Training unlocks the value of Hub 2018

To some of my colleagues at Anaplan, the Monday of Hub—the full day of training held before the general sessions and breakouts begin—is a warm-up day. But to me and the Anaplan Academy team, it’s the main event. It’s the day when customers unlock the greatest value from their Hub 2018 experience.

That value comes from full-day courses that are kept small to ensure maximum interaction and the ability to learn from the best Anaplan minds around. Our trainers have helped guide the most successful implementations and solved the most complex problems among our 800+ customers. Attendees tell me that Hub’s training day helps them get more from the rest of the conference because it enables them to choose the best sessions (of the 100+ on the schedule) and ask the right questions.

I’d group the training sessions into three buckets based on users’ needs: a beginner’s overview, a technical deep dive into specific capabilities, and skills that help an organization become self-sufficient with the Anaplan platform.

Sessions for beginners

With the help of our partner Twelve Consulting Group, this year’s training day has a session designed for those who aren’t yet Anaplan users. A full-day session, “Start Strong: Twelve Consulting’s Accelerated Introduction to Anaplan,” is based on lessons learned in more than 250 Anaplan implementations that Twelve has led. The course walks you through the Anaplan journey, starting with the basics and moving into organizational readiness and proven strategies for success. With that foundation, the course gets interactive with two workshops: “FP&A in a Day,” where you’ll build finance dashboards on the fly; and “21st-Century Sales Forecasting,” in which you’ll get hands-on with Anaplan’s sales performance management (SPM) muscle.

If you’re new to Anaplan and want to focus on the basics of model building, “Introduction to Model Building (102)” is the foundational course for you. You’ll learn about the Anaplan platform and gain a solid understanding of its capabilities by building out an Anaplan model. This class is the perfect opportunity to learn the vocabulary and the ins and outs of the platform so that you can gain maximum value from breakout sessions.

Diving deep into specifics

The training day includes learning opportunities that focus on the needs of existing customers who want to up their game. We have two options for people who want to explore specific Anaplan capabilities and technologies in depth:

• Data Integration. This course provides comprehensive information and exercises for all of the Anaplan platform’s data integration capabilities. By the end of the day, you will understand all of the integration options available in the platform, and practice with HyperConnect, Dell Boomi, MuleSoft, and APIs that connect Workday, Salesforce, and MYSQL with Anaplan.
• Application Lifecycle Management. Anaplan’s Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) capability became available shortly before Hub last year. Now, with more than a year of practical experience and production use cases in the books, we’re excited to show you how customers use it. You’ll see how ALM helps companies effectively manage development, testing, deployment, and ongoing maintenance of their applications, and try some hands-on exercises that simulate ALM in production.

Self-sufficiency—and competition!

Many people attend Hub 2018 because they want to take the next step in their connected planning journey. For most companies, that means becoming more self-sufficient, knowledgeable, and creative with the Anaplan platform. If that describes you, check out these three courses:

• Center of Excellence. The companies experiencing the greatest success with connected planning have built a Center of Excellence (CoE). With a CoE, companies get more control, quality, speed, and value as their Anaplan use expands. If you’re ready to take that important step, this course will walk you through CoE options and elements.
• Business Process, Solution Design, and Architectural Considerations. The title of this class is a mouthful because the content has many facets. You’ll get guidance on how business processes, user interactions, and architectural considerations all affect the design and building of Anaplan models. Led by members of Anaplan’s newly formed Operational Excellence Group, this fun and interactive course will help you see your design decisions in a new light.
• Anaplan Hackathon. If adrenaline is your thing, the Hackathon is for you. Open only to intermediate and advanced Anaplanners who have successfully passed Intermediate Model Building (201), the Hackathon will both improve your model-building skills and test your creativity. Teams (led by some of the most experienced Anaplan model builders) will be chosen on the spot, given a set of modeling elements and functions, then set loose to create the best possible solution in just a few hours. Great prizes and a coveted title are up for grabs. Winners will be chosen by a panel of Master Anaplanners.

With all these learning options, I hope you can see why I consider training day the main event at Hub 2018. If you’re ready to unlock the full value of the conference, be sure to select training when you register. Our team will add more classes according to demand, so check the Hub 2018 agenda builder and select Monday, March 5 to see the full training day lineup.

Anaplan Hub 2018

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