Top 25 Anaplan features released in 2024

Misbah · January 28

Author: Misbah Ansari is a Certified Master Anaplanner, Anaplan Community Boss, and CEO/Founder at Miz Logix.

Anaplan has released hundreds of features in 2024 to enrich its platform with more flexible planning, dynamic reporting, and scalable offerings. These features have been released throughout the year across all the areas of Anaplan platform which include modeling, UX, extensibility, and intelligence. You may have missed some of these updates and releases, so in this article I’ll share more about the top 25 features that Anaplan released during the year 2024.

Also, the Anaplan Community recently hosted a January Challenge, and asked people to chime in with their favorite features from 2024. I’ve noted the their favorites in my list below along with quotes on their significance.

These features are divided into their respective areas of their capabilities so that it becomes super easy for you to understand it. Let’s jump into it.

Modeling

1. Top-level and subsets for the users list

Model builders will be able to leverage the users list similarly to other lists in the model by applying a top-level to enable summing and creating subsets.

“If I had to choose one, it was great to see User List enhancements raised through the Community Idea Exchange come to reality! While maybe not an earth shattering change, the ability to assign top levels and subsets on the Users list | Anapedia helps avoid the need for workarounds to support user centric needs." - @Tiffany.Rice

“My favourite release of 2024 includes ADO (Anaplan Data Orchestrator) and User List Enhancement. The User List Enhancement release has addressed the issues model builders faced with assigning top levels and subsets, eliminating the need for workarounds such as creating fake user lists.” - @PulkitChawla

2. Fine grain history search

Specify exact date and time when looking through model history. This allows you to narrow down the search and reduce the size of the exported file.

“It's now much easier to look up the history of what happened within a model if you already have a general idea of when something occurred. Before this often required running a much larger export of history and searching through in Excel.” - @Darin_Seibel

3. Anapedia integration for calculation functions

This brings information from Anapedia directly to model builders, enabling you to search, understand, and leverage the library of functions in Anaplan directly from the formula editor.

“I would like to highlight once again one feature I posted in April — Anapedia right in the formula editor. I am happy to use it once in a while.” - @KirillKuznetsov

5. Engine-specific content in the Anapedia integration

Builders will now see a tailored list of functions based on their model engine - Classic or Polaris. This enhancement streamlines the builder experience by only displaying function help relevant to the selected engine, enabling builders to create formulas with greater efficiency and precision. For Polaris-specific functions, detailed calculation differences are provided.

6. Improvements to the performance of On-Demand Calculation in Polaris

Modelers will see improvements in re-calculation speed with On-Demand Calculation combined with small up-stream data changes. Polaris will now only calculate aggregate-level intersection when needed, resulting in reduced model size and improved calculation performance.

7. Context-shifting functions over non-Time dimensions in Polaris

PROFILE, SPREAD, POST, and DECUMULATE (as well as the previously released NEXT, PREVIOUS, LEAD, LAG, OFFSET and so on) functions can now be used over dimensions other than Time in Polaris. An extra parameter can be added to instruct the engine to shift over a non-Time dimension.

User Experience (UX)

7. Scatter/bubble chart power trend line

Anaplan has added a Power trend line to the existing supported trend lines on Scatter/Bubble charts.

8. Hierarchy charts

This new card type enables customers to visualize and interact with their list hierarchies in the UX, including org charts, product hierarchies, income statement variances, regions, territories.

“My favorite release of 2024 is Hierarchy Cards. They have made communication easier, especially in the foundation phase of the projects while determining hierarchies. They offer a lot of flexibility for demonstration purposes." - @SeymaTas

“Hierarchy Cards have simplified the way we visualize and communicate complex hierarchies. It will be much easier to present and understand structures via the Hierarchy Cards. I’m already seeing how these cards will significantly streamline future implementations." - @muratakkas

9. Restore a deleted App page

It's possible to restore a deleted App page, providing it was deleted in the last 60 days.

10. Notification action recipient increase

When adding recipients to a notification action button, you may now add up to 50 different users. The previous limit was 20 users.

11. Button icon alignment options

Alignment options allow you to change the position of icons on your buttons to help create a more intuitive experience on your pages, for example when creating "next" or "back" buttons.

“My favorite feature for 2024 is a golden oldie back from January, and an example that it's the 'little things' that can make a big difference. Action Button Icon Alignment might sound simple to some, but the number of queries I had from users when navigating dashboards was greatly reduced by the simple relocation of an arrow icon on my nav buttons. So, while this is a 'little thing', it's easily my favorite change from the year.” - @matthewreed

12. Gantt chart enhancements

More control over the time axis for Gantt charts to focus on relevant time windows.

13. Role-based landing pages and Page access

Page builders can define a fixed landing page for users, dependent on their model role, helping users access the content they need more quickly and streamlining navigation. Users can also now specify by role who can and cannot modify a page, allowing users to restrict critical planning pages while still giving users the flexibility to create their own pages and reports. All existing permissions will remain the same, with the addition of the enhanced capability to restrict modify access so users can no longer go into page designer.

“My favourite 2024 feature was the Role Based page access. It was released in November 24 and it happened at the time where this extra level of control was needed and relevant to our projects." - @Alessio_Pagliano

14. Delete pages associated with archived models

Page builders can delete pages associated with archived models by selecting 'edit options for this page' on the app contents screen.

15. Font color conditional formatting

Page builders can now select font as a style for conditional formatting for any Grids in UX pages, tables in Management Reporting, and variance columns on a table.

Both @bhatjaved and @SriNitya mentioned this in the Challenge as one of their favorite releases!

16. Re-ordering categories and pages

Page builders can drag and drop pages within an App from one category to another using the grabber icon. Using this feature, page builders can create their own custom sequential view of pages to be displayed to end users. Page builders can also change the order of categories on the left-hand panel and ensure to do a quick browser refresh for the changes to reflect. The custom order is maintained until further changes in the App is performed.

“Picking a favorite feature from 2024 is no small task, but one that truly stood out for me was the ability to reorder categories and pages in the NUX app. This small yet impactful update has significantly reduced the manual effort required for organizing pages. Previously, we had to rely on alphanumeric naming conventions to sequence pages, which was both time-consuming and unintuitive. Now, with the simple drag-and-drop functionality, we can effortlessly rearrange pages to suit user needs without unnecessary sequencing. It’s a subtle enhancement, but one that brings a cleaner, more user-friendly presentation to our apps — definitely a game-changer for builders and end users alike!” - @Prajjwal88

Both @bhatjaved and @Dikshant also picked this feature as one of their favorites from the past year.

https://play.vidyard.com/M7YUyqeY6Bg5tmwYw4Z3kb

17. Commenting on Worksheet pages

Comments can now be attached to Worksheet pages on the main grid and any supporting cards. Comments are tied to specific context to keeps conversations and threads clear.

18. Row and column formatting

Page builders can now apply row and column formatting, including number formatting to a grid in boards and worksheets. This enables page builders to make individual rows or columns stand out in UX pages and add the appropriate suffix, such as %.

19. Conditional page navigation based on line items

Conditional navigation action buttons in the UX can now use either list-formatted properties or line items, allowing for additional flexibility and following model building best practices.

20. End user show/hide enhancements

End users now have the ability to right click to show/hide, allowing for ragged selection and reordering selected rows/columns on a grid.

21. Workflow (Community’s top pick for second year in a row!)

New Builder mode (default for all users): Workflow owners can now visualize their business processes as they build them with a new interactive flow-chart design mode.
Multi-page tasks: Builders can now include navigation action buttons and linked card titles in the pages used for tasks to allow end users to easily move between pages.

Collapsible right-hand panel: Easily minimize and expand the right-hand task panel to dedicate 100% of screen real estate back to your page.
Create tasks and approvals from Management Reports:
Builders can now select Management Reports as the subject of a task or approval, making Workflow a solution for orchestrating business process all the way from initial data to the boardroom.
Force complete steps in Workflow hierarchy tasks: The ability to force completion of sub-tasks in hierarchy Workflows provides Workflow Owners with more control over administrative actions.
Archive completed Workflow runs: Users who prefer a clean interface may archive historical Workflow runs. Archived Workflow runs aren't deleted.
Flowchart visualizations: The flowchart visualizations originally introduced in the builder tool are now the default view throughout Workflow, for example when overriding settings or tracking progress of a workflow.

Trigger workflows from a UX page: Workflow templates can now be linked to buttons on UX pages and made available for end users to use, allowing for greater flexibility.

“My favorite new release for 2024 is the ability for a user to kick off a Workflow from a page (vs. having to have access and get into the Workflow admin page to kick it off). This change made it much more likely that users will adapt to using workflow to improve efficiency.” - @jziemer

Assign notification steps based on line items: In a model, users who should receive notifications at key points of a process can now be defined. This allows specific users or teams to get alerts when project changes or requests are related to them.

“My favorite feature which we got is Anaplan Workflow and it is obvious. Because it has given an upper hand for the users to get to know their responsibilities in the process flow. I remember building a huge functionality just to provide approvals capabilities for the users in their business process time to time. It would've been much easier and efficient if I had this workflow feature there in Anaplan." - @Puneeth H P

“Anaplan Workflow has been a game-changer for our organization. By automating key processes, improving collaboration, and enhancing accuracy, it has delivered significant value and positioned us for continued success.” - @SaiPrasanthK

22. Updates to Management Reports

Rich text formatting (for end users): End users can now apply rich text formatting to editable text in grids and field cards to add commentary or highlight summaries and key points. This update is not just restricted to Reports as it is available in Boards and Worksheets as well.

Slide-level context: You can set the context of a report slide at the slide level.
Report page settings dialog: We have added a page settings dialog to the report page so it is consistent with all other page types.
Cascade slides: Quickly and easily create multiple linked slides based off single or multiple slide dimensions.
Hide slides: Page builders can easily hide any slide while in design mode so it is not visible when published, for example hiding source slides in a report.

Intelligence

23. Anaplan CoPlanner

It is a native Anaplan artificial Intelligence (AI) tool. You can use plain language to find answers to business questions with Anaplan CoPlanner. Currently it supports the Demand Planning application only.

Extensibility

24. Anaplan Data Orchestrator (ADO) — another Community top pick!

ADO is a game changer in the Anaplan world. Using ADO, data could be extracted from the source systems and transformed in ADO and loaded into Anaplan with the push mechanism of ADO. You can also schedule the loads by leveraging Workflows.

“One of the most noteworthy advancements in the Anaplan ecosystem in 2024 was the introduction of ADO (Anaplan Data Orchestrator).” - @alexpavel
“ADO is likely the biggest update of 2024, and it’s my favorite feature.” - @AdamSayyad
“My favourite release of 2024 includes ADO (Anaplan Data Orchestrator) and User List Enhancement. The release of ADO has significantly improved the efficiency of data storage and flow for model builders, removing the dependency on the Data Integration team to run specific jobs via integration tools.” - @PulkitChawla
“My favourite feature for 2024 is ADO. It is probably the biggest update of 2024. With this tool, solution architects and model builders can re-visualize the data foundations behind almost every model and transform it into a more user-friendly and intuitive data management tool without the need to design and build a model specifically to house data.” - @SIVAPRASADPERAM
“My favorite Anaplan feature released in 2024 is the Anaplan Data Orchestrator (ADO). The ADO has revolutionized the way we manage and integrate data by simplifying and accelerating the entire process. The ability to connect seamlessly with third-party applications using a no-code interface is a game-changer, especially for someone like me who values efficiency in data integration.” - @Salini
“In my opinion, the best release in the Anaplan ecosystem in the past year was the public rollout of Anaplan Data Orchestrator. ADO allows our clients to integrate easily with various data sources (with more hopefully coming soon!), and then to transform this data in a way that is most suitable to use in Anaplan models — without all the workarounds and complications of Data Hub.” - @M.Kierepka

Others who voted for ADO: @TristanS, @Navink, @jziemer, and @SriNitya,

Security

25. Manage users in Administration

Tenant Administrators can now disable user assignments from the model's user management tab and allow on User Administrators to create users in the tenant. This means if you want to take away the control of user management from WSA’s you could that easily as Tenant Admin and assign that to User Admins.

Conclusion

This list is not exhaustive and there are many more other features that were released to the platform which did not make it to our top 25. If you wish to read about all of them, here is the link for releases.