Put data in Azure or directly to Anaplan

bergetburk

Hi folks, I work as IT manager for a real estate company with 120 employees in 4 countries, within a larger group with 50 thousands of people, but we have our own ERP systems. We in my real estate company is trying to set a strategy for our different kind of onprem data, from project related data, HR data, and finance data. The strategy was to put data into Azure and then be able consume data from there in Anaplan, integrate with future Cloud ERP systems, create future forecasting systems for projects, s&a and real estate property lists etc. Then also create a group level review package and project plan for ongoing/prospect projects. Then create different dashboards in Power BI for consuming in intranet, SharePoint, Office. We have Office365 and Azure AD federation in place. So I want an open way to create an infrastructure for the future, with focus on finance data, but all around that topic. It's important that we should have the ability to sync data, so we could see fresh data in the applications on a hour base, not just data transferred during night. My question is if I should: 1. create this middle layer in Azure and then use Anaplan for some of the applications mentioned above. 2. directly transfer data to Anaplan, and consume the data there or create applications in other cloud based solutions We haven't yet decided to go on with Anaplan, but even if we go by alt 1 above, I guess Anaplan could fit several needs for us. Please advise me. Best regards /Magnus

nathan_rudman

Hi,

 

Anaplan is not a data warehouse nor a dedicated data management software.

That said, there is still a lot you can do with Anaplan. It can handle a respectable amount of data and thanks to the flexibility of the platform, you can build yourself logic to check data quality, consistency, provide graphical checks for users and reporting and visualization.

 

There is the concept of data hub, that Anaplan recommends to customers when they go for a specific use case such as finance. A Data Hub is an Anaplan model dedicated to integrate the data, house it, check it and export it. So as far as the info you've given us, it can match a lot of your needs.

 

Of course Anaplan has a secured and well documented API to get data in and out, at any frequency you choose: https://anaplan.docs.apiary.io/#introduction/what-can-i-do-with-the-api?

ps: any data housed in Anaplan can be exposed via the API to be consumed by another system

 

In conclusion, it is difficult to give you a yes or no for your specific needs but in general, yes Anaplan can be used as you mention, big companies do it, and it is especially worth it if you intened to use Anaplan for planning using cases downstream.