Setting Today's Date via Informatica Cloud Services Integration

PrevContributor

We've seen many requests to replicate Excel's TODAY() function within Anaplan.  While Anaplan may or may not eventually build this functionality into the platform, we have implemented a workaround using our Informatica Cloud Services (ICS) integration that might be useful for other Anaplan users utilizing automated integrations.   We set up a nightly batch job that occurs at midnight every night within ICS, that sets today's date within a global setting in Anaplan.  Within Anaplan, we have a Global Settings module which contains no dimensions and holds some common settings which are referenced throughout the model.  The integration populates a date formatted line item called Today.   You could also populate this Today line item from any other integration source, or a scheduled Anaplan Connect job, however we found it easiest to just add one more integration pattern to our existing ICS integration.   We then have some additional formulas within the Global Settings module that translate the Today line item into additional actionable line items.  For example, we have a 'This Year (Number)' number formatted line item that extracts just the year from the Today line item, formula: YEAR(TODAY), and a 'This Year (Time Dimension)' year formatted line item that relates to Today, formula: PERIOD(Today).   We reference these throughout the entire model whenever we need to use a dynamic time dimension or need to understand whether something is active based on a start/end date relative to Global Settings.Today.  For example, to determine whether we have any Assets that were created this year (boolean formatted line item called Any Assets Created This Year?), we use the following formula: Asset Creation Year = Global Settings.'This Year (Number)'. Do you have another way to work around the lack of a TODAY() function in Anaplan that you'd like to share? -Chris Weiss

jon

Hi Chris. what is the source of your date and how exactly are you pulling it in via the Informatica Connector? Thanks, Jon