About David_Elston

I'd like the option to be able to change a module's role access in our live production model, which uses ALM to sync changes from our development model.    This would be the equivalent of selecting production data on a list.  This option would help because I wouldn't have to push ALL changes (including those still in development) in order to modify role access on something completely unrelated.  ... View more

In some cases I want to be able to ensure a user has done certain actions before they click a button, because clicking the button out of order may create a problem.     I'd like the ability to set a formula that determines when a button is clickable or not.  This is pretty normal stuff in most any other programming language, it would be nice to have similar capabilities in Anaplan without having to craft clunky workarounds.     This should be ANY button, an import action, export, process, navigation etc.   ... View more

Our model is rather large, and over multiple development cycles and many different developers we have a large amount pieces of the model that may now be obsolete.  The trouble is with a large model it is incredibly cumbersome to locate safely remove clutter without the fear of causing major issues in the model.    The only way I know of is to check all the "referenced by" columns in the various settings menu lists (Actions Dashboards, Modules etc.), and stitch together a picture of whether something is unused. Even then a complete picture of whether something is used or not isn't available for builders to view (imports pointing to saved views for instance).   It would be incredibly helpful to have a dedicated place in the settings menus where model builders can go to help them identify model clutter, such as: unused modules, actions dashboards that can't be connected to (i.e. is not linked to in an open action button, and is not in the contents pane) Line items not used in formulas, not shown on dashboards saved views not in use ... View more

Currently in New UX when I stack multiple cards in a column, they all have exactly the same vertical height, no matter what.  I'd like to be able to spread the height distributions of vertically stacked cards to better fit the cards' contents.  i.e. give height to cards that need it and less to those that don't.    Hopefully the image helps explain what I mean...   ... View more

In Classic there's a "Preview Mode" that you can still build in without having to completely leave a dashboard's edit mode.  Even better the "edit mode" in classic basically IS the same view as preview, just with some dotted lines an the sort.     In New UX, the edit mode adds a full page wide " Drag here to add more cards" zone between every new row of cards, each zone adding about 40 pixels in height that's not really there when you leave publish.  This expands the edit view and distorts what the page will actually look like when published.     The "Drag here to add more cards" zones are fine as brand new builder to get the point across early on, but after about the 2nd or 3rd time a builder likely understands what to do and may want to turn them off to see a closer representation as to how things actually look when they're editing.    The builder should still be able to just drag new cards between existing cards for the same effect, with or without these zones visible.     ... View more

The amount of empty space between cards and around the edge of information within a card is excessive. I would like the ability to build a little more compactly but this empty space spreads everything way out.  I would like some control over: how much space cards have between them by default how big the empty buffer zone around the information in each card will be This way I can have finer control over how things are laid out.     ... View more

When dropping in a new text box on a board in the New UX, the text box (or any card) is fixed to take up the entire width of the page. Sometimes I want to be able to place a text box underneath something along the right side of the page.  But I can't, the only workaround I can come up with is to place some dummy card in there to take up the left side of the page so as to move my textbox to the right...ultimately it looks really terrible.   Instead of all this, I'd like to be able to do two things when designing boards: 1. Set the width of a card regardless if it's the only card on a row.   2. Move a card to anywhere within the width of the page (using the 12 set columns is fine, but let me move the left edge of the card away from the left edge of the page.   ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Worst case at least let me place a textbox on the page and leave it blank...ie. a spacer that won't show up on the published view...     ... View more

This one is simple.  Anaplan's recommended export file type is CSV, yet the export dialog defaults to Excel / XLS.    Yesterday we had an integration mysteriously run for 7 hours, later realizing it was because the export file type wasn't changed to CSV.   Please allow model admin to set the default export file type to CSV.  This would be one less thing to remember (and get wrong) when creating an export.    ... View more

When starting to build in New UX, I did what I normally do when designing anything...software designs, drawings or even musical ideas...rough out where I'm going in a sketch using basic placeholders then start filling in the pieces.  In New UX I knew I wanted a handful of graphs here and there, text headlines etc. only to realize unless I have those ideas fully fleshed and backed by data, I am not allowed to save (publish) the board therefore I lost the entire board, all of the work done on it and a lot of time.   This really throws a wet blanket on the thought of sketching out / developing new ideas in New UX.   Please allow dashboards to be saved as drafts without requiring all cards to be filled in ... View more

In classic, when I make changes to a dashboard and try to close the page, I am given a choice whether to discard or save the changes.  Perfect.     In New UX, i have lost major edits without realizing it by clicking an action, my page gets changed to where the action points.  Then my edits are left unpublished and therefore erased.  Not good.   Please add a warning to a model builder that tries to leave page with unpublished edits ... View more

This seems pretty basic to request, but I'd like to be able to drop down a line or two in a text field, without having to use another text field (classic does this).  For example, in our classic model, all of our pages have a Single text field below the page's title that include something like this...   PURPOSE: (description of what the page is for, what a user is expected to accomplish on it) INSTRUCTIONS: (step-by-step instructions to describe the basics of how the page works)   I ask for this feature because the minimum white space on text fields in New UX is enormous, so adding another text box for a single line of text is silly, and takes up a ton space on the page, pushing the data further down the page. The text fields appear to remain large regardless of whether I type a single word in small font.    ... View more

When modeling in the New UX, I've saved a few card templates for the various types of text I plan to use in my designs.  Saving a template card means I've gone to the trouble to do all the work upfront, presetting all the formatting the way I want it to be. However I still have to enter the card's edit mode just to actually add / change the text.    The following changes would make a really positive impact on streamlining the workflow: 1. Let me type my text directly into the card without having to enter the editing mode.  2. Let me to enter the card's editing mode by simply double-clicking it, no need to hunt for an icon 3. (Bonus) Add a right-click menu option for cards to include all of the icons...give workflow options as to how the builder would prefer to model ... View more

Our model has 700+ users so the list is quite overwhelming to deal with. They're also in some who-knows why randomized order.  I see no easy way of changing this order short of removing them all and re-importing them in a different order.    It would be really helpful to deal with this size of a list by allow admin to:   Easily reorder the list (Like you can actions, dashboards, modules); Reorder by Drag & Drop  Sort the list, preferably by whatever column I choose Create groups of users.  Useful for say contractors, employees, temporary accounts, integration accounts etc. Roll up / Unroll those groups so I can better focus on specific users Apply filters to the list, again by any column ... View more

Today I had been involved in some major rework of a dashboard when that little green button on the dashboard shows up telling me that my version of the dashboard is out of date because changes are pending.  That meant I could no longer save the many dashboard edits I had made until I refreshed to the latest version.     The trouble is when I refresh all of my edits were wiped clear and one new button appeared.  This was because while I was knee deep in redesigning the page another model builder published an action to the same page and saved it.     When a page is open for editing, and another model builder tries to edit the same page, they should be shown a warning indicating that the page is already open for editing.  ... View more

I'd like to be able to select a bunch of actions in a list, and alphabetize just those actions.  Currently you can alphabetize the list of actions but it only does the entire list.  Our model has many actions (just shy of 2 thousand)...some of these are specifically grouped together by function, or by dashboard they're on instead of by name, so I can't really use the alphabetization function at all or it'll do more harm than good.     The same function would be nice for the lists of modules and dashboards  ... View more

No small amount of problems have been caused in our model by someone unknowingly altering a saved view that is used by an import action.  It seems reasonable to me to tell the builder who is about to delete, or overwrite a saved view that is used by an action so they can make a decision to proceed or not.     Ideally, it would also identify WHICH action(s) are using that saved view so you can know where to go if a change to the action is needed as well. ... View more

It would be very helpful to have user role and user access to a model to be separately managed values.    In some instances, we use ALM to move a big group of changes into our production model so we will remove access for non-admin users and reinstate them later.  Instead of changing each of our 700 users roles to "No Access" and later turning them back to the correct value our 8 roles, If I could just toggle a "model access" boolean it would greatly simplify things. No reimporting users, no scripts, no fiddling with roles.  Just On / Off. ... View more

When model building I find myself regularly want to see a module AND it's blueprint mode simultaneously so I can scan formulas, change things in blueprint, and immediately see the effects without having to toggle back and forth. This would be like using split screen in Excel to compare two workbooks side-by-side   Toggling is no issue in small modules, but if the line you're viewing is two screens down in the blueprint list of line items, and you leave blueprint mode, then come back, you have to find it again because it starts you at the top of the list again.     To work around this I duplicate the Anaplan tab, but have to open the same module and get it configured the way I like.  But even then when I select a line item in one tab, it doesn't communicate with the other tab.  Ideally they would be in sync. ... View more

I think the title says it mostly, but to be clear I'd like to be able to do the following:   1. Create a saved view of a module 2. Create and export action using the saved view as basis 3. Modify and re-save the saved view (i.e. add a new column, change the filter etc.) 4. The export action should update itself based on my changes to the saved view without me having to recreate it   This would be super helpful 🙂   ... View more

As a model builder I'd like to be able to create a module template for use when anyone clicks "create new module" so that when any model builder begins making a new module the "empty module" they start from is my designated template.  This would likely include various pre-named and formatted line items, categories, with summary settings, etc.    While we do have a template module in our model, 9 times out of 10 a model builder just clicks "create new module" and begins working from a totally blank module because they forget to open the template module and copy for use as their starting point. Ultimately this results in no real standard list of items found in modules, and a complete toss up of various styles used to build modules.    I would also like a similar template approach to be used for creating new Lists (I would always include certain list properties, i.e. Display Name etc.) and new dashboards (we use certain text fields, styles, fonts in the sample places on all dashboards).  Any time a user creates one of these it should open with the set template instead of a blank canvas. ... View more

I would like the ability to perform a model wide find and replace of a word.  I should have the option to include text boxes, dashboard names, module names, line item names, action names, help text, tool tips, and literally ANYWHERE else in the model this word or string occurs.  It should basically behave like Excel's find and replace, allowing me to choose options of what I want to apply it to, where to limit looking to, whether to be case specific etc.   This would be really helpful when a simple change is needed for a large model.  For example: with hundreds of modules, thousands of actions and all the content on dashboards, if I want to make all variations of "OPEX", "OpEx", & "opex" to all be standardized to be "OPEX", I should be able to do that simply through a global find and replace.  Currently this is fully manual making a simple idea into a massive undertaking.  ... View more

When I can't remember where I saw a particular line item, I go to Settings ---> Modules ---> Line Items and search for it.  When I find it, it would be very natural to just click "Open" in the header.  However Anaplan only allows this open button to work if you have the MODULE name it belongs to selected. So I have to scroll up and figure out which of the lines above is the module's name.  This may sound trivial, but since all modules are strung together one after another, I commonly find myself searching for the name, passing it and basically wasting time trying to do something that should be very simple.     I would like to be able to simply select the line item I just found, click Open and have it take me to the module.   ... View more