9 Spokes vs. IBM Planning Analytics

Good for letting your investors, employees and others know at a glance how your company is doing. The interface is clean and organized well. I just wish more of the app's functionality was available for testing and implementation. "Coming soon" is not really encouraging when we already have been waiting for a year or more.

Incentivized

I would be likely to recommend IBM Planning Analytics, particularly in scenarios where comprehensive financial and operational planning is essential. For instance, in our construction company, it is awesome for optimizing resource allocation across multiple projects, creating detailed project budgets, and conducting risk analysis to mitigate project uncertainties.

Incentivized

• Grouping several apps in one place for easy viewing.
• Clean dashboard interface that looks uncluttered when viewing several apps at once.
• Setting up the apps is a breeze when the platform supports them.

Incentivized

• Forecasting after taking into account seasonal trends and exceptional transactions
• Unlike spreadsheets, there is no fear of an user making changes to the mastercopy accidentally. Each user gets his or her own workspace to analyze.
• For entities operating in multiple countries, connects seamlessly with IBM Cognos Controller for taking into account variation in currencies

Incentivized

• Integration with apps that are listed. Some of them are not supported yet and it seems the wait is taking longer than I'd like.
• iPhone support. It would be nice to have this in the app store. Not available as of 04/25/2018.

Incentivized

• IBM Planning Analytics was an upgrade from an older version of TM1 that is experiencing some growing pains, some functionality is harder to reach than it has been in the past
• It is easy to learn as a surface user with created reports, but it does require some technical skills to make advanced calculations and reports if there is no reliable consultant available, much like Excel

Incentivized

Since IBM Cognos Express is suitable only for medium data warehouse environment, we are not sure if this tool solves the long term need as the business keeps growing rapidly. So its a 50/50 ratio to renew Express license. But having said that, the components of IBM Cognos Express are also available in other Cognos BI suites like Cognos 10.x version. So we will probably upgrade our environment to IBM Cognos 10.x which comes with more new features.

For developers, admins and end users looking for flexibility, IBM Planning Analytics would rate very highly on usability. For example, a developer has access to a highly performant built-in ETL (Extract Translate Load) tool and scripting language called Turbo Integrator that can (among other things) bring in data via flat file or direct connection from many data sources, move data around Planning Analytics, perform batch calculations, export to files or other data stores. In the rare situation where limitations are encountered there is a well documented REST API. Admins and end users benefit from the intuitive PAW (Workspace) interface as well as the rich Excel integration through Planning Analytics for Excel (PAfE). Since flexibility inherently comes with a little more complexity, so an organization with simple and "cookie-cutter" requirements may rate Planning Analytics a little lower.

Incentivized

Support was helpful in the beginning but no longer needed because I didn't use the software as much. The experience that I did have with support was very friendly but not enough to give a good review. If the support team was called for initial setup, video chat or messenger app was used.

Incentivized

Although I find the IBM Planning analytics documentation quite time consuming, their support with email and call is something i can term as very considerate and patient, I have had few calls about the features and how i would want to implement them within my projects, and the teams have been super helpful to resolve my issues

Incentivized

I actually chose QuickBooks (currently using) and Method (used for a month) before deciding that 9 Spokes is just good for looking at a few apps in one place. I'll keep checking back with them to see if they have improved. I wouldn't be surprised if 9 Spokes improves their product within the next 6-12 months.

Incentivized

Anaplan does not handle sparsity; this is very problematic for large volume data sets (many 0's). There also are limitations to the number of dimensions that can be used in a module. If more dimensions are required, then separate modules need to be built and intertwined. IBM PA does not have these limitations.

Incentivized

• One of the advantage is on its ability to ease budget and planning
• Secondly,the fact that it allows for forecasting means based on such insights means that organisations are able to prepare for future eventualities
• Thirdly, since it can accommodate data from multiple sources means that one is able to carry out best business practices like planning.

Incentivized