Anaplan is a Web-based enterprise platform used for business planning and gets its name from the company that created it. The word Anaplan combines the words analysis and planning, is known for its in-memory database and calculation engine called HyperBlock. Once an enterprise customer uploads data to the Anaplan cloud, the customer’s business users can quickly organize and analyze disparate sets of enterprise data from finance, human resources, sales and other areas of the business.

An Overview

Business users can use Anaplan to make data-driven decisions with just basic Excel level knowledge and without necessarily having the skills of a data scientist. Anaplan includes modules for workforce planning, quota planning, commission calculation, project planning, demand planning, budgeting, planning & forecasting, financial consolidation and profitability modeling.

According to Gartner’s 2014 Magic Quadrant report, Anaplan provides a capable SaaS business modeling and planning platform for finance and other business functions to plan collaboratively and improve operational performance. Anaplan’s cloud planning platform enables an organization to run virtually any planning process by connecting data, people, and plans in every part of a business. Connected Planning can be achieved at any scale, from a single use case within one business unit to enterprise-wide connected planning across several processes.

Anaplan Features

Platform

  • The cloud platform combines cutting-edge security, in-memory data management, & massive scalability.
  • By tracking dependencies at the level of the line item, the Hyperblock technology enables updates or changes to models of any size, from one to one trillion cells, in real time.
  • The in-memory engine enables detailed planning models that utilizes all the data down to the transactional level for improved business decision making.
  • A growing collection of apps are available in the Anaplan App Hub that can be used as is, modified to suit specific needs, or business users can create their own from scratch.
  • Offers an API, import/export capabilities, and pre-built connectors for common platforms like Anaplan HyperConnect, Informatica, Dell Boomi, Mulesoft, and SnapLogic.
  • Models can be built to any level of granularity with any number of dimensions, layer in time, hierarchies, relationships, and more.
  • More than 150 apps can be applied to vastly different sets of processes, including sales performance optimization, financial budgeting and forecasting, and call center operations. All created by users with clicks, not code.

Modeling

  • Using the Living Blueprint technology, all complex business rules are stored and managed in one easy-to-understand worksheet.
  • Business users can create new model versions on-the-fly, replicate models faster, load with data, and easily track actuals in the same model as plans.
  • With Breakback, users can set a target for a formula, and the variables that make up that formula can be changed according to the rules specified.
  • Delivers strategic advantage with fast and easy creation of dynamic scenarios with time, version, and list dimensions.

Collaboration

  • Enables flexible role-based security levels for user types. Audit trail, model restore, and selective user access make it possible for analysts to safely and simultaneously collaborate on common models.
  • Monitor status and approvals with a collaborative workflow that streamlines top-down target allocation and consolidation of roll-ups from the field. A robust audit trail makes it easy to track and revert changes.
  • Users can see a history of users and changes and roll back to earlier versions.
  • Delivers a central repository to reconcile various sources of data for clean, reliable hierarchy. Additionally, master data (products, employees, cost centers, etc.) is accessible to analysts around the enterprise.
  • Enables dynamic synchronization of data across connected plans, automatically aggregating and identifying discrepancies for real-time consistency.

Usability

  • Business users can use familiar business syntax, drag-and-drop hierarchies, and built-in logic for time, versions, and scenarios.
  • Variety of publishing features, including dashboards, charts, PDF generation, and a tightly integrated Excel plug-in facilitate sharing insights with the field, enable management to do their own scenario analysis, and create stunning executive packs.
  • Access from any mobile device via a browser to always stay connected with data.

Why Anaplan?

  • Best data to drive informed decisions: Performance data from the past provides useful insights. Its powerful modeling and calculation engine help managers evaluate expected results from different decisions before execution. This combination of historical data and future estimates is great for decision-making.
  • Modern planning and decision-making is collaborative: It provides large-scale collaborative planning and decision-making across complex processes. Metadata-level views of plans and the relationship between them enable the impacts of plan changes to ripple instantly to other affected business areas. Flexible role-based security levels ensure collaboration and audit trail, model restore, and selective user access promotes safe and simultaneous planning in real time.
  • Unrivaled modeling that makes the power of the platform come together: It boasts the world’s most powerful and flexible modeling and calculation engine, called Hyperblock. This in-memory engine enables the creation of detailed planning models that utilize all the data down to the transactional level for real-time impactful business decisions. Businesses can build multi-dimensional plans to any level of granularity.
  • Empower business-owned innovation with governance: Its cloud platform is a modern, secure architecture designed to satisfy the mutual needs of business users and the IT department. Native Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and industry-leading security features enable good governance for IT requirements, while business users are essentially self-sufficient in creating and maintaining models and planning processes.

Large organizations are using Anaplan for complex enterprise-grade planning across thousands of users, with zero to minimal IT support. The magnitude of the computing power that Anaplan represents is just amazing. Today, Anaplan is the most flexible, scalable, and collaborative cloud planning system in the world & the backbone of business planning processes for a number of organizations worldwide.