How I Built It: Replacing list items
Author: Chris Allen is a Certified Master Anaplanner and Manager at Allitix Part of Accenture.
Hello, and thank you for checking out my ‘How I Built It’ video tutorial on replacing list items!
The video will walk you through the process of replacing list items. The key feature leveraged here is importing a new code into a placeholder list item to override its original code to match the list item the placeholder was used to represent for. I'll walk through all the necessary steps to successfully complete this task.
This is an important process I implement for projects dependent on SKU planning. A planner may want to create a new SKU in their SKU list, which does not currently exist and will not be established in upstream source system in near future. The SKU's actual code and display name is unknown until it's created in the source system. The new SKU list item acts as a placeholder until the new SKU is available in source system and imported into Anaplan. When the SKU becomes available, the placeholder SKU will need to transfer its data to it or in this case, we have the placeholder SKU transform into the SKU it was a placeholder for by replacing its code.
Check it out and let me know if you have any questions!
Comments
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Super helpful!
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Hi Chris, great write up. Very elegant way to solve the issue. I think this gets a bit more complicated when you have Actuals already flowing into the new SKU (or worse yet, planners start planning to the new Sku). Curious if you have had to deal with those scenarios? I would love for Anaplan to perfect the Bulk copy action so you could Bulk Copy Forecast for planning Sku into just Forecast for new Sku:). In other words pick more than 1 dimension in the bulk copy action.
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Hey Stephen! Thank you!
The idea here would be they wouldn't coexist together for long. A process should be adopted to review new SKUs before each planning cycle. It would be an issue if the new SKU had input data written to it before it switches out its placeholder, but otherwise, if it's source system data/actuals then it'll flow accordingly when it's switched out.
My previous video covered flagging new list items which goes well into this process. If the new SKU is flagged then it shouldn't sit too long before taking action to switch out the placeholder SKU.
I agree with bulk copy needing some enhancements. It being restricted to non-production data has made it unusable for me.0 -
Great solution, Chris!
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Great solution Chris.
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Good Explanation and great work. Thanks for such a valuable lesson.
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Thank you Chris!
Probably moving master data and actuals before deleting SKU J could be an extension (precaution) to this solution. OR at least having a boolean that this SKU J "Has actuals?" or maybe already "Has Plan?" would flag if you have a problem of deleting this SKU.
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@Marina Ketelslegers Hey thanks for your input Marina. The idea here is to avoid many actions to move data from one list item to another. The process should take place as soon as new SKU enters system to avoid data written to it. Those are all good ideas and would be necessary if users don't respond to new SKUs entering the system timely enough.
Thanks!
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Yes, understand, that's how I would advise to my clients to do it as well. Ideally in DataHub.
If the SKU has already made its way into a spoke model, there’s a risk it may have data loaded or entered against it.
So before deleting it, we could implement a flag to highlight any potential issues. That way, the solution is more robust and less prone to accidental data loss.0
