan?

Yes. There are 6 different calendars in Anaplan.

While Anaplan offers flexibility with calendars, such as switching the fiscal year start month (e.g., January–December to July–June or October–September), the selected calendar applies to all time ranges and modules that use time dimension.

You can have a different aggregation level than the model calendar for a time range:

You also have different granularity options for modules.

we would like to be able to enter and report data according to each specific customer's calendar, while at the same time being able to enter and report data according to our corporate calendar

For your scenario, one solution could be to create separate models for each customer's calendar. You can then consolidate the data into a central model by using imports. These imports can be scheduled through Cloudworks or another integration tool.

I hope this helps!
Seyma

TristanS

@sjkabak require clarification on definition of "different calendars". Is it like the example I have below

• User A uses monthly Calendar Year January to December
• User B uses monthly Financial Calendar July to June
• User C uses weekly Financial Calendar (makes it tricky rolling up data from this weekly calendar on to a standard monthly calendar as there will be weeks than will span 2 different months)

If yes, answer to your question is yes. If no, could you please provide an example

sjkabak

@TristanS Correct. More Specifically

Account A uses a 4-5-4 calendar.

Account B uses a 4-4-5 calendar.

Account C uses July - June fiscal calendar.

Account D defines a week as Saturday to Friday while all others define it as Sunday to Saturday.

JaredDolich

@sjkabak This happens a lot with wholesale accounts. A model can only use one default calendar. But, a slick way to consolidate these calendars is to create a system module that is dimensioned by ACCOUNT and TIME. Here you will map each accounts time period to the default calendar of the model. This will require you to maintain the system module though, so if you have a lot of accounts this will be a burden.

Another possibility, probably the most supportable, is to create a system module by TIME and by CALENDAR TYPE and map the CALENDAR TYPE to the default model calendar. You will also need to add to your ACCOUNT system module the CALENDAR TYPE. This will allow you to use LOOKUP. To be honest, you would have to do this method even if you could create multiple calendars within a single model.

Last option, my least favorite, is to create separate models for each CALENDAR TYPE. This will require maintaining separate models and keep their upgrades in sync. Not too supportable.

If you're weekly, then you'll have a reconciliation challenge on your hands. Here's a link highlighting how weekly calendars between a 445 and Gregorian can be reconciled.

https://community.anaplan.com/discussion/59839/convert-values-from-a-445-calendar-to-a-normal-monthly-gregorian-calendar