Release Notes for the following areas are included in this article:

• General
• Consolidation
• Platform
• Anaplan XL Reporting
  • To download the latest Anaplan XLAdd-in for creating and designing reports, use the following link: Anaplan XL Reporting Add-in

General Announcements

Rebranding

The sign on screen, sign out screen and header on the web portal have been rebranded to incorporate Anaplan's new branding. 

Journals Security

Journals Security has been added to apply the security access that has been set up for the Read and Write Security Profiles to the Journals module. This feature prevents users from querying, creating or editing journals for members they do not have access to. The default for the Journals Security Application Flag is false.

More information on this feature is provided below.

Legacy Cash Flow Details Report

Legacy Cash Flow Details report (previously located in Explorer under Consolidation\Reports) have been discontinued. A web version of the report is now available under Consolidation\Reports\Web Reports. 

 

Consolidation Enhancements

Ultimate Rate Calculation

The Ultimate Rate Calculation feature allows the system to automatically calculate ownership percentages based on Direct Ownership data and designated percentage ranges. This automation simplifies the ownership setup process, ensuring that once the direct percentage information is entered, manual adjustments to the ownership settings are minimized.

Ultimate Rate Calculation generates Percentage of Control (Pcon) that drives the consolidation method, Percentage of Ownership (Pown) for the breakdown of Group/Minority interests and Percentage of Minority Interests (Pmin) for information.

After running the Ultimate Rate Calculation, any necessary modifications to the Ownership table can still be made. However, this feature provides a solid foundation, eliminating the need to start from scratch.

 

 

The ultimate rate calculation can be run two different ways: Either via a workflow process or a button in the Manage Ownership web administration form.

 

Export/Import of Ownership Percentages

The Manage Ownership and Direct Ownership web editors have been enhanced to include Export/Import capabilities. Users can now export their existing ownership settings to a file and then import it back into the web editors, facilitating data management and ensuring that information can be easily edited as needed.

Override Rates by Intercompany Dimension

Conversion override rates can now be configured by members in the Intercompany dimension. This new capability allows for greater flexibility and control over the conversion processes for intercompany transactions, enabling companies to tailor their conversion strategies according to specific needs and circumstances.

Multi-Dimension Calculation Enhancements

Several enhancements have been added to the Multi-Dimensional Calculations. 

Calculations on Static Accounts

The new feature enables the creation of multi-dimensional calculations targeting Static Account members. This enhancement allows users to calculate KPI's directly into a static account member for parent-level entities, facilitating calculations of KPIs at both parent and leaf entities. For example you can easily calculate profit as a percent of revenue at the entity and consolidated levels.

Use of Relative Periods

Users have the ability to use relative periods as date members in Multi-Dimensional Calculation rules. This allows line items in the rule to reference either

• Previous Periods
• Previous Closing Periods

This is done by creating system date members

In the example above, two system date members have been created:

• PrevClosing is with respect to the current date and retrieves the previous years 12th month
• PrevMonth is with respect to the current date and retrieves the previous month

For example:

Date	Value
CurrentDate	2024 Mar
PrevClosing	2023 Dec
PrevMonth	2024 Feb

Note: If the date is 2024 Jan and PrevMonth = -1, then the relative date would be 2023 Dec

These relative dates can then be used in the Multi-Dimensional Calculation

Sourcing Data from Periodic or YTD Measures

The configuration of multi-dimensional calculation sources and targets can be established using either Periodic or Year-To-Date (YTD) measures.

A new field, "Is Periodic," has been introduced. This field should be set to True for any step in the multi-dimensional calculation that requires the use of the Periodic amount instead of the Year-To-Date amount.

Note: If the Target is set to a period measure, the calculation will only be able to be run on a periodic scenario.

 

 

Copy Rates and Copy Ownership Calculations

New Copy Rates and Copy Ownership workflow processes and calculations have been added to provide a way to easily copy rates and ownership percentages between scenarios. 

Rate Copy

The Run Rate Copy workflow process allows copying between scenarios for:

• Global Exchange Rates
• Tax Rates
• Overwrite Rates

Note: Rates will only be copied to Open Time Period/Scenario combinations

 

Ownership Copy

The Run Ownership Copy workflow process allows copying between scenarios for:

• Direct Percentage Rates
• Ownership Rates

Investment Registry Additional Currency Support

The Investment registry has been updated to support additional currencies for data input. This includes Source, Reporting and Additional Currency input for:

• Investment Values
• Equity Input
• Acquisition Balance Sheet (Book and Fair Market Value)
• Disposal Balance Sheet
• PPA Adjustments

Initialize Ownership - Trace File

A trace file has been incorporated into the Initialize Ownership process to enhance visibility and auditability of changes. Whenever the Initialize Ownership process is executed, a trace file will be generated, allowing for a comprehensive audit of the changes made to the ownership settings. You can locate this trace file in the Process Status report.

Clear Workflow Queue Diagnostic Report

A Clear Workflow Queue diagnostic report has been provided to allow administrators to view any queued workflows and clear them as required. 

 

Other Consolidation Enhancements

• The Legacy Cash Flow Details report (previously located in Explorer under Consolidation\Reports) has been discontinued. The web version of the report is now available under Consolidation\Reports\Web Reports and has been updated to honor model security.
• Tag support has been incorporated into the Equity Pickup and Booking Rules administration editors.

 

Platform Enhancements

Journal Entries

Journals Security

A new Application Flag, JESecurity, has been added to enforce Journal security. When Journals Security is enabled, the security access that has been set up for the Read and Write Security Profiles for the journal model will be applied when working in the Journals module. This feature prevents users from querying, creating or editing journals for members they do not have access to.

The default for the Journals Security Application Flag is false. 

Note: The Feature Flag ModelSecurity must also be true for Journals Security to take effect.

When querying journals, the member selectors in the Query dialog will not show leaf members that the user does not have access to. If a user types in a member name that they do not have access to, then a red outline will appear and it will be treated as an invalid selection. If a user is missing member access to a member in either the header or the details of the journal, then the entire journal will not be retrieved. 

When creating journals or editing journals, the member selectors in the Create and Edit dialogs will not show leaf members that the user does not have access to. If a user types in a member name that they do not have access to, then a red outline will appear and it will be treated as an invalid selection. 

 

Granular Journal Authorizations

Authorizations for JE functionality has been separated into more granular authorizations, allowing for separation of duties. There are now separate authorizations as follows:

Journal Authorization	Description
View	Query journal entries. Export journal entries. Run journal entry reports. View Journal Audit Summary.
Create	Create journal entries.
Update	Update existing journal entries.Add and Update Attachments.
Delete	Delete existing journal entries.
Import	Perform bulk import of journal entries.
Post	Post journal entries.
Unpost	Unpost journal entries.

 

Journal Configuration

A new authorization has been added to delete a Journal Configuration.
Note: This operation cannot be undone.

 

Posting to Periodic Amounts

In Journals, the ability to post to periodic amounts has been added. This only applies if the scenario is periodic (that is, the Input_Periodic property is set to True).

 

UI Updates to the Journals Module

Based on user feedback, we have updated the toolbar in the Journals module. Generally, the behavior where the icons toggled on and off based on the state of the Journal Entry has been replaced by icons that remain in their respective positions and become enabled and disabled as appropriate.

Attaching Generic Files to Workflow Tasks

You can now attach generic files to the following workflow tasks: Data Input, Review, Reporting. This enhancement allows these workflow tasks to contain links to generic files that have been uploaded to the Fluence Explorer, for example: pdf and standard xlsx files (that are not XML Forms, or Anaplan XL reports).

Performance

Several performance improvements have been made, including:

• Performance has been improved for Member Selectors within the majority of areas in the portal.  Display of the members and search time are noticeably faster.
• Queries to Workflow lists and panels have been optimized. This improves performance when there are several workflows on homepage panels or in the Workflow task list being queried by many users concurrently.
• Improved performance of web admin forms.
• Consolidation engine optimized, improving run time for large complex consolidations.

Other Platform Enhancements

Mappings Editor

The Mappings Editor now displays the member caption in a Caption column beside the Mapped Value column. 

Enforce open/closed periods for writeback

A new option Enforce open/closed periods for writeback, has been added to the Model Configuration pane. When enabled, it will disallow Anaplan XL writeback reports to write to closed periods in non-consolidation models. This option is available for selection when the model is a non-consolidation model that contains both a Time dimension and Scenario dimension. 

Static Members

In the Hierarchy Manager, parent Account members can now be converted to static members. These static members can then be used Multi-Dimensional Calculations. A solid yellow circle indicates that a member is static.

Anaplan XL Reporting Enhancements

• Performance of Anaplan XL writeback reports has been improved