About David_Elston

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

I would like to be able to replace a dashboard with another dashboard and have Anaplan automatically make all the changes needed to make the replacement be and act as though it was the original the whole time i.e. do all the renaming, change all actions, filters, permission etc.    WHY When trying to prevent new features on existing dashboards from going live before they're ready, we have resorted to building a dashboard mockup so it can be tested. Then right before it goes live, there really seem to be two options:   Option 1. The mockup dashboard replaces the old dashboard, i.e. it must be renamed, all actions pointing to the old one must be adjusted, dashboard permissions must be copied over to the new one etc.   -- OR -- Option 2. The new features must be rebuilt on the existing dashboard.     Both of these options basically duplicate work and have leave a lot of room for error.  Because of how challenging it is to track down all the things that must change to accomplish Option 1, we currently just rebuild the features, which is a huge waste     ... View more

Similar to some other feature requests I've made... 1. Open From Drill Down (delivered) 2. Open From Filter View   it would help model building workflow if I could right-click a module or list that appears in a formula and it give me the option to open the module, or show the list.  Again, this is so I don't have to leave what I'm doing and go search through the stack of modules / lists to find the part I'm looking to see.    Here's how I see it looking...     ... View more

The Situation I currently help manage a set of models ranging from Dev, Test, & Production.  Our Production model is live with close to 700 users. We release changes into production on a 2 week cadence but there are times where a fix must be pushed live immediately patching.     Some new features may take longer to develop 2 weeks, so when is not ready to go live and we need to push other fixes into production, we need a way to prevent half-finished features from being accessed by the user.  For new dashboards this may be as simple as not publishing a button, or turning off role access.  But what about when something model wide is going to change like a formula, or a new table on an existing dashboard that is not easily hidden?   We have tried the following to attempt to solve this ourselves: * Completely reverse certain changes, push the model into production, rebuild them * Turn off role access to certain buttons, contents pane access etc. * Develop a mirrored dashboards with new features etc, test that and then rebuild the dashboard when ready to go live. (same for modules etc.)   The Ask Anaplan needs a way to designate which parts of a model are to be pushed via ALM and others that are not ready and need to be left out. I realize this is not a simple request, but otherwise it is incredibly difficult to keep from pushing half baked features into production accidentally.     ... View more

When Opening a filter, It would be really helpful if I saw a filter I wanted to dig further into and be able to right-click and open the module it's coming from.  Currently a user has to back out of the filter view, and go there manually.  When there are a few filters I have to screenshot this view temporarily because I struggle to remember all of them.       Being able to access a module directly like this is the exact same purpose behind the recently delivered (thank you!) feature for directly accessing the module from drill down. These types of features really make the model builder's workflow much smoother instead of having to go down a dead end, find something, back all the way out again and search a module list / action etc. to find what I'm looking for.   ... View more

In certain cases the Name of something that goes into a report can only be so long before it starts to conflict and overlap with something else and make the report unreadable.  In other cases the user is expected to be concise and not write a whole dissertation to name something or.    I'd like to be able to set a numerical value for the maximum number of characters allowed in a text field where if the user keeps typing it'll flash the text box border or even just stop do anything at all etc. ... View more

Some dashboards end up with large tables with lots of columns shown. It is normal that some of these columns may need a few notes to help a user understand its purpose / intended interactions etc. Currently I use an instructional text box at the top, but this can be very long, hard to read, and frankly overwhelming amount of text.   I'd like to be able to add column-specific instructions so when a user mouses over a column they see a tooltip with only the instruction I set. This would improve user experience for end users by having instructions show up when & where a user needs them and disappear when they no longer do. ... View more

It only recently occurred to me that the search feature built into a module when on a dashboard only returns values from the dimensions, but not the data...which really feels like a missed opportunity.  Search should be able to return values from the data itself (maybe even highlight it?)   For example, Say I have a module on a dashboard that uses a list of Project Names as a dimension, and "Project Manager" & "Program Manager" as line items.  If I used the module's search feature, and typed in my name, search should should take me click to all the different projects where my name appears in that table.  Right now if i search, it just shows up blank, when I can see that it's in there.  The only thing that will return a value is if I search for a Project Name...which is useful, but very limited. ... View more

Anaplan only allows for 1 user to be deleted at a time.    Recently, we realized 680 users were loaded into the wrong model, so I had to click "delete user" then mouse over to click "OK" 680 times...I'd like to be able to delete more than 1 user at a time. ... View more

As a Work Space Admin, I can click a list and see it's hierarchical tree view, dig down into various levels and see how things roll up. In our model we have 3 major hierarchies that traverse the entirety of the model.  There are cases where a few non-WSA users need to be able to visualize the hierarchies (because some are 6 levels deep and very complicated)   The trouble is I can't show it to them without having to export it to Excel and let them do it manually.  I'd like an object that I can place on a dashboard that lets me display a list's hierarchy.  This object should be interactive so they can expand and collapse the levels as they need i.e. the same way I can in a list's settings "tree view" tab.  See the example image below for clarity.   ... View more

As a model builder, I would like to be able to get from a dashboard button directly to the action in the Actions list.  It would be really helpful to have a right-click "Open in Action List" option somewhat equivalent to a module's "open source" module option but for actions.    This would be a far better than the current method i.e. remember the name of the button, go to the actions list, type it's name into the search (since I can't copy/paste it's text) ... View more

I use the search functionality in Anaplan a lot because otherwise it's difficult to find things.  It would be helpful to use operators (like in a google search) to find things. Here's an example:   Pretend I have a dashboard named "David's XYZ Extravagant Dashboard - Cost Sheet" When searching, if I miss a single character search produces nothing. If typed "dashboard cost sheet" into the search window I'd get nothing (because I'm missing the " - ").     A better way would be if I could type some things I remember and use an operator....something like: "Cost AND extra" since those are the two parts I can remember.  Search should return my fictitious dashboard's name because the string "cost" and "extra" are both found in its name, despite the dashboard name having them in a different order.   NOT should let me excluding something... i.e if I have many cost sheet dashboards with similar names, but I know the one I want doesn't have the string "extra" in it's title, I would type "Cost sheet NOT extra"     ... View more

It would be really helpful to me when building complex formulas if I could build it up in pieces without creating lots of line items to do so. Ideally I could build it in pieces without getting plagued with "wrong data type" errors.   I'd like the option to let the system adjust the datatype for me instead of just rejecting my formula for a datatype issue.  This would allow me to more easily try a small piece of a formula to see if what I get is as expected, then add to it to see again (likely a new datatype) without me having to change the datatype myself. ... View more

It is pretty common that I need to publish a module to a dashboard to show data as "Read Only".   While I can turn off the "Open Source Module" option for a grid, any user can still right-click and select "Show all columns" to see all line items if they choose.  And worse this function is not something an Admin can prevent.   So in order to prevent unwanted user access to the source data, as a workaround I typically create a read-only module (taking up more space) that house the specific line items I want shown on the dashboard that all simply point back to the source module. This would all be unnecessary if an Admin could disable users' ability to "Show All Columns".     Much like my feature request to have the "Open Source Module" function controlled globally by role, this too should allow control by Admin at the role level, meaning I could allow certain roles to show all columns, and restrict it for other roles. ... View more

I commonly find myself battling Anaplan for screen real estate to see what I want when I want it, and NOT when I don't want to see it.  One of the culprits is the Contents Pane, and another as a model builder is the dashboard editing panel or the settings tab.  When the Contents Pane is open and one of these others as well, the amount of useable screen is pretty small.     As bad as it may sound, it is not uncommon to find myself working in this tiny little box before realizing I could close the Contents Pane and have a much larger work area.  I believe having a hotkey to toggle the Contents Pane open / close would be a really helpful addition to Anaplan, so I don't have to take my mouse off what I'm doing to go click it. ... View more

WHAT: I would like to be able to temporarily toggle the Preview mode / Design mode on a dashboard by holding a key on the keyboard, (I suggest CTRL)   WHY: This would allow a model builder to... Quickly jump between the preview state and design state in order to view dashboard's final state, and then return to making adjustments.  Click an action button on a dashboard while editing it. Currently the model builder must click the toggle to go into "Preview" mode, click the action button, then reset the toggle back to "Design" mode again.   ... View more

It would be really helpful to be able to query a user's model role, and with that information be able to do things like: * Allow / Limit access to information based on a user's role * Use in dynamic cell access formulas * Allow a module on certain dashboards to be read-only (for larger audiences), while the same module on another dashboard can be writeable if the user's role is a match (perhaps for admin users)   To work around some of these issues we end up creating many almost duplicate copy dashboards with almost duplicate modules on them except some are source data and others are read-only.     I'm sure there are many other ways model builders could benefit from such a function being added. ... View more

When working with a team of model builders sometimes changes to a dashboard aren't obvious, so it would be helpful to be able to leave a note behind for others to read.  I could see this being helpful for when a button is added to a dashboard, or a filter is adjusted or a section is moved to a different place, a name of something is changed etc.   A model builder could leaving comments that look something like this:    20 FEB 2019: Added button X to the page because Project Managers needed direct access to the page" 18 FEB 2019: Changed the filter on module XYZ to be able to show ABC, also added conditional formatting to line item "Project Name" ... View more