Formulae and Formulae Tracking / Lineage

Gavin Allen

Hi there,

Increasingly our customers and prospects are comparing some specific functionality that exists in Anaplan especially, when it comes to formulae in Board.

There are TWO key areas:

1. When using Rules (or Nexel), the references are not written in natural language. e.g. if you are writing a rule that takes Sales and subtracts Cost of Sales to calculate Margin, the formulae references the entity ID, whereas it would be more comparable to Anaplan, if the actual description / name of the entity were used.
2. More importantly is formulae lineage and/or traceability. In Anaplan by clicking F8 on ANY cell that contains a formulae, then the user is taken on a "drill path" that provides the formulae dependencies and/or formulae lineage, thereby providing an easy way for end users to understand how a particular calculated number has been arrived at. This functionality would be most desirable in Board.

Finally, and kind of related to formulae and rule. When a rule is created in Board, in order to use the results of that calculation fully, we have to effectively "materalise" the calculation by writing a procedure to take a data block containing and referencing the rule, and then processing it to another data block to have the formulae results calculated across the entire cube at any dimensional level. Again in Anaplan, it is observed that when a formulae has been written, is does NOT need any further action, and is effectively "always on" and available at anytime, across any dimensional level and aggregation, without the need for additional processing.

Kind Regards

Gavin Allen

Head of Pre-Sales UKI