Anaplan vs Microsoft Power BI

Anaplan

We are really excited and looking forward to exploring the forecasting, and "What If" scenarios. Our current business structure makes it very difficult to forecast and project at any level, and I think Anaplan will be a great solution for us.I think for any business that has multiple, or dynamic, hierarchies Anaplan is a great solution. We have reduced the time spent on these dynamic views by using subsets and properties with in the models.I am looking forward to the increased the communication/connected planning aspect that Anaplan brings to our company. In the past we had thousands of Excel workbooks, some that were too large to email or open. We have seen improved interaction and clear lines of communication for our end users by using Anaplan for our budget process.

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Matthew Cantwell

Director of Business Intelligence Development

Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma- Division of CommerceGambling & Casinos, 5001-10,000 employees

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Microsoft Power BI

Do:

One time data analysis/reporting where you want to have some visual representations to help you understand your data.
Create dashboards that can help you take business decisions and just generally help you know if your business is on track.
With a pro license: deploy dashboards that can be consumed by other users.

Don't

Use a Pro install for regulatory reports (Static reports should be created with a reporting tool if available to avoid duplicating tools and costs).
Deploy at large (anyone can have it installed) if data governance is important in your organization. It should really be a tool used by people that really understand the data and how to merge it (integrating different sources).

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Mathieu Gaouette

Consultant BI senior/Administrateur - spécialité SAS

Prospective MG inc.Banking, 10,001+ employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Anaplan

9.1

Microsoft Power BI

8.0

Customizable dashboards

9.1

8.4

Pixel Perfect reports

—

7.7

Report Formatting Templates

—

7.9

Anaplan

8.8

Microsoft Power BI

7.9

Publish to PDF

9.1

7.8

Report Versioning

9.1

7.8

Report Delivery Scheduling

8.2

7.8

Publish to Web

—

8.8

Delivery to Remote Servers

—

7.3

Anaplan

5.5

Microsoft Power BI

7.8

Responsive Design for Web Access

5.5

7.9

Dedicated iOS Application

—

7.8

Dedicated Android Application

—

7.8

Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

—

7.8

Anaplan

7.5

Microsoft Power BI

—

Long-term financial planning

7.4

—

Financial budgeting

8.1

—

Forecasting

7.7

—

Scenario modeling

6.5

—

Management reporting

7.7

—

Anaplan

6.6

Microsoft Power BI

—

Financial data consolidation

7.8

—

Journal entries and reports

6.6

—

Multi-currency management

6.2

—

Intercompany Eliminations

5.9

—

Minority Ownership

6.0

—

Local and consolidated reporting

7.3

—

Detailed Audit Trails

6.3

—

Anaplan

7.7

Microsoft Power BI

—

Financial Statement Reporting

7.1

—

Management Reporting

8.3

—

Excel-based Reporting

6.9

—

Automated board and financial reporting

8.3

—

Anaplan

6.7

Microsoft Power BI

—

Personalized dashboards

5.5

—

Color-coded scorecards

6.0

—

KPIs

7.0

—

Cost and profitability analysis

7.0

—

Key Performance Indicator setting

7.5

—

Benchmarking with external data

7.1

—

Anaplan

8.3

Microsoft Power BI

—

Flat file integration

8.4

—

Excel data integration

8.3

—

Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

8.2

—

Anaplan

—

Microsoft Power BI

8.2

Drill-down analysis

—

8.6

Formatting capabilities

—

8.1

Integration with R or other statistical packages

—

8.0

Report sharing and collaboration

—

8.2

Anaplan

—

Microsoft Power BI

8.1

Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)

—

8.4

Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization

—

8.5

Predictive Analytics

—

7.5

Anaplan

—

Microsoft Power BI

7.9

Multi-User Support (named login)

—

8.2

Role-Based Security Model

—

7.3

Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)

—

7.9

Single Sign-On (SSO)

—

8.3

Anaplan

—

Microsoft Power BI

7.2

REST API

—

7.6

Javascript API

—

7.4

iFrames

—

7.1

Java API

—

6.4

Themeable User Interface (UI)

—

7.4

Customizable Platform (Open Source)

—

7.1

Pros

Modeling is next level in Anaplan. With a background deep in Excel modeling and the frustrations that come along with it, Anaplan is a breath of fresh air and is actually fun to build and model in.
Dashboarding and synchronization. The synchronization feature in Anaplan is one of the greatest things ever. As its core Anaplan models are built around hierarchical lists and dimensions and using similar dimensions in dashboards allows you to synchronize to different views of the same data with simple clicks around a dashboard. It makes reporting and BI extremely user friendly and flexible.
Its fast. If you had the same exact model in Excel and Anaplan. That model in Excel would be like riding and old bike with under-inflated tires, while Anaplan would be like driving a Tesla in Ludicrous mode. The ability to have your entire business modeled on a single platform, potentially across multiple models, where when you make a change the entire model updates within seconds, is invaluable in making decisions.

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Chris Friederich

Director, Financial Planning & Analysis

Cherwell SoftwareComputer Software, 201-500 employees

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Easily connect to multiple databases or cloud solutions.
Possibility to modify datasets or change formatting in Power BI vs having to modify data at the source.
Since Power BI can cache locally some of the data, it's possible to continue working offline on datasets.

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Francois Salvert

Web Analytics and Data dashboarding (consulting mandate)

Keolis CanadaOnline Media, 1-10 employees

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Cons

Larger workspaces.
Ongoing support contracts based on LOE.
Better formula support and explanation within the model.

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Michael Lauer

Director of Quota and Territory Management

EquifaxFinancial Services, 5001-10,000 employees

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Using the PRO version, the data reader feeding raw data can be very slow and clunky at times.
Even with a node subscription, paying a lot of money, performance for loading and refreshing content on a Power BI dashboard can be very slow.
Power BI is a visual tool but does not have CPM functionality to add data and other parts into the data model. This is a huge portion that is lacking.

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Verified User

Employee in Finance and Accounting

Medical Devices Company, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Anaplan8.2

Based on 3 answers

I don't think we could function without the collaboration capabilities built into Anaplan that replaced disparate Excel files in the workforce planning model

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Joe Bradbury

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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Microsoft Power BI10.0

Based on 1 answer

I find it helpful and easy to use

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jim paroly

Freelance Photographer

j. paroly photoGraphic Design, 1-10 employees

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Usability

Anaplan8.2

Based on 2 answers

There is a dependency in this rating - in that I find Anaplan extremely easy to use, but I've spent the necessary time developing a strong understanding of the platform. Once you understand how to use it, the platform is flexible, easy to use, and fun to use.

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Chris Friederich

Director, Financial Planning & Analysis

Cherwell SoftwareComputer Software, 201-500 employees

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Microsoft Power BI8.9

Based on 3 answers

PBI is very easy to use because of its similarity with power pivot and excel. DAX is the basic foundation language to be mastered to quickly build reports. Custom measures have been introduce to write instant DAX functions (But doesnt work all the time and need a understanding of DAX to debug). Easy to chart multiple charts and also third party charts

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Rohit Acharya

Business Intelligence Manager

ZALORA GroupInternet, 1001-5000 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Anaplan10.0

Based on 1 answer

In nearly 3 years, I have only had 1 issue of being unable to access my model for an unplanned maintenance. Even planned maintenance windows are handled during low traffic hours on the weekend.

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Joe Bradbury

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

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Performance

Anaplan9.0

Based on 1 answer

Everything is calculated in memory in the cloud. It's nearly instantaneous updates when you make changes. The only time things get a little slow is when you have a massive model with very intricate calculations...but "slow" for Anaplan is not what I would call "slow" for something like Hyperion. We used to have Hyperion calcs that ran for 60 mins before you could use data. The equivalent would be 60 seconds in Anaplan.

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Joe Bradbury

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Support

Anaplan8.1

Based on 2 answers

I feel like the support team is a little lacking in product knowledge. Several times I have contacted them to get help, and ended up finding a solution to my own problem before the team could get back to me with anything useful. I have also submitted a few bugs, and never got updates to when they were fixed in later releases.

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Joe Bradbury

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

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In-Person Training

Anaplan3.0

Based on 1 answer

The in-person training is simply not worth the cost. After a few weeks of playing in Anaplan, I went to the basic training and knew more than the person teaching it. a year down the road, I was the first person to complete the advance training, and again could have been teaching the class better than the person running the session. Spend some time on your own trying out different things and you will get all the understanding you need to be successful.

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Joe Bradbury

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

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Online Training

Anaplan5.0

Based on 1 answer

I'm giving this a 5 simply for the anapedia outline of calculations. The online videos and trainings leave a lot to be desired, but having anapedia around to help you understand calculations has been helpful. The drawback to anapedia is the depth they go into for calculations, it is lackluster at times. Because of that, I have been working through a much more in-depth look at each calculation on my website for users to reference: http://www.anaplanguru.com/formulas/

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Joe Bradbury

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Implementation

Anaplan6.7

Based on 12 answers

Implementation using Anaplan's internal customer success team left much to be desired. We've found much better success with outside consultants

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Christopher Pope

Manager

Seagate TechnologyComputer Hardware, 10,001+ employees

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No score

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Alternatives Considered

Honestly, having implemented Anaplan at another company, I knew it would suit our needs here and convinced management to get the tool on that basis. We already use a mix of Cognos BI, Tableau, and Excel ... but our need was something apart from what those can provide.

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Steve Ridgley

Head of Sales Compensation

Robert HalfStaffing and Recruiting, 10,001+ employees

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Power BI does not have the feel of a fully independent and robust BI Solution. It tackles smaller functional or department-level analytic needs and can operate in a small or solo roll-out environment. But scaling up to enterprise would be better suited for Qlik or Tableau. Same thing with any imbedding into Salesforce, if you’re rolling this out from a NOT IT-driven perspective you should go with Power BI for the cheap licensing and let IT absorb the costs for additional staff to support it on the back end. If you are IT-driven in the roll out, use Qlik so the business units pay the higher license costs but you need less staff to support them.

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Consumer Goods Company, 10,001+ employees

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Scalability

Anaplan7.0

Based on 1 answer

It's going to handle most of what you can throw at it. The problem lies in the sparsity of some datasets. When you have over 5ish dimensions of sparse data, the size of the model gets bloated for not much value. In several cases, I have had to adapt my model to account for sparsity in a way that minimized use of space, but also made interacting with the data more cumbersome.

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Joe Bradbury

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

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Return on Investment

Workforce Planning efficiency - so much easier than excel to maintain sensitive information planning
Long range plan lead time - the old excel model took weeks to update. The Anaplan model takes hours

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Joe Bradbury

Manager, Financial Systems

Research NowMarket Research, 1001-5000 employees

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It's a good start for setting up customized dashboards.
Available for all users based on Office 365 platform we have in place.
Doesn't really allow depth of report - specifically customization of visual displays.

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Mark Metz

Enterprise Services Consultant

Bristol-Myers SquibbPharmaceuticals, 10,001+ employees

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Pricing Details

Anaplan

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

Optional

Additional Pricing Details

Request a personal demo: https://www.anaplan.com/request-demo/ Free trial for existing customers for any app in the App Hub: https://apphub.anaplan.com/

Anaplan vs Microsoft Power BI

Add comparison

Likelihood to Recommend

Anaplan

Microsoft Power BI

Feature Rating Comparison

Customizable dashboards

Pixel Perfect reports

Report Formatting Templates

Publish to PDF

Report Versioning

Report Delivery Scheduling

Publish to Web

Delivery to Remote Servers

Responsive Design for Web Access

Dedicated iOS Application

Dedicated Android Application

Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

Long-term financial planning

Financial budgeting

Forecasting

Scenario modeling

Management reporting

Financial data consolidation

Journal entries and reports

Multi-currency management

Intercompany Eliminations

Minority Ownership

Local and consolidated reporting

Detailed Audit Trails

Financial Statement Reporting

Management Reporting

Excel-based Reporting

Automated board and financial reporting

Personalized dashboards

Color-coded scorecards

KPIs

Cost and profitability analysis

Key Performance Indicator setting

Benchmarking with external data

Flat file integration

Excel data integration

Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

Drill-down analysis

Formatting capabilities

Integration with R or other statistical packages

Report sharing and collaboration

Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)

Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization

Predictive Analytics

Multi-User Support (named login)

Role-Based Security Model

Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)

Single Sign-On (SSO)

REST API

Javascript API

iFrames

Java API

Themeable User Interface (UI)

Customizable Platform (Open Source)

Pros

Cons

Likelihood to Renew

Usability

Reliability and Availability

Performance

Support

In-Person Training

Online Training

Implementation

Alternatives Considered

Scalability

Return on Investment

Screenshots

Pricing Details

Anaplan

General

Free Trial

Free/Freemium Version

Premium Consulting/Integration Services