Anaplan Integration & Anaplan Connect

Hello Community,

I'm reaching again support for some questions I have, some of which may appear silly for some experienced users. I've been trying to find an easy way to obtain Action's ID in Anaplan as those are used for our B2BI integrations with other ERP and EPM systems. Initially, I thought I can easily get them from the page source, but turned out to be more difficult for that. Digging a little bit, I've seen that I can obtain the information I need using Anaplan Connect, but as a non software developer, I find this a bit difficult to use even having the guide available to Anaplan. Here are some of the questions I have.

- Is any more detailed API quide available through Anaplan discussion for beginners(nothing that I found was straight forward for first time users)?. I only need to understand how to connect to Anaplan Models (export actions ID and export definitions).

- By updating export definition (ex: change a filter in the export view), will this also change the action ID? Such change I can only do by exporting again and saving export definition with the same name (that is why I'm thinking a new exprt ID will be created).

- Is it possible to update export definitions using the above approach or through Anaplan connect?

Accepted answers

alexpavel

Hi @Alexandru.Rosca

If you are using only Anaplan Connect, the short answer is: Anaplan Connect works with the names of the actions (like imports, exports, etc..). You do not need to find out the Anaplan internal IDs of the actions.

The only ID's that you need using Anaplan Connect are workspace and model ID which you can gather them from the HTTP link.

The ID of the actions you need them only if you are using the REST API and, indeed, are not so easy to find. You need to launch Anaplan REST API commands.

below a useful link where you can find how to use Anaplan REST API with "Postman".

https://community.anaplan.com/t5/Best-Practices/RESTful-API-Best-Practices/ta-p/33579

About the changing export definition ID: the export actions are the only actions that you cannot do full reverse engineering. You can find from which module you export and from launching the export you can find the structure of the export...and that's it... You cannot find with what filter was created the export action.

A good practice is to relate the name of the export action to a Saved view name...but if you change the saved view structure...it will not update the export defitions...after the export action is created the saved view can be modified and the export action will not follow the saved view changes.

If you re-create the export action and overwrite the export action with the exact name, then the new filter and all the other properties are applied to the export action and, in this case, the Anaplan internal export ID will not change..it will be updated only the export definition.

ciao

Alex

All comments

ben_speight

Not sure what documentation you're using but the official guide is at

https://help.anaplan.com/anapedia/Content/Data_Integrations/Anaplan_Connect.html. You don't have to read it all through, just pick out what's relevant to your use case.

You can't change export definitions through the API, but the export ID will stay the same after editing it in the UI. You should also be able to refer to the export by name.

alexpavel

Hi @Alexandru.Rosca

The only ID's that you need using Anaplan Connect are workspace and model ID which you can gather them from the HTTP link.

The ID of the actions you need them only if you are using the REST API and, indeed, are not so easy to find. You need to launch Anaplan REST API commands.

below a useful link where you can find how to use Anaplan REST API with "Postman".

https://community.anaplan.com/t5/Best-Practices/RESTful-API-Best-Practices/ta-p/33579

ciao

Alex

Alexandru.Rosca

Thank you, Alex,

I was trying to get Anaplan Connect to work just for retrieving Export definitions and Action IDs. I need those for other external Integrations which some of them make use the action's ID and not the name.

As you said, updating a saved view will not update the export definitions, therefore this feature caused us a lot of the issues in the past. Our thought so far was that any new export that overtire an existing export (same name) will also create a new internal ID. Thanks both for your replies, I will try make some changes to see how B2BI integration pull out the data upon updating the definitions.

alexpavel

Hi,
As far as I know the only way to find out the actions ID's is using Anaplan REST API calls using "Postman" (for example)... and not Anaplan connect.

Alexandru.Rosca

For that one, I found a way for pulling the ID directly from Page source, although it's not the most elegant way, but it does its job.

alexpavel

haha.. that I did not know 🙂

Alexandru.Rosca

It only works in a certain sequence you do in action list, learned by try and error I'd say. I suppose it's because of the language used that did not displays all the code once you inspect it. Not a Web Developer, but I could do a walk-through if anyone else is interested.

karank_*4578

I will be interested in something like that .

If not too much hassle , perhaps screen shot your steps and attach as word doco here ?

Alexandru.Rosca

Here's the way I managed to do, which I guess can be followed even by the beginner Admins. (the only disadvantage is that you can take the ID's individually, not a bulk export).

How_to_get_Action_ID_59775.docx

karank_*4578

Thanks Alexandru
Much appreciated

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