Implementing Anaplan

akinrose
akinrose
in User Experience

I am new to Anaplan; we are in the process of implementing and have engaged a consulting firm to help us with the build. I am the CFO of a FinTech company and am excited about the move; I've seen the power of Anaplan, and I'm hoping the community can help answer a few questions for me:

 

Question 1: What is the best way to get current staff trained on Anaplan and on the path to being solid Anaplanners? I realize there are a number of resources, but I'm curious what the community thinks and has experienced first hand.

Question 2: What are the best ways that the community has found to be most effective in getting reluctant team members to embrace Anaplan. We have people heavily invested and knowledgeable on Excel modeling and convincing them of the value add has been challenging.

 

I appreciate any insight on the questions.

 

Thanks!

 

Anthony

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Answers

  • Tiffany.Rice
    Tiffany.Rice

    Hi Anthony and welcome to our Anaplan community!

     

    These are great questions! The model building level 1, 2 & 3 training courses are wonderful!  They will really help your model builders to grow their skill set.   Get your core team as much hands on practice as you can, this is the best way to learn the platform and to get comfortable with the formula syntax (those courses I mentioned are great for that).  The good news is there are a lot of similarities with Excel so that makes the transition a bit easier for someone with modeling experience in that tool.  Your consulting partner should also be a big resource.  There can be many ways to accomplish a specific objective within Anaplan, make sure you are leveraging that partner to understand which is the best practice and why.  Make sure you document those design decisions as you work through your build, if you are like me you will come back to it later and scratch your head wondering why in the world you did it that way.    

     

    The best way to convert those excel hold outs is to solve a problem they didn't even know they had.  We had a massive Excel file that managed our personnel expense calculations, we converted it to Anaplan and it has been awesome.  Wins: no more locking up your PC waiting for the file to download from the corporate network, consistent calculation with no concern about formula carry over issues, ability to secure the data and create meaningful reports with a need to know limitation , scenario functionality means you aren't manually comparing multiple excel files trying to figure out what changes, the list goes on...  None of those benefits were things we had even thought in advance.  

     

    @akinrose If you are interested in connecting with other individuals in the technology sector there is also a group that has been setup for that purpose.  It's serves as a place to connect on industry topics or network with those who may have similar interests.  https://community.anaplan.com/t5/Software-Technology/gh-p/Software_Technology 

     

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