Amending existing Imports

Alessio_Pagliano
Alessio_Pagliano
in Integrations and extensibility

Hi,

 

Apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere. I'd like to be able to edit existing import processes without the need of recreating them.

 

The specific use case is that I provide self-service functionality for users to interact with apps and load data and metadata and I tend to do so via .csv upload.

 

I then publish the import action into a dashboard so that the users only need to click on a button to upload new data/metadata, based on a specific template file (with file format published as instructions on dashboard).

 

The problem is that as I develop the model, sometimes things are renamed (eg line items, dimension names) or change, otherwise I would want to click be able to edit a process and see the classic preview so that I can verify it's all still valid.  In both situations I would like to be able to quickly amend an existing import action.

I'm not sure it's possible to do that ? But I would find it quite helpful.

 

Also, Anaplan is deleting the imported files by default after xx days...when this happens I'm not sure if I can see anything but the name of the process ? From a maintenance point of view I think these sort of functionalities would be quite helpful...unless they are already there ?

 

Thanks

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Answers

  • PaulRitner
    PaulRitner

    Hi,

     

    We can edit Import Actions by navigating to Settings > Actions, and then editing the action.

     

    After a time, Anaplan deletes the file that the action was based on... and suddently we can't edit the action... this drove me bananas the first time.  However, if we navigate to Settings > Actions > Import Data Sources (tab), then we can upload the original (or a new) datasource again... and we are back in business.

     

    Oftentimes, when unit testing an action, we need to edit the action for precisely the behavior we want (mostly how we do or don't want to clear the target, depending on the end-user needs).

     

    A challenge is that, if an Action is renamed & the source file needs to be reloaded, it might not be easy to figure out which source file applies.

     

    Cheers!

  • Alessio_Pagliano
    Alessio_Pagliano

    Hi Paul,


    Thanks for your reply...helpful as I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I might try and request an ehnancement for this as I think a bit of extra functionality would be good.

     

    Having worked with Cognos TM1, for example, I think it would be quite good to have a bit of functionality similar to what is delivered as part of Turbo Integrator ....a simple example can be seen on here :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqLjSVkj-gg

     

    at second 0:47

     

    It would be good to basically have a default file stored on server as well as the option of overwriting a file, stored on server and always available so that it's easy and clear to edit, check the preview, amend some formatting as well as having the option of uploading another file (which will need to have the same format in order to complete successfully).

     

    Otherwise after a period of time, when the file used for the import is purged from the server it becomes really difficult to review the upload process.

     

    Does it make sense ? Would you agree this sort of functionality could be a helpful enhancement ?

     

    Thanks,

     

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