Referencing Line Items from Other Modules/Lists (Performance Questions)

kevin.cho

Is anyone able to describe the performance impact (if any) of referencing line items from other modules or lists which have the same relevant dimensionality? Particularly using SUM and LOOKUP operators. 

 

For example, a model may have a Register A and a Schedule B (over time), both of which have the same dimensionality (Product). A third Schedule C has a different dimensionality, say Store, which has an implicit relationship with Product. 

 

Something like total revenue (by Product) may be calculated in Schedule B, and needs to be aggregated up into Schedule C (by Store). Is there any performance impact if the aggregation helper is in a different location to the source line item? 

 

A couple of different ways this could be done is:

 

Schedule C.Total Revenue = Schedule B.Revenue by Product[SUM: Register A.Store]

Schedule C.Total Revenue = Schedule B.Revenue by Product[SUM: Product.Store]

Schedule C.Total Revenue = Schedule B.Revenue by Product[SUM: Schedule B.Store]

 

(Where Register A.Store and Schedule B.Store are non-time dependent items returning the Store for the specific Product, and Product.Store is a list property returning the Store for the specific Product. 

 

Many thanks!

 

PaulRitner

Hi Kevin,

 

I've worked on a couple larger sized, models (50-80GB range) that had severe performance issues related to how formulas were written.  The location of the SUM line item (or property), as you describe, did NOT factor into performance improvement changes.  The fixes usually related to simplifying overly complex / nested IF-Then-Else logic (that was combined with multiple other Anaplan Formula Functions).

 

Nevertheless, there are folks in the community that I know have worked on massive (sized) models that adhere to a handful of best practices.  One of those best practices is to locate list attributes in modules instead of lists. In this context your example of "SUM: Product.Store" (which looks like a list-based attribute in the Product list), this would be called out as less efficient than if that attribute were managed in a module.  For the models I've worked on, this best practice hasn't mattered... I suspect that most models are not impacted by this, only the massive-sized ones.

 

Let's see what other community members add to this dicussion!

 

Cheers!

 

Paul