Verb tense

Use the tense that's appropriate to what you're describing. As a general rule, use the present tense, not the future tense.

Present and past tense

When you describe an event that happened in the past, as when writing an event or webinar recap, you can use past tense. 

However, in technical documentation and UI text, aim for the simple present tense.

Attendance at CPX reached an all-time high this year. 

Attendance at CPX had reached an all-time high level this year. 

The screen reflects your changes. 

The screen will reflect your changes. 

Future tense

For some content types, such as marketing materials and external comms, future tense is acceptable. In the example below, the use of future tense helps avoid the gerund usage, which can make translation more difficult.

Anaplan will launch its new customer support experience later this year. 

Anaplan is launching its new customer support experience later this year.

In technical documentation, don’t switch unnecessarily from present to future tense when present tense is sufficient to express a sequence of steps or events (especially in conditional constructions).

If Anaplan finds matches to line items in the header row, it maps them automatically.

If Anaplan finds matches to line items in the header row, these will be mapped automatically.

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