So long and thanks for all the fish!

As you may know by now, I have taken on a new role in the Product organisation of Anaplan. I've taken responsibility for the evolution of the Core Platform. This will be quite a departure for me, having worked for 20 years on the "other side of the fence" but I'm looking forward to brining all of my experience to date of what Customers really need to the development of our platform.

So that can focus fully on the new task, I am going to have to relinquish my community duties, so from next week, I will be effectively "retiring" from community.

I will publish V2 of the Planual next year and I will be reviewing the Idea Exchange and all of the suggestions to prioritise the development path for the next year. I will also be engaging community members to assist in that prioritisation exercise in due course. So I'm not going away entirely!!

What I would say though is I'm happy that I'm leaving the community ecosystem in a great place. The progression in the last year has been amazing and I'd like to call out a few individuals who have championed best practices and supported the Anaplan ecosystem. Keep it up!

So thank you to:

@rob_marshall @nathan_rudman @LipChean_Soh @ArunManickam

@usman.zia @Misbah @JaredDolich @kavinkumar @vignesh

Happy modelling my community friends

David

Accepted answers

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kavinkumar

Life has its trying moments; for your trust, cordiality and support; We say a big thank you. All the very best for your future endeavors!!

VIGNESH.M

Thank you for being such a wonderful teacher @DavidSmith, We all gonna miss you in the forum.

Thanks,

Vignesh M

Misbah

@DavidSmith

Thank you David! You have been a great mentor & guide. We are going to miss your presence here. Wish you all the luck for your future endeavor. We will do our best to keep this community happy by quickly responding to their queries, sharing ideas, experiences & best practice.

Thanks,

Misbah

usman.zia

Hi @DavidSmith,

Just wanted to say thanks!

You really have been an inspirational leader on the community and I'm sure you're the one person everything thinks of when theres a complex problem to solve, the great mind that can solve it is you David and this will be a real loss! But having said that there are many great members that have grown because of your efforts.

I have learnt so much from you and it will be sad to see you go but nonetheless when duty calls you have to go!

You have helped so much to support an incredible and unique learning and development platform and it truly has inspired me to become the best anaplanner I can become so thank you so much David!

I hope to see you at anaplan event soon!

All the best in your new role and have a very merry christmas also!

Thanks,

Usman

CallumW

Thank you @DavidSmith for growing the community and producing many fantastic resources over the years for thousands of users.

Wish you the very best for the future and looking forward to the release of Planual V2 before you go!

JaredDolich

Wow. What a win for Anaplan to have you working in this new role.

You have touched so many lives @DavidSmith, making their experience with Anaplan a great one. And if you include all the people that taught other people, it's multiplicative. And it seems in this new role you'll be able to do the same but in a different way.

Being a little selfish, I can also say the coaching and mentoring I got from you has boosted my game with Anaplan customers, giving me a tremendous career as an Anaplan partner. Anaplan is truly a great product and I'm so excited to see what you'll bring to the feature set.

When we first chatted with each other I felt I had been talking to a celebrity. I guess I've spent enough time working with Anaplan, this Community, and clients to know that when someone mentions @DavidSmith we're talking about one of the Anaplan Gods. So it's hard not feel some inspiration when talked.

I think we'll all feel a void in the Community without seeing 10 daily responses from you, your normal pace. And your sense of humor.

Good luck @DavidSmith. I hope we get to meet in person some day.

Jared

MarkWarren

Thanks for the mentoring and personal advice along the way. I’ve learnt so much from you. Thanks! Good luck with the new role...

DavidSmith

Thank you all for the kind words. It is very humbling

I'm really excited about the opportunity to make Anaplan even better and having the support internally and externally makes it an easier transition

It is going to be difficult moving away from modelling; something I have been doing for the last 30 years, but my intellectual challenge now moves from creating workarounds, to help to build a product so that you don't need so many workarounds

I am going to miss the community spirit, but I am still here (in the background), I will attend CPX, and other events as appropriate and I will also be wanting to engage community members and Master Anaplanners to help with the development of the platform

Cheers

David

adam_bimson_5

David -

You've delivered some fantastic insight to us all. Those of us who have been building models for years really benefit from (a) a constant reminder of good practices, (b) your research/testing/analysis to reinforce our intuition, (c) you sharing with us 'breaking news' as Anaplan yourselves discover new ways to go right/wrong with the hyperblock. Those newer to Anaplan benefit from knowing whilst that the platform is fantastic/flexible/easy, if you're not careful you can still upset it.

I now look forward to hitting you with core-platform enhancement conversations...Version formatted line items anyone?

Cheers, Adam

usman.zia

Yes to version formatted line items! @adam_bimson_5

stephen.brook

Nice try guys, but I think we already have an IdeaExchange entry for that 🙂😁

Looking forward to working more closely with you @DavidSmith ....

DavidSmith

Thanks @adam_bimson_5

And yes, Versions as a format is on the list as @stephen.brook said

David

ArunManickam

I personally & the Community will miss your thoughts.

Wish you the best on your new role.

Thanks

Arun

DavidSmith

@ArunManickam

Thank you

Manuela_Apostol

All the best in the new position! You will be missed! Thank you very much for all the knowledge and advice you have shared! So happy to hear that Planual V2 is going to be released!

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