RANK function ONLY returns 1 when ranking in Anaplan Time dimension. Bug or intentional?

Charlie
Charlie
in Modeling

Hi Forum,

 

I am new to Anaplan, this is my first post ...

 

Set up to Demo problem:

  • 2 dimensdional module
    • Anaplan Time dimension in columms;
    • 2 line items in rows;
      • 1. Some numbers to be ranked
      • 2. RANK function ranking Line Item 1

Problem:

RANK only returns rank 1 for all the numbers ranks, even though they are different in size.

Question:

Is this a bug, or is there some reason why rank doesn't work across a time dimension? 

Notes:

This is NOT a question about ranking Time Periods, that works fine. It is about ranking when the dimension is Time. It would appear to be a bug, as I can't see any reason why it shouldn't work.

It would not be a solution for me to do the same but with a List of dates covered by the time period. That works fine, but I have other solutions to my problem that I would use. It is just that it would be immensely convenient if RANK worked across the Time dimension.

 

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Best Answers

  • Charlie
    Charlie
    Answer ✓

    Thank you, Stan, I guessed that there must be some reason behind it. Interestingly it even resets when Time Scale is on Day, where the days aren't even strictly List members of Time. I do a lot date maths and other work in Time scales, so it is unfortunate that ranking can't work across Time, but hey-ho. Thank you for your answer, brilliant,

     

    Charlie

  • Neil_Doyle
    Neil_Doyle
    Answer ✓

    Hey Charlie - do you really need to rank across time? You can do it with a bit of a workaround - creating a "month" list which you can rank across in a separate module and then bring it bank into your Time dimension module. Of course using any "month" list is not ideal as it needs updated manually if you expand your model timescale (but you could do this via a process if you wanted to!).

     

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Answers

  • Stan
    Stan

    Hey Charlie, I checked with the team - I think the issue you are running into is that RANK resets with time.  Since you have a 2 dimensional model, you only have 1 value per month, and it will always return 1.  See attachment of a 2d vs 3d, does that make sense?

  • Charlie
    Charlie

    Thank you for your workaround idea, Neil, marvellous. Yes, it would be a bore when timescales change. Another idea I had, which would get around the timescales problem, would be to lift to have gigantic list of daily dates that would exceed/envelop any timescale likely to be chosen. Then lift the current timescale as date using START, turning it into said list, and then continue as you suggest in your workaround with a sort of special Ranking Module for Time based series. Beats me, though, why ranking needs to reset every time the period changes. Sounds like a flip of the switch would sort it out. Charlie

  • kunal3591
    kunal3591

    Hi,

     

    So i have been working on a module where i need to assign ranks to list items based on performance for every month in a year.

    When i tried using the time dimension while applying thre rank formula in the same module -the ranks were cumulative.Whereas what i want is calculation of ranks of the specified list items every month for a given period of time based on the values.

    Any suggestions /insights would be of great help.

     

    Regards,

    Kunal

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