What is Anaplan?

A lot of people are eager to know about the Anaplan tool because of its increasing popularity as the planning software around the globe.

'Anaplan' itself is made from the merger of 2 words i.e. Analysis & Planning.

Anaplan is a cloud-based software platform which means you don't need to download anything on your computer just you need a stable internet connection & you can go on with your work. Cloud-based computing (also called Software as a Service, or SaaS) allows users access to software applications that run on shared computing resources (for example, processing power, memory, and disk storage) via the Internet. These computing resources are maintained in remote data centers dedicated to hosting various applications on multiple platforms. You can also use anaplan on your mobile phone.

Anaplan works on its Hyperblock technology which provides Anaplan to have flexibility like spreadsheets, scalability like databases & fast analysis like OLAP.

Anaplan Workspace
In Anaplan, you have a workspace that is like a private area in the cloud that holds your models. Depending upon the size of your models you can have one or many models in your workspace.

Anaplan Model

Model in the anaplan is the place where the real magic happens, here, we create our logic to showcase the required output on the final dashboard.

The model mainly consists of 3 parts

Central Library:- It is the place where we define our dimensions (like rows & columns of the spreadsheet) which are going to be used in our model to create Modules (Logic Building Area). Time & Versions are two in-built dimensions we got in Anaplan.

Calculation Engine:- Here we create modules in which we create line items & write formulas to build our logic.

User Experience:- End-user interacts with an anaplan model via UX dashboards or Apps where he/she can input the relevant data & can view the final output.

Anaplan is a connected planning tool that replicates your changes on your dashboards or apps in real-time & helps to analyze the business requirement in a very efficient manner. Anaplan is used in many business use cases viz IT, Sales, Finance, Supply Chain, HR, Marketing.