Time and Calendars

[DavidSmith]

Ok, I know I am going to open the flood gates here, but we are looking at the functionality of the whole time concept in Anaplan.

I'm asking for help in capturing the challenges with the current concepts of time and the model calendar and specifically when we have to use a list to represent time

Please could you reply with the use case, the requirements and how you work around it.

As ever, many thanks for your inputs

David

[anirudh]

Hi David,

Some flexibility around being able to name individual Anaplan time members, like a Display Name, would be helpful. One of the reasons we have to use fake time lists are that users are uncomfortable with, for instance, the W/E or W/C prefix

Another big reason I've used fake time is when the model simply does not need a large number of time members but Anaplan Time as well as Time Ranges only provide the option of adding or removing a whole year. A subset concept for Anaplan Time or else a way to add months or quarters instead of whole years to the calendar would be great!

My last idea might be a little crazy, but I've always wondered if it's possible to mark any list in Anaplan as a Block type list (I'm not sure if that's what it's called) but basically enable a list and mark the blocks that make up the list and then the list would function the way Time and Versions does in Anaplan. In essence, allowing functions like PREVIOUS or OFFSET on any list. I imagine this would do a real number on performance though!

Regards,
Anirudh

[DavidSmith]

Thanks @anirudh 

And on the last point, yes, this is something I'm planning to investigate - This is one of those areas that the new Enhanced Calculation Engine gives us options over the current block based structure

David