Can't insert new item to empty numbered list in Dashboard

If you publish a numbered list to a dashboard so that a User can insert items and then enter property values it works fine as long as there is at least one item present. However if you clear the numbered list then the option to insert an item is greyed out and I have found no way around that. Even if there is one or more items present the ability to insert a row is greyed out if you have selected the header row or the entire grid. That means you have to include a text box on the dashboard warning Users of this fact in order to avoid calls to support.

To try and work around this I explored using the Create action. However the Create action only works with numbered lists that have a parent hierarchy. My numbered list does not have or need a parent hierarchy but to satisfy this rule I created a List called All with a single member called All and made that the Parent of my numbered list. (I also checked whether I could simply use a top level of All but got "A numbered list without a parent list cannot have summary items"). The Create action now worked with an empty list - except of course my list was nolonger empty as it contained the parent item and so provided the header was not selected my original dashboard allowed insertion even when the list has been cleared.

Can someone from Anaplan development explain why it is necessary to have the dummy parent heirarchy present please? And even with it I would suggest there is no need to grey out the insert option when the grid header is selected.

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Answers

  • Hi Peter,

     

    I agree with the concern you are facing and it feels annoying. But, when we create a parent list for the 'create action' to work. The parent list created can be deleted, once you create the action and publish it to dashboard. 

  • Pavan, good to see I am not alone in this frustration. As always one can seek to work around the issue but that all adds to the cost of maintaining your models. I am not sure that you can create Actions which will assign and deassign a Parent list but even if you could these are all extra objects to be written and maintained. My basic point is that there appears to be no need to insist that a Parent exist and in the case of manually adding items to an empty list there appears again to be no reason for preventing this action through a dashboard.

    As I previously wrote I would like to understand from Anaplan if there is a reason for this, and if not whether we can expect to see those restrictions removed.

  • Hi,

    there is or was a reason for that. Creating a ticket to support to complain is usually the most efficient way to get an RFE, especially if you are a customer 😉

  • Nathan thanks for the advice. Would be nice to know what the reason was. I raised this with Support a little while back and have filled in an RFE form so we shall see how effective that will be.