Did You Know: Multi-dimensionality overview
Author: Allison Slaught is a Certified Master Anaplanner, Anaplan Community Boss, and Senior Principal Solution Architect at Anaplan.
Hello Anaplan Community!
The objective of this ‘Did You Know’ tutorial is to provide a brief recap of multi-dimensionality in Anaplan and provide a framework for identifying how formulas work. I use this framework daily to understand formulas, troubleshoot formulas, and align expectations with other model builders and stakeholders.
The video is below, but in case you’re revisiting the video and want to jump ahead here’s an overview.
When writing or understanding formulas, it can help to simplify multidimensional formulas into a 2-D view. I outline the dimensions of the source line item (where values are coming from) and target line items (where values are going to or where you’re writing the formula).
- Example 1 is a simple reference. Anaplan auto-matches like with like (e.g., G3 location to G3 location).
- Example 2 is simple reference that relies on composite hierarchies (aka parent/child relationships within lists), Anaplan can auto-match to pull a parent value from a more granular dataset if summaries are available.
- Example 3 is a simple reference, but there is an extra dimension in the source (product) and an extra dimension in the target (version). Where the source has an extra dimension (product), the default behavior is that the target receives the top level value (all products) if summaries are available. Where the target has extra dimensions (version), the default behavior is for every list member to receive the same value.
- Example 4 is a lookup.
- Example 5 is a sum.
Cautionary notes
This video does not include subsidiary views line items (line items that have a different dimensionality than the overall module). If your line item is in subsidiary view, the pivot feature shown in the video will not accurately reflect the dimensions in your line item.
Other tips for formula writing
- Don’t overcomplicate your formulas. If you have a simple reference that results in the desired effect without functions like sums and lookups, don’t add them just because. Not only is it messy, but extra, unnecessary functions cause the engine to do more work than necessary.
- If you are struggling to troubleshoot a more complex formula, consider breaking it down into staging line items.
- List member naming conventions are especially helpful to understand when Anaplan will “auto-match” using the composite hierarchy. It is generally recommended to use a letter prefix and a number with the parent values being the lower number and the children being a higher number. For example, if G is the abbreviation for the geographical hierarchy, and we have 3 composite lists (Region, Country, and Location), we’d follow the convention of G1 Region, G2 Country, and G3 Location. This numbering convention is preferable in Anaplan because it is common to have list members added below the lowest level member.
Questions? Leave a comment.
Happy modeling!