Dashboard example: FP&A (OPEX planning)
Deal with monthly dashboards
Many FP&A dashboards will need to display all 12 months in the current year, as well as Quarter, Half, and Total Year totals. Doing this is likely to create a very large grid, especially if more than one dimension is nested on the rows.
Avoid this:
The grid displayed here is what may be requested when Anaplan is replacing a spreadsheet-based solution. The requirement being "At minimum, do what we could do in the spreadsheets".
Avoid the trap of rebuilding this in Anaplan. Usually, this simply creates an extra requirement to export this into Excel®, have users work offline, and then import the data back into Anaplan, which kills the value that Anaplan can bring.
Instead, build the dashboard as indicated below:
- Have end users view the aggregated values on the Cost center (the first nested dimensions) that will provide an overview on where most OPEX are spent
- Have end users highlight a cost center, and enter its detailed sub-accounts
- Visualize the monthly trend using a line chart for the selected sub-account
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