It's Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud. It provides a convenient and secure method for files to either be ingested into or exported from the system. Anaplan Financial Consolidation supports both XLSX and CSV files for both import and export capabilities.

Prerequisites

There are two main prerequisites to use Azure Blob Storage:

  1. A Staging Table must be present to populate the staging table from the Azure Blob Storage source. Read Create a Staging Table for the Data Import to read more about a staging table.
  2. You must have a connection string named Blob SAS URL. You can get this URL from the Azure administrator or following the Microsoft support directions for Grant limited access to data with shared access signatures (SAS) - Azure Storage.

Create a data source

To create a data source:

  1. Select Configure and select + to create a new data source.
  2. Enter the data source name in Name.
  3. Select Azure Blob Storage from the dropdown in Provider.
  4. Enter the Blob SAS URL in Details.
    Sample Blob SAS URL    : https://mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainername?sp=r&st=2023-10-26T17:33:39Z&se=2023-10-27T01:33:39Z&spr=https&sv=2022-11-02&sr=c&sig=abcdefghijklmnopqurstuvwxyz123456890
  5. Select Save to create the data source.
  6. Now select Save in the Connection Strings window to save the connection string for future use.

The next step is to define a workflow to import or export data from the Blob storage container in the system. 

See Automated Import Workflow Tasks to learn how to set up the workflow.