This month, we’re highlighting the newest Community Boss Employees (CBEs) who joined the program in 2025! The Community Boss Employees program brings together top internal Anaplan experts who actively share their knowledge, support members, and elevate conversations across the Community.
Our CBEs bring fresh perspectives and deep expertise to the Community. They actively answer questions in forums, create valuable content, help shape Community Challenges, and present at events on specialized topics — strengthening collaboration and advancing collective knowledge across the Anaplan ecosystem
To help the Community get to know our new CBEs better, we asked each of them to choose one Community article they believe every member should read and share why it’s particularly impactful. Here is what they had to say!
Allison Slaught (@allison_slaught), Anaplan Intelligence Director – OEG
Combined Grids is now live!
Why everyone should know this article: Combined grids is a transformative feature that improves the Anaplan user experience. Whether you’re building a new app or maintaining an existing one, this should be on your radar. As the name implies, it allows you to consolidate views from multiple modules into a single, unified grid.
Why I find it valuable: This feature delivers a powerful one-two punch: a more intuitive front-end and simplified back-end. I was able to experiment with it in early access, and the maintenance benefits alone were significant: fewer user filters to build and manage; less need for synchronized scrolling; redundant pages were consolidated or eliminated; and simplified training for new users due to intuitive design. It’s a worthwhile investment to incorporate into your roadmap to enhance existing applications and will quickly pay dividends in both user satisfaction and development time.
Elizabeth Schera (@ElizabethS), Director of Product Utilization & Adoption
End user triggering of workflow processes
Why everyone should know this article: I chose this article because it shows how you can connect Anaplan's modeling capabilities with the real-world business processes (workflow) they support. Even more than the math, workflows ARE the planning process. And, nearly every organization has processes — like launching new initiatives or approving headcount requests — that start with the planner and require structured approvals before being committed. This article demonstrates how to empower your end-users to initiate these actions directly within Anaplan, streamlining operations and ensuring governance is built right into the process.
Why it's valuable for you to read: Getting started on building your first Workflow can feel intimidating, but this guide provides a detailed, practical example covering both the model build and the workflow configuration from start to finish. This gives Workspace Administrators a concrete blueprint they can learn from and adapt to their own unique use cases. It’s the perfect starting point for anyone looking to demystify workflow and unlock its powerful capabilities to automate and control key business activities.
Etienne Waniart (@EtienneW), Principal Platform Adoption Specialist
Streamline hierarchy management with Polaris's new ITEMLEVEL and HIERARCHYLEVEL functions
Why everyone should know this article: Do you work with complex or irregular hierarchies in Anaplan? Then this article is a must-read! It introduces the new ITEMLEVEL and HIERARCHYLEVEL functions in the Polaris engine, which greatly simplifies hierarchy logic, especially helpful when working with ragged hierarchies without needing complicated workarounds.
Why it’s valuable for you to read: These functions make models cleaner, easier to maintain, and significantly more performant. If you design or manage hierarchical structures in Anaplan, this will save you time and help you streamline your logic while making your models more sustainable in the long term. No more need for workarounds using ratio summary methods!
Jan Sypkens (@jan_sypkens), Principal Platform Adoption Specialist
Jan recommended multiple Polaris articles.
Why everyone should read these articles and why it's valuable for you to check out: I recently rebuilt an airport capacity model in Polaris — a Classic model I originally developed in 2017. This was a personal challenge I set for myself to deepen my understanding of Polaris and ADO. In the process, I also discovered the added benefit of leveraging AI to generate artificial datasets that enhance the modeling construct.
Throughout the rebuild, several Anaplan Community articles proved particularly valuable to me, including:
Jon Ferneau (@JonFerneau), Data Integration Principal
OEG Best Practice: Imports and exports and their effects on model performance
Why everyone should know this article: Data integration is an integral part of all Anaplan modeling. Ensuring that you have the proper integrations setup can greatly improve your planning experience and build trust in the underlying data that drives your decision making. This best practice article highlights the most important concepts to consider when designing your integration strategy and is a must-read for all Anaplan model builders and IT teams alike.
Why it's valuable for you to read: If you focus on implementing these basic structures and ideas, you will have implemented efficient processes that limit model downtime for end users. Following data integration best practices also make it much easier for your organization to manage and troubleshoot potential data issues, while also making it quicker to build net new integration pipelines into your planning models to support use case growth.
Julien Froment (@julien_froment), Principal Platform Adoption Specialist
Guiding users through the UX best practices — Event recording available!
Why everyone should watch this recording: In the past, we’ve already shared best practices around UX. However, this event recording takes it further — it showcases excellent examples that can truly inspire UX design. To me, UX is not just about technical functionalities — it’s where process, storytelling, and features come together.
This video captures that perfectly, offering strong examples we can learn from and build upon. As Page Builders or end users, it’s worth taking the time to explore this video and see how you can leverage the full potential of the UX.
Why it's valuable for you to check out: It’s valuable because it brings UX to life — showing how thoughtful design can transform user experience. It’s a great source of inspiration for anyone looking to make their pages more intuitive and impactful. Thanks, @ElizabethS and @seb_mcmillan — this event recap is brilliant.
Seb McMillan (@seb_mcmillan), Principal Platform Adoption Specialist
Anaplan Polaris: A deeper dive into the Polaris Engine and model building techniques
Why everyone should know this article: No one should even think about building in Polaris without reading this first — the information here will help you save hours of work.
Why it’s valuable for you to read: Polaris has a number of key differences in implementation approach to Classic and you shouldn't just jump in and hope for the best. Best practice is evolving but this reflects our real world experience in working with the hundreds of models our customer have built.
Theresa Reid (@TheresaR), Architecture & Performance Director
Iterative Development in Polaris
Why everyone should read this article and why it's valuable for you to check out: If I had to choose one I would shamelessly plug my own article, Iterative Development in Polaris. I think this article is important for all Polaris model builders, as it outlines the different approach that should be used when building in Polaris and why. This approach doesn’t feel “natural” for Classic model builders but following it allows for better learning, quick and efficient model building as well as guidance on when and how to do optimization.
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We hope you enjoyed getting to know our CBEs and checking out their recommended articles and recordings in this month’s Community Member Spotlight! Share your thoughts in the comments below, and feel free to share your favorite Community articles!
Want to learn more about our Community Member Spotlight series? Check out this post.
Do you know someone in the Community who you think should be featured in a Community Member Spotlight? We want to hear about it — please nominate them here.
