Production Data Masking

Venky_Rogers

Hi

 

We copy the production model into our test workspaces, but as per policies we need to scramble/mask the data in test workspace

 

How it can be done while copying the data ? or it has to be done manually in test work space by identifying the relevant data ?

 

Any advise will help us greatly

 

thank you

rob_marshall

@Venky_Rogers ,

 

There is not a mechanism via Anaplan that would allow you do mask the data on the "fly" from a model.  Let me ask you a couple of questions:

• Why are you copying production data back to a test or dev workspace?
• If you had ALM, you could test your processes and then sync to Prod (Dev->UAT or Dev->Prod)

By having ALM, you would develop the model structure in Dev and then sync the structure to Prod, thus not having to worry about the transactional data since transactional data does not get synced to Prod.

 

Hope this helps,

Rob

Venky_Rogers

Hi Rob

 

Very often we are asked to copy the prod model into our pre-prod env or sometimes into QA env (due to lack of good quality data)

 

Yes we do follow the ALM process, however in order to meet business needs for their UAT we are looking for ways to bring the prod data & mask it

 

thanks

ArunManickam

Hello @Venky_Rogers ,

 

I understand your need to copy the production data into the test model. The production data can grow and change over time, people want to have a similar environment to test the production like scenarios.  We can design a process (set of actions) which can rename the list members dynamically using a encrypting formula, for eg converting 'SAMPLE' to 'TBNQMF' (just the next letter of each letter, or any simple way to hide the original name), but you need to use the same code in production and test. The text encrypting operations will be costly on performance. This renaming process should be run as soon as you create a test copy.

 

Thanks

Arun

Venky_Rogers

hi Arun

 

Thanks for suggestion, the data exists in a couple of Lists & in a number of Modules, after copying the data can i run the formula on list/modules in copied model directly or should i have separate line items for modules & lists for formulas

 

thanks

ArunManickam

Hello @Venky_Rogers 

 

I think just renaming the list items are sufficient, unless you want to mask the other text line items stored in the modules.

You may need few text formatted line items to encrypt the list item names using formula. No other change to existing line item formulas. Create a saved view based on this, import this saved view into the list. 

 

Thanks

Arun

Venky_Rogers

Hi Arun, thank you for suggestions, i will give it a try