The ‘Next step’ in the NUX of Anaplan

We have already helped a number of clients with making the transition. What we notice in these transitions is that clients try to keep things the same. At Finext, we see this transition as a good point to evaluate your current way of working. Why is a dashboard designed in a certain way, do we really use all our dashboards? Could we do things smarter? With the new functionality in the Anaplan NUX, we discovered that we can.

First, there is functionality in Anaplan that is not always used. However, these small functionalities can help end users become quicker and more precise in Anaplan. In our experience, customers often request a whole new dashboard if not everything is displayed how they like it. Fortunately, with a couple of clicks, this can be adjusted to personal preferences. The best part? You can save this view as a personal view and reuse it in the future.

For example, in the dashboard below, there is data on a country level per month. If you want to see all manual corrections, per country, you can do the following:

You can save the view on this dashboard and just enlarge it when needed, or discard your changes in the following way:

Please note that the underlined icons mean that a selection is made there. In this case, the pivot and the line-item selection. Excel-like filtering is also possible on the grid. You can also export the view from there, with the exported view including all selections and filters.

New functionality in the NUX

Anaplan is rapidly improving its workflow possibilities. Compared to our previous blog, a lot of new functionalities have already been added (follow the latest releases here). Two new features which we want to bring to your attention are workflow related. The first one, is a data writing action. With this action, you can let Anaplan write a value to a Boolean (checkbox) line item. However, this is a one-way street. If you configured a Boolean to be turned on, then you can only turn it on and not off with the action. This is perfect for setting up workflows.

Next to that, it is now also possible to select a driver for a button. This driver (which is a Boolean) makes it possible to use a button or not.

Combined, these two new functionalities are a great addition to Anaplan’s workflow possibilities, which are only available in the NUX. An example with these new functionalities is available below.

All in all, the NUX is not only an improvement in layout and design. It works more fluently and adds more functionality. Next to that, new functionalities are still being developed. However, the greatest added value we see at our customers is that every dashboard is being revised. We start by just asking questions: How can we improve the current layout? Is there not a more efficient way to do this?

With a transition to the NUX, this is a good evaluation point to think about these improvements or to use one of the new functionalities in Anaplan to solve an issue you are currently facing. In our way of working, we always involve end users. This proves to be very helpful in redesigning dashboards.  Our goal is to create new dashboards together, that are more intuitive to use which enables the financials using them to be more effective in their work. By challenging you to rethink your process in Anaplan, it gives a unique opportunity to keep your models relevant for the end-users and the stakeholders.

Are you ready to transition?

We would like to show more of the possibilities of the NUX. For a limited time, we are offering an on-site session where we discuss one of your dashboards which is not performing right now. We will transition that dashboard to the NUX and discuss the possibilities and enhancements of that dashboard with you.

Interested in getting the most out of your dashboards? E-mail me to plan an on-site session!