Why would I need the add-in?
Anaplan is designed to display data within grid views or through graphs and charts within its own dashboards, but there will be occasions when the data will need to be loaded into a third party piece of software, like Excel.
Even without the add-in, Anaplan users can have the ability to export data from any dashboard view, however there might be occasions when you want to export multiple views out of Anaplan, and populate these data points into pre-determined cells in an Excel workbook.
How can I get the Excel add-in?
Anaplan’s Excel Add-in can be downloaded from the Anaplan Community website. If you’re logged into the Anaplan Community website, you can download v3.1 of the add-in here: https://help.anaplan.com/anapedia/Content/Extensions_and_Addins/Excel3_1_Add-in.htm
Once you have followed the installer and successfully installed the add-in, it should appear in your Excel ribbon.
What can I do with the Excel add-in?
At the time of publishing this post, the Excel add-in only supports pulling data from Anaplan, and doesn’t allow write back. Nevertheless, this doesn’t limit the add-ins use to just reporting.
You may want to pull data from Anaplan into an Excel template where values can be updated, saved as a CSV file and then uploaded back into Anaplan. This might be particularly handy if you’re planning to do bulk data changes.
The add-in also allows you to pivot and filter your data before you pull it into Excel. This means that while Anaplan continues to hold your full data set in a multi-dimensional format, you can still comfortable use the data in a two dimensional worksheet.
What limitations should I be aware of?
- The Excel Add-in creates a one-way connection between Anaplan and Excel. You can view and edit Anaplan data in Excel, but you can’t push those changes back to Anaplan to update the source module.
- To avoid overloading and crashing Excel, there is a limit of 1 million cells which can be exported.
- The add-in doesn’t allow you to load up any subsidiary views.