Dashboard Page Selector

Alexandru.Rosca
Alexandru.Rosca
in Modeling

Hi Community,

 

I've tried to post the same query yesterday, but it seems it didn't go through. I'm gonna have another try.

 

I'm working on creating a Variance Dashboard at Cost Center / GL level. Having those two dimensions alone would make a relative big module, but I have added couple more which is causing me a lot of troubles in terms of spacing (Page - Time, CC, Reporting ccry, comparison scenarios; Column - Line items I choose line items instead of dimensions as I would need to calculate the data based on various criterias; Rows - GL accounts. I have added for page selector comparison scenarios and "Eliminate FX impact"- this last one does not apply to my module or to any of the line items in it. I's just an IF formula referencing it. The big advantage is that will not occupy space, but the main disadvantage is that the selection is a manual input and will change it for all users.

 

Here is what I wanna achieve: ex: if Comparison Scenario is Actual vs Budget and "Eliminate FX Impact" is true, then variance will calculate( Actuals at Budet rate - Budget). Is there a more practical way of obtaining this, instead of applying so many dimensions? And more important, can I do it through dropdown selectors rather then Input module which will apply the same change to all users?

 

*** IF ITEM(VS) = VS.Actual vs Budget AND Latest Estimates.Eliminate FX Impact = TRUE*** (latest estimates being just the dummy module I used for Eliminate DX impact bolean line item)

Thank you!

 

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Answers

  • DavidSmith
    DavidSmith

    @Alexandru.Rosca 

    A few points to consider

    1. If you want the results not to vary by user and have calculations based by user, then you will have to introduce the user list to the calculation/reporting module which will increase the size even more

    2. Instead of IF ITEM = , it would be much more efficient to build a module by the list with Boolean flags

    3. Can you pre-calculate the values including/excluding the FX Impact?  You could then use a line item subset to use in the reporting module to bring in the calculations and use that as the page selector.  That way the calculations themselves are not dependent on the user choices, so the module wouldn't need to be by user.

     

    I hope this helps

    David

  • Alexandru.Rosca
    Alexandru.Rosca

    Hi David, 

     

    Thanks for your reply, I'd just like to highlight I am not an advanced Model builder, I'm just now learning the ways for effective models. Here are my comments:

     

    1. I don't want to have the calculation based by users, I just want to have the calculations independent by other user's choice. (more like a page selector instead of Boolean cell that can be modified by users). 

    2. Then how would I link the module to behave like a page selector in the dashboard? Or maybe I don't quite get the approach. 

    3. I don't have that much experience with line item subsets, but will that cover spacing issues? If I do calculate them separately, I still have lots of combinations to cover, the only advantage being that I can exclude couple combinations that I do not want (like FX impact to be applied at Local Crry Reporting). 

     

  • nathan_rudman
    nathan_rudman

    Hi,

    because of the nature of Anaplan (everything is live calculation), powerful variance reports in size efficient manner are in my opinion the most complex thing to build.

     

    The last one I did, we decided not to have a selector on the dashboard. We simply had a module with all the "versions" and the variances as line items, publish that on a dashboard and then the users can hide/show what they want from what is available. 

    This allowed us to have a conversion (LC and consolidated currency) and MTD/YTD selector, along with 5 other dimensions (time, geo, COA, business group, legal groups).

     

    If you really want to have a selector, you can change these line items as being a line item subset, recreate a final module using the LIS and just use a filter system to hide/show them depending on the selection.

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