Saved Export Actions

For saved exports from Anaplan, how does the export remember what to export? I'm used to creating a saved view to represent the export, however, if a saved view is not created and potentially certain list members and/or line items were hidden/visible when the export was created, is that what Anaplan remembers for that specific export action?

 

It would be nice for Export actions to specify what the export is using as its' source.

Best Answer

  • @adpinto ,

     

    This is an excellent point in defining the filters in the view and not on the export.  If they are on the export, they could be missed.  What type of export is it?  Look to see if if they have filtering defined.

     

    2020-01-16_11-20-47.png2020-01-16_11-21-38.png

Answers

  • @adpinto ,

     

    First, I completely agree it would be nice to have the view defined in a column instead of the current way where it just tells you the module it comes from.  Second, when you export from a module not using a saved view, it will export every line item defined in the current view.  For example, if I hide 5 line items and do an export from a module, it will only export the line items I am wanting.  But, I didn't save it as the default view of the module.  So, if I close the module and run the export again, it will export all line items.  Now, I could save the default "view" of the module to only show what I want to export, but that is against best practice as the default view of every module should be "clean", meaning nothing is hidden, no filters, no conditional formatting, etc.  All of the "pretty" stuff should be saved in a view for performance reasons (they only get kicked off when the view is accessed).  

     

    How does it remember?  When you create an export, there is functionality where you can define if this export needs to be saved or not (ad hoc).  If you save this action, the definition of the action will be tied to the view.  So, if the view changes, the export action will pick up the changes (new line items) or hierarchy members.

     

    2020-01-16_10-03-15.png

     

    Hope this helps,

    Rob

  • @rob_marshall 

     

    Thank you. I adopted an existing model and there is an action that works the way we want it to, however, exports to txt file. We would like that to be xlsx export. It's >11k rows so initially a txt file before xlsx was available. If we flip the existing action to xlsx and run it, everything is fine. However, if I try to replicate the export with a new export using the same definitions and trying any of the saved views, I don't get the exact same output. so wondering what someone may have done to create that existing export that works on an ongoing basis. I suppose I just need to create a new saved view and action the way I need it to be.

  • Hi @adpinto,

    Anaplan works well regarding export action.

    But the thing to be noted is Don't change the existing export action, instead create a new saved view from the main module and perform the export action and mark it as new saved export action. It Should Work.

     

    If my answer doesn't help please post some screenshot for better clarity.

     

    Thanks,

    Sorna Raja Prabhu

  • Hi Folks

    Isnt the problem that the reference to the view is NOT dynamic? If we edit the saved view (to add a new line item) after the export action has been saved then the Export Action does not recognise the change. Then we need to create a new Export Action and publish to NUX etc. This is a real problem as there is very little information available in the edit window of the Export Action - it doesnt even show the view name.

    1. A preview would be nice
    2. make dynamic at least for line items

  • I came across this issue again and it's very frustrating. @mhemphill summarizes the issue perfectly. The views for exports should be dynamic just like views work in all other cases. It's a problem for us to rebuild actions whenever we need to update the export view. Anaplan should not be this 'hard coded'.

  • In general, it will be great if we can edit an export action just like an import action.

    Currently I think we can only edit labels for the export action? Often times I need to recreate export actions