Latest Features
FluenceXL (formerly XLCubed) has been rebranded Anaplan XL Reporting. We work extremely closely with key partners and customers to ensure our product development roadmap fits the needs of their businesses. Customer input has been key to several of the new capabilities introduced in the latest version.
The current release version of Anaplan XL Reporting is 2411.1
New in FluenceXL 10
Financially-focused Interactive Charting
FluenceXL 10 introduces a wide range of financial chart types drawing on the best-practice visualisation approach of IBCS (International Business Communications Standards). Charts are fully interactive, allowing users to further explore the underlying data as required. The 10 new chart types include waterfalls, variance, business scenario, trend and structural visualisations.
Targeted financial charts, usability improvements for layout and formatting along with best practice defaults help make effective Financial Reporting more accessible than ever.
Discover the different chart types and use cases in our chart gallery.
Connectivity
We continue to broaden the reach of the products, adding connectors for IBM TM1 / PAL and for icCube. On TM1, the rich native planning and budgeting capabilities of the underlying platform are fully supported in both Excel and Web. SAP HANA connectivity has also been extended in a number of areas.
FluenceXL Proxy adds the ability to support SSO for Analysis Services in Web and Excel, replacing traditional MSMDPump connections, integrating with many identity providers and maintaining users' security context and role membership.
With an increasing number of customers using the products for reporting on SQL and other relational databases, we have added a number of performance improvements to our Pivot View technology.
Usability
A new ribbon and formatting task pane for interactive charts help speed the design process, while the addition of Grid 'breaks' brings more formatting and layout flexibility to dynamic grids.
More Details
See the full list of changes on our wiki.
New in v9.2
For a full discussion of the latest features in 9.2, watch the webinar.
Interactive Charting
Our new charting engine brings interactive visual analytics to Excel. Explore your data and drill down through animated charts, zoom in on specific interest areas within the chart, quickly move from one chart to many ‘small multiples’. Easily build dynamic links between chart selections and data tables. Share your data-connected, interactive dashboards with Web and Mobile users in seconds.
See more and watch the video highlights.
Report Scheduling
Reports can be scheduled for automated delivery more quickly and flexibly than ever before. Combine multiple reports into one PowerPoint, PDF or Excel output. Allow users to subscribe and unsubscribe to available report schedules, and to receive only the data they have permissions to view.
Commentary
Our data-aware commentary allows users to quickly share insights on their data, at any level of granularity. Discussion threads encourage collaboration to help reach better business decisions faster. Admin users can now receive notifications whenever comments are made against specific slices of data.
Power BI Custom Visuals
Got Power BI but struggling with ad-hoc analysis or with detailed financial reports? Our custom visuals allow users to integrate pixel-perfect formal reports and dashboards within Power BI, giving fine-grain control over formatting and layout. Our ad-hoc visual allows users to quickly slice and dice the data, and easily add their own calculations.
Data Connectivity
XLCubed was developed from the ground up as a class leading client tool for Microsoft Analysis Services. Over the years we have broadened the product’s reach adding connectors for SAP HANA, icCube, Power BI, relational databases and Big Data sources. We have had many customer requests to connect to Oracle Essbase, and are pleased to introduce this with version 9.2.
Compact Grid Layout
9.2 adds an alternate display option for Grids – the compact layout. In this mode nested hierarchies are all displayed within one column rather than individually. This can be particularly useful in ad-hoc analysis, allowing users to essentially build report level custom hierarchies quickly and easily.
Calculation Wizard
The list of calculations which can be included in a Tabular Analysis Services model is almost endless. But not every user needs every calculation, and adding too many makes the whole user experience unwieldy. Our DAX calculation wizard means users are guided through creating additional calculations quickly and easily, allowing developers to centralise just the core calculations, and giving non-technical users the flexibility to add others when needed.
More Details
See the full list of changes on our wiki.
What's new in v9.1?
Data Access
XLCubed has been a leading client tool for Microsoft Analysis Services data for many years. Customers love the flexibility and speed of delivery, and have been keen to extend these benefits to multiple data sources. With version 9, and again in 9.1 we have made this a concrete option. We have added connectors for many additional sources including relational databases, Big Data providers, and other platforms such as SAP HANA and Oracle Essbase.
Ad-hoc Query, Analytics and Data Discovery
9.1 extends XLCubed's modelling capabilities when reporting on flat and relational data. Users can now define multi-level hierarchies, and add sophisticated workbook level calculations. The mashup capabilities mean different sources can be combined into one model at report-time for analytics or reporting.
Reporting
XLCubed already has the concept of Small Multiple charting, where it is very easy to quickly build several charts varying by just one element. We see these used a lot, particularly in retail environments when looking at relative performance of locations or sales teams.
The all-new Repeater control extends this concept to any part of a report, not just one chart or one grid. It lends itself really well to card based reporting where a summary view is defined, potentially combining XLCubed and native Excel functionality, along with charts. Having built the base layout as required, (for a specific store for example) the process of extending that across other stores, and displaying them together in a consolidated view is extremely straightforward. The example below shows the concept, where a view on transfer activity has been built for one premier league football club, and then repeated across the others.
Collaboration
In the last few years we have seen the level of interest in dynamic data commentary increase hugely. Customers use this in several different ways including:
- 'Operational' - e.g. notifying report readers that there is a problem with a data feed which is affecting the numbers. This can be done at the point they read the report rather than have potentially hundreds of users raise the same support question.
- 'Budget Cycle' - justifying the provided numbers at the point of entry
- 'Ad-hoc / Conversational' - Ability for users to raise a question about specific data points, and have this answered by other users in a conversation thread.
- 'Supplementary detail' - supports file attachments for more detailed text based background on the specific entity being reported on
The new capabilities introduced in 9.1 are based extensively on feedback from several corporate customers and include discussion threading, richer formatting, support for attachments, and more flexible reporting on and display of comments.
Dashboards & Mobile
9.1 adds further flexibility to the responsive dashboard design environment first introduced in Version 9.
More Details...
See our 9.1 wiki for more details
Version 9 Additions
Increaded Scope - New Data Connectors
Grids can now connect directly to a much wider range of data sources while retaining their flexibility in terms of slice and dice, user calculations and slicers. The new data sources include relational databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, SAP HANA and Teradata, and big data sources like HDInsight, Amazon Redshift and Google Big Query, and Microsoft’s Power BI platform. This helps bring the benefits and flexibility of XLCubed to a much wider audience in new and existing customers.
Data Mashups
Different data sources can now be brought together at a report level using V9’s DataMashup feature. Combining data sources can be achieved quickly and easily without the need for a full semantic model and the delay and expense this can entail.
Richer Dashboard Environment - New Dashboard Designer
The completely new dashboard designer allows Excel users to build screen responsive reports and dashboards that can be published to XLCubed Web for browser and mobile use. The reports auto-fit any screen size, and their layout can be optimised by device type.
Slicers, Charts and Grids added to the report designer are auto-linked, so when a user selects part of a chart the rest of the dashboard updates to reflect their selection. New functionality means mid-level users can build sophisticated inter-linked reports, and power users can override the default linking for more complex scenarios.
Integrated Viewports means that highly formatted Excel content from other worksheets can be incorporated within the dashboards.
Viewports are dynamic views of another part of the workbook. Views can be consolidated into an icon-driven paged control where users can quickly switch between different charts or views of the data. They are a powerful way to bring together a consolidated view of a complex workbook, and also handle row dynamic data which is often a challenge when reporting in Excel.
Embedded Icon Library
Version 9 includes an icon library with thousands of images available in any colour and available for controlling report navigation and storytelling.
New Modern & Fresh User Interface
Looks better … a fresher, more contemporary UI not only enhances the XLCubed user experience but also makes navigation and execution clearer and faster.
New Mobile Apps
New mobile apps delivering screen-responsive dashboards and more flexibility offline.