Input at multiple levels and view the Roll-up
Hey Experts!
Well, this is something really 'Out of the Box' ask from one of our requirements. And upon first look, I really think that It's kinda out of scope of anaplan. Here's the ask:
So if you have a look at the below snap, we tried to replicate a part of our existing Sales hierarchy :
Let's say that in one of our proposed dashboards a user has selected 'Global Sales' (top most level) from the drop down in the dashboard
Our ask is:
- Be it any region (here, Global Sales) we are asked to show the rollup be of Sub-regions and its customers i.e; GS:H1 thru Tim Burrow's MCN and GS:S2 and "Michael Lyden" and its Customers and "John C Christ" (and its Customers)
- Input numbers at any level of employee's customer; ie.; if Global Sales is selected, then you can input at Tim Burrow/ Michael/John's customers, But if GS:H1-D3 is selected, then you can ONLY input at Tim Burrow's customer.
Please let me know for any follow-up questions or any kinda alternatives in this regard. TYIA!!
Happy Anaplanning!
Answers
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Hi Mikhil,
If feasible, consider breaking out Customer from Sales Rep as a separate list. In this case dimensionalizing Customer would allow the data to be rolled up by various data points along Geography hierarchy set (by Customer. Then use an module to assign customers to a sales rep. The added benefit is the easy re-assignment of reps to customers. In addition, as often is the case, reps span regions or geographic territories this approach would make for simpler list management and cleaner reporting. It may also allow the rolling up of other hierarchies to Customer like Products.
Recently there were a couple of very good blogs on sparsity and the fact that its ok to NOT combine all hierarchies into 1 list. Model 'naturally'! Give them a read.
Truth about Sparsity Pt 1
https://community.anaplan.com/t5/Blog/The-Truth-About-Sparsity-Part-1/ba-p/44493Truth about Sparsity Pt 2
https://community.anaplan.com/t5/Blog/The-Truth-About-Sparsity-Part-2/ba-p/44736
Hopefully this provides a different way to think about the challenge!Regards,
Dave
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It is best practice, if possible, to have a levelled composite hierarchy of Region1>Region2>Region3>Employee>Customer
If your screenshot is correct, it looks like Michael and John are children of Global Sales directly rather than the Region3 level. Assuming that is the case, this hierarchy is non-composite or ragged, and it would mean inserting some dummy levels into the hierarchy.
The advantage of this structure is, as Dave mentioned, you can then enter data at any level and apportion the hierarchy if needed.
However, if you need the hierarchy as shown, any lowest level in the hierarchy is the only place you can enter data (assuming breakback is turned off) as all other entries are aggregations
I hope that helps
David
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Hi @dkolka ,
Thanks for the quick turn-around. Appreciate them!
Dave, I absolutely understand your point of breaking the hierarchies into multi dimensional lists/structures. The articles shared by you are cherry on the cake and a must read! In our model, we do have all these 3 lists individually as well. BUT, the ask is that the end user desires to see them (Regions->Employees->Customers) as a roll-up in a hierarchical format.
Hence we had used this approach.
Best, Mikhil
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Thank you for your 2 cents. Your assumption is right.
We could not use dummy members since, the add-on requirement on this hierarchy is that, the end user needs a functionality on a dashboard to move any Employee-Customer (many to many relationship) (let's say Tim burrow and its MCN1 from Gs:H1-D3 to Gs:S2) to any region (at any other level) in the proposed hierarchy and then they would want to assign a quota for each employee-customer. (the hierarchy replicated by you in anaplan is doing complete justice to the ask)
We're still looking for alternatives and hence this is still open.
Best, Mikhil
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