This article is part of a series on Polaris best practices. Click here for more Community content or visit Anapedia for detailed technical guidance.
What is the Calculation Effort column?
The Calculation Effort column is one of the Blueprint Insights contained within the blueprint view of a module (or the line items tab) in Polaris. The Calculation Effort column displays the percentage of computational effort required for each line item. Opening a model initiates the calculation of all its line items. Therefore, the opening time varies depending on model complexity and data volume. Analyzing the highest value line items against Planual and Best Practice guidelines for formulas can reveal opportunities for optimization and improve the overall model performance.
When does the Calculation Effort recalculate?
The Calculation Effort column in Polaris functions a bit differently than in Classic. When a model is first opened, values are calculated, making this an ideal time to export the Line Items tab if you're focusing on improving model open time. After the initial load, the column shows the computational effort for each line item over the past 10 minutes. These values update in response to formula changes or user inputs.
Where to find Calculation Effort in a model
You can find the Calculation Effort column in your model in two ways:
Blueprint view
Line Item view
Using the Calculation Effort column to improve performance
To troubleshoot and improve performance of line items in Polaris, allow the model to remain idle for 10 minutes*. Then, run the import actions or perform the user inputs and check the Calculation Effort column on the Line Items tab. Currently, this is most easily done by exporting to Excel within the Line Items tab and sorting on the calculation effort. Line items with non-zero values are those recalculated by the action you just performed.
Prioritize optimizing the line items with the highest Calculation Effort and high Calculation Complexity, as they have the greatest impact on performance and offer the most room for improvement. For formula tuning guidance, see the optimization article linked below.
For our example above we adjusted the formula for a line item, and because there was no other activity or dependent calculations, the Calculation Effort in the last ten minutes is 100% for that line item:
*Note this should be done in a version of the model which has sufficient data and list population to replicate the import performance needing optimization.
Article links
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Authors: Anaplan’s Theresa Reid (@TheresaR). Special thanks to Anaplan's Rob Marshall (@rob_marshall), Mike Henderson (@hendersonmj), and Tom Shackell (@TomS) for their contributions.
