Guide

How to improve an Anaplan model and how your team uses it

By Umang Chauhan · October 25, 2026 · 9 min read

A practical routine for builders and CoE leads: find structural problems, retire what nobody uses, keep formulas readable and make model health a monthly habit.

Most Anaplan models do not fail on a single bad decision. They drift: a module added for one project, a line item kept “just in case”, a formula copied and tweaked three times, a page nobody opens. A year later the model is slower, harder to hand over and more expensive to change. Improving it is less about a big rebuild than about a regular, evidence-based clean-up. This guide gives you that routine.

1. Start by measuring, not guessing

Before changing anything, write down what the model is today. You need five facts: how many modules, line items and lists it has; which modules carry the most dimensions; which line items have long formulas; what is used by an App page, saved view or action; and how much of the workspace allowance it takes. Without this baseline you cannot tell later whether you improved anything.

• The Model Summary in Anaplan Toolkit gives the counts and, with Get all data, loads every report so you can export the lot as one zip for the release record.
• Modules lists every module with its dimensions, time scale, time range, line item and saved view counts, and the App pages that use it.
• Workspace Models & Storage shows the model against the workspace's in-use versus allowance meter.

2. Fix structure first

Structure is where the biggest, longest-lasting gains are, because everything else (formulas, pages, imports) sits on top of it. Look for these patterns:

Modules that are doing too many jobs

A module that mixes inputs, calculations and outputs, or mixes line items with different dimensionality, is hard to read and usually bigger than it needs to be. Anaplan's Planual recommends separating inputs from calculations and keeping a module's purpose clear. In the Modules report, sort by line item count and open the largest few; they are the usual suspects.

Dimensions that are not earning their place

Every dimension multiplies the potential cell count. Ask of each module: does this really need Time? Versions? That third list? A module that only holds a single value per product does not need a monthly time scale. The Modules report shows each module's time scale and time range beside its dimensions, so these mismatches stand out in one view.

Line items with the wrong format

Text and number formats you do not need, and calculations stored as Number where a Boolean would do, add weight and confusion. Intermediate calculations that nobody reads can often be set to No Data format. The Line Items report lists every line item's format, applies-to, time scale and formula, and you can search across all of it.

3. Retire what nobody uses

Unused objects are the cheapest improvement you can make: no design decision, just removal. But “nobody uses it” has to be checked in more than one place. A line item may have no formula dependents and still feed an App page, a saved view, an import, an export or a process.

1. Run Impact to list line items that no other formula uses.
2. Cross-check them with Line Items on Pages, All Saved Views and Action Usages, because Impact reads formulas only.
3. Check Process Steps for imports and exports that touch the module.
4. Check with the owners of any upstream or downstream model that imports from it.
5. Delete in a dev model first, then promote the change through your normal release path.

Deleting by hand in Blueprint is slow and Anaplan refuses a line item that something else still uses. Delete Line Items and Delete Modules take a CSV (the Line Items or Modules export works as is), check every row against the live model, order the deletes so Anaplan accepts them, and ask you to type the count before anything changes. They are the only views in the Toolkit that write to your model, so treat them as a named-person task, and keep the run log with your change record.

4. Make formulas readable

A formula is read many more times than it is written. Slow, deeply nested or duplicated formulas make every future change riskier.

• Search for repetition. The Formulas view searches every formula by words, an exact phrase or a regular expression. A phrase that appears in thirty line items is a candidate for a single helper line item.
• Run Lint. It checks the model against Anaplan's Planual and shows each finding with the rule's own number, linked to its page. The same per-line-item checks underline the offending part of a formula in the editor and add a badge in Blueprint view, so you see them while you build.
• Break up long chains. Where a formula nests many IFs, move the logic into a mapping or lookup module or into small, named steps.
• Use the editor hover. Hovering a reference shows its format, dimensions and formula, plus Used by and Depends on, which makes reviews faster.

5. Understand how the model is used

A model that is structurally clean can still be badly used. Look at the front end too:

• Linked Pages shows which Apps and Pages consume each module. A module with no page, no import and no export is a candidate for review.
• Filters & Conditional Formatting lists line items used as filters or formatting rules beside their conditions. Rules on line items hidden from the grid are tagged, so you can tidy them.
• Saved Views in Screens shows which saved view each page widget reads from, which helps you spot dozens of near-identical views.
• Lock Monitor records when the model is busy, updating or locked, with what is running. If users complain about slowness, this tells you when it happens and which job was running.

Pair the reports with a short conversation with your users. The data tells you what exists; only people can tell you what they wish they did not have to click through.

6. Document as you go

Documentation that is written once goes stale. Generate it instead. From the Summary view the Toolkit writes the model's lists, modules, line items and formulas as a Markdown file, and can copy a compact version to paste into an AI assistant. Nothing is uploaded by the extension; where you paste it is your decision, so follow your organisation's data rules.

7. Make it a monthly habit

One clean-up helps for a quarter. A routine keeps it that way. A simple health check for each production model, monthly and before every major release:

1. Model Summary, then Get all data and download the zip.
2. Line Items and Lint for the Planual findings.
3. Action Usages and Process Steps for orphaned or duplicated actions.
4. Saved Views in Actions and Screens for views that are no longer wired to anything.
5. Workspace Models & Storage to watch the trend.

Give each model a named owner, keep the zip with the release record and compare it with last month's. Agree two or three numbers to move (unused line items, Lint findings, model size) and review them in the same meeting every time.

Where to go next

If your clean-up is driven by a size or storage limit, read How to reduce the size of an Anaplan model. For the checks above, the Lint and Impact reports are the best place to start.