About David_Elston

When creating an Open Dashboard action in a very long list of actions, the action gets created and the list gets scrolled all the way back up to the top.  Our Actions list is over 1500 items long, we have hundreds of processes, imports, exports and other actions to scroll through making this simple task of adding a new open dashboard button incredibly maddening.    Please add a quality-of-life improvement that scrolls back to the newly created action to bring it in view after creating it.  The chances are probably quite high that a user who just created a new action will want to do something with it right after creating it. (For me it's 99.9% of the time) and if they don't, it doesn't affect them ... View more

It is common to use the exact wording between actions, modules, dashboards etc., however in order to see the results of items from these different groupings, currently I have leave a view (say the module view) to go to another view (actions) and search the results again (which also resets my search from the last view).  This makes figuring out how things are linked and troubleshooting unnecssarily tedious to find what I need to find.     I would like to be able to type a word into a search box and it give me the option to see where this word appears from ALL of these view types.   ... View more

There are times I would like to show or hide data, allow access, etc. based on the user's role.    For example, some data is sensitive, and I would like to use Dynamic Cell Access to allow someone with the user role "Admin" to read/write the sensitive information, while someone without the Admin role would see nothing.    Another use example, I want to allow users with the role of "Project Manager" to edit only their own projects, while others that either don't have the "Project Manager" role, OR who aren't the active project manager, can see the project's information as read only.     Both of these require that I be able to somehow check they have proper role. Currently I believe the only way is whether they can get to a dashboard, which makes for a lot jumping through hoops to prevent unauthorized access.   ... View more

I find the workflow to Add / Delete a line item to be unnatural and slow.  Currently a user must go to blueprint mode, select a line item, then go up to the top of the module view and click the "+" or "-" button.    Ideally I'd like to be able to right-click on a line item and get the "+" or "-" options here as well (similar to inserting /deleteing rows in Excel), and would like this to also be available in the normal module view as well.     ... View more

Similar to how a column for "referenced by" can show me other modules where a line item is used, and "used in dashboard" can show me where it's on dashboards, as a modelbuilder it would be helpfult to have a way to tell where a line item is being used to drive a filter.  ... View more

I would like a way to help prevent accidental clicking of buttons that run important / irreversible actions (like a large deletion for instance).   Here are some ideas on how I think one might go about tackling this, when the user clicks a button with this prevention measure enabled:   * Show the user a warning message, where I can designate the text they read, and they have to acknowledge by clicking a second "OK" button. * Allow me to disable a button unless a checkbox I point it to is checked. * Give me the option to require the user type in some specific text (something like "DELETE"), * Allow me to designate a certain amount of time the user must wait (maybe 5 seconds?) before they can click a second button to perform the action (think: "display some warning text, give them time to read it")   ... View more

I would like to be able to see the changes I make while in blueprint view of a module affecting its data view in real-time.  Currently when I change something in blueprint (ie. a summary method) and have to toggle back and forth to see its affect.  Unfortunately, depending on how far down in the list of line items the one i'm working is each time I toggle I have to re-search for it to see the summary method, or in data view I may have to scroll a long way or search for it to see the data produced.   My Ideal solution would be the ability to open blueprint as a tab and the data view as another tab instead of only toggling between them.  This way I could undock and view them next to each other ... View more

In our model, we use navigation action buttons to help a user see "where they are" in a workflow with respect to other similar pages. Usually this amounts to ~4-5 buttons near the top of the dashboard in an order logical to the workflow, which are in the same order across all of the workflow's pages.     Unforunately when a user scrolls through the page it means the navigation buttons scroll up and out of sight.  Ideally I would like to be able to create a short header area (like a frozen pane in Excel) within which I can put text, or navigation buttons etc. so that they remain visible no matter where the user scrolls on the page.  A footer area of this same nature would also be helpful too. ... View more

Some users prefer mouse, while others prefer hotkeys, and some like a mix somewhere between.   Curently Anaplan feels 95% built around mouse-users, while keyboard users have a very low number of hotkeys to fall back on.   Anaplan users would get a lot benefit if the platform considered hotkey use cases to be equally as important as using a mouse.  I would like to see hotkeys added around many of the common workflows an end-user and a model-building user commonly encounter.  Here are some early suggestions off the top of my head (NOTE: I'm sure some of these overlap with other assignments, this is just more for conveying the idea)   General Use: ENTER should * Work the same as clicking OK in open dialogs * Open the currently selected Module / List ESC should cancel an open dialog (if applicable) TAB / SHIFT + TAB should work for navigating to the OK button in dialogs Down Arrow should start flipping through items in an active dropdown box  CTRL + W should close the active tab CTRL + SHIFT + W should close ALL open tabs CTRL + ALT + W should close ALL open tabs except the currently active one CTRL + SHIFT + T should reopen the last close tab CTRL + <  / CTRL + > should navigate to the previous  / next tab F1 should open Anapedia F2 should open a line item's formula in edit mode , F3 should open / close the "master view" menu on dashboards F4 should open Settings tab (for Admin) F5 should refresh the dashboard / list view  (anywhere there's a refresh button honestly) F6 should open / close the contents pane Model Building (Modules & Dashboards):   CTRL + H should hide selected line items from view in a published module CTRL + SHIFT + E should open edit view on the current dashboard / again should save & close CTRL + O should open a selected Module / Dashboard in a new tab DELETE should delete the selected Dashboard item (text box, module etc) when in edit view,  CTRL + T should add a new textbox item to a dashboard CTRL + PLUS should act as the insert function to insert a new...d * line item in a module * Module *   Dashboard * Action * Etc (anywhere there's an insert button) CTRL + MINUS should open the deletion dialog of the same items listed in 6. above   I'll add more to the list as they come to me...But hopefully this conveys the idea.   Also, I would love to hear other people's hotkey ideas, there's got to be loads that would make it easier to build and work in Anaplan using a keyboard ... View more

Let conditional formatting options be stackable in layers (similar to MS Excel). In my current model we have a table that uses color across all cells based on the development stage.  At times we also want to color cells that have an error to a particular color of red, however this is not possible without stackable conditional formatting.    Also enable the color formatting options that show up in chart options for conditional formatting.  The current formatting forces a small range of color options and certain colors cannot be used together.  Allow the model builder to select the 3 colors that go in the conditional format gradient in any order the like.       ... View more

When building in Anaplan, it is common to find a LOT of tabs open.  Currently right-clicking on a tab in Anaplan a user is presented with the "Undock, Close, Close All" options.  It would be really helpful to have an option to "Close All Other Tabs", which would close all, except it would leave open the one I currently have active.  This would help to clear up tabs I'm not using anymore, and focus on the next task at hand. ... View more

Just like searching in a published module on a dashboard, for consistency when model building, I would like to be able to hit the same CTRL+SHIFT+S hotkey when looking through the list of modules / actions / dashboards etc. to quickly search, instead of having to manually click the search button.  ... View more

For more complex dashboards, showing informative instructions can take up some major screen real estate.  I find on first pass a user may want detailed instructions, but after they know how the dashboard works, they want them out of the way, instead of always having to scroll past them.  As a model builder, I would like the ability to give them a textbox that unrolls to a larger field of text when the user hovers over it or clicks it.  Once they leave it or click it again, it should roll up out of the way.  However they should be able to click a pin to keep it open.       ... View more

As a model builder, I would like to be able to create & name my own groups within Actions / Modules / Dashboards lists, as well as collapse those groups I don't want to view at the moment, to help me decluttter the Anaplan screen & better focus on what I'm trying to accomplish at that moment.   Additionally, if I perform a search on one of these lists, the groups should be smart enough to unroll if the search matches something in a collapsed group.   ... View more

I would like to be able to set access to the "Open Source Module" option for users based on their role across a model. With this feature in place I could disable "open source module" for non-admin roles, while allowing those with 'Full Access' to open the source module as normal.  Win-win.   WHY: There are groups of users that should not have access to dive into the source modules.  Currently I turn off "Open Source Module" on every single published grid and line item across our 220+ dashboards, which is tedious.  This creates a problem for Admin because they lose the abilty to quickly get to modules.  Now they must e dit the dashboard, select the line item / grid, turn on the open source module option, open the source module, then reverse all of it.     ... View more

On some dashboards showing large amounts of information, we will have a smaller "Smart Filter module" where the user can select values for line items in it.  Once selected the main data table's filters will filter based on the Smart Filter module, the trouble is the user has to refresh the page to see the filters reapplied.    Here's my user story: As a model builder, I want to be able to give a module on a dashboard a filter that automatically refreshes itself based on changes to a line item(s) I have designated, so that the user doesn't have to refresh to see the effect on the module view. ... View more

Much like most coding languages or even excel's formulas, to aid in writing complex code / formulas, there needs to be some way for a developer / builder to see how the individual components of it resolve one by one.     I'd like a way to step through a formula to see where it's going wrong, and see values of the components so that I can more easily troubleshoot it. ... View more

Normally when writing code I can troubleshoot my code by stepping through it piece by piece to see where things fall apart.  In order to accomplish this in Anaplan i tend to have to create separate line items with pieces of my formula to see how they compute.    To help a modelbuilder better troubleshoot formulas without creating these extra dummy line items, they should be able to see what a part of formula computes to if they mouse over it. As an example of this, in the following image I had my mouse hovering over condition2 and can see without switching out of blueprint mode that it currently resolves to a value of "True":   ... View more

I would like to be able to apply common styling to text in text fields to help me provide end users with a better user experience. Specifically, I'd like the ability to change the size of the text field itself, the text alignment, text color, font, style, size etc.  Also the ability to turn off the auto-appearing scrollbars would be nice.   See the mockup image below I put together for how I think this would look:   ... View more

In our model, we have 220+ dashboards and 400+ modules.  When going between looking the list of modules and the list of dashboards, the lists reset my view at the top, causing me find the one I wanted to look at again, this can be very time consuming.   Ideally I'd be able to open these Settings Menu items as tabs, so that when I jump between tabs, my scroll position is retained, and I can look at a view of Modules side-by-side with Actions and / or dashboards etc.  Here's a screenshot mockup of how I think this would look:   ... View more

When trying to work in Anaplan I find there to be a lot of "dead ends", meaning I have find where I want to go, but I have to stop, back out and go there in an unintuitive way that breaks my workflow.  The "Used in Dashboards" and "Referenced By" columns are helpful to trace where things are used, but I still have to leave that view to open a dashboards or module list view to get there.     Ideally, the items that show up in these columns would be clickable hyperlinks, so I can just click it and it opens the dashboard / module that is being referenced. Hopefully the screenshot below will be more clear what I mean:   ... View more

I would really like the ability to select what size and style of textbox I'm adding at the point when I'm adding it.  Currently when adding a textbox it is added at full page width, defaults to "Normal" style, and is added to the very top of the page.  Usually when I'm adding textboxes, it will usually end up being a small instructions box, somewhere not at the top, and is usually not the full dashboard width, which means having to repeatedly change style and size them = lots and lots of clicking.    Ideally I'd have some options that unroll when I click "Add Text" in dashboard edit mode.  When I finish and actually add the text to the dashboard it should add directly above a dashboard feature I have selected so i don't have to scroll to the top and drag it all the way back down.  See the screenshot below for a visual mockup:    ... View more

Drill down is helpful, but once I find what I want to look at in order to open the module, I have to do the following steps: remember / copy the module name, close out of the drill down dialog, go to settings tab, select modules, search for the module, select it and click open.  This is a workflow is tedious and pretty disjointed.   Ideally I would drill down and when I find what I want to view, I would click the down arrow and open the module from there. I have mocked this up in a screenshot to illustrate the idea.   ... View more