Anaplan vs Sisense | TrustRadius

Likelihood to Recommend

Well Suited

Any process that you expect to change frequently.
A process within a dynamic environment, such as high tech / the startup world, where you expect significant business process changes.
Any process that requires a significant number of collaborators.
Any process where you intend for users to update logic with Excel-like formulas.
Any process where using Google Docs has failed to accommodate your needs for data integrity.

Less Appropriate

Data visualization - Anaplan has capabilities here, but other tools are more focused on this.
Data storage - Anaplan is not a data warehouse and has limits on what you can store.

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Matthew Kuo

Senior Sales Planning Analyst

Tableau SoftwareComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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I believe Sisense is perfectly suited for any organization of any size that have access to the proper resources, as the tool is very expensive. The data connectors come in all shapes and sizes out of the box, which allows a great deal of data control within the ElastiCubes. Additionally, while the platform only runs on Windows platforms, the web application can be accessed on any client: mobile, Apple, Windows, etc. This allows a much more flexible user experience, resulting in data and dashboards reaching further than any other tool.

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Verified User

Analyst in Product Management

Computer Software Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Anaplan

Sisense

Customizable dashboards

Pixel Perfect reports

Report Formatting Templates

Anaplan

Sisense

Publish to PDF

Report Versioning

Report Delivery Scheduling

Publish to Web

Anaplan

Sisense

Responsive Design for Web Access

Dedicated iOS Application

Dedicated Android Application

Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

Anaplan

Sisense

Long-term financial planning

Financial budgeting

Forecasting

Scenario modeling

Management reporting

Anaplan

Sisense

Financial data consolidation

Journal entries and reports

Multi-currency management

Intercompany Eliminations

Minority Ownership

Local and consolidated reporting

Detailed Audit Trails

Anaplan

Sisense

Financial Statement Reporting

Management Reporting

Excel-based Reporting

Automated board and financial reporting

Anaplan

Sisense

Personalized dashboards

Color-coded scorecards

KPIs

Cost and profitability analysis

Key Performance Indicator setting

Benchmarking with external data

Anaplan

Sisense

Flat file integration

Excel data integration

Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

Anaplan

Sisense

Drill-down analysis

Formatting capabilities

Integration with R or other statistical packages

Report sharing and collaboration

Anaplan

Sisense

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

Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization

Predictive Analytics

Anaplan

Sisense

Multi-User Support (named login)

Role-Based Security Model

Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)

Pros

Anaplan is great for headcount reporting. We have reports by dept, office location, and subsidiary that is great for planning and also for full company reporting.
Although they can be complicated to set up, Anaplan is also great for setting up complex P&L views. For example, setting up a P&L with a combination of subs/depts., that still needs to consolidate to the total P&L.
Systems-wise, I like that it's impossible to #REF the model! Anaplan shows you where everything is referenced, so it's very difficult to break anything.
I also like that formulas copy across, so there is no chance of pointing to the wrong cell, like in Excel

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Dan Shuwarger

Finance Manager, FP&A

SplunkComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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Customization - lots of supported and community plugins available. Users can also adjust the look and feel through JavaScript.
Innovation - Sisense is continuing to push the envelope by developing new features through Sisense Labs.
Customer support - the commitment to excellent customer service and ensuring organizations get the most out of their investment.

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Andrew Goss

Data Engineer

InterfolioInternet, 51-200 employees

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Cons

Performance - in the case of complex business cases, the size of Anaplan is increasing drastically, and even a simple click would take more than it should.
UI - The User interface needs to be improved: group/expand hierarchy, "Ctrl " + select option to allow multi selection, Content page clean up, easier "Drag & drop" when customizing or building exports.
Review & enhance the type of security user roles.

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Szilvia Havasreti

PPS EMEA CEP Sales Coverage Program Manager

HPInformation Technology and Services, 10,001+ employees

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The usability of the application on mobile devices needs some improvement, especially navigation and filtering.
Dashboards that are created by multiple users can be a bit of a hassle to share by Admins.
If you need to embed dashboards into your website, you are require to buy a license separate from the user and platform license. This is a norm on most BI visualization tools, but Sisense can seem a bit on the high side, cost-wide.

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Verified User

C-Level Executive in Corporate

Management Consulting Company, 11-50 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Anaplan 8.2

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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Sisense 8.9

Based on 14 answers

I think the business and myself as a user has come to rely on SiSense as a dashboarding and quick ad-hoc reporting tool. I am hoping to integrate SiSense dashboards into more parts of the business in the future. We have reduced our report turn-around time for the most part from hours/days to minutes and in some cases almost the speed of thought. Reports are also easier on the eye and more easily distributed.I would also like to say that the support and professionalism from the SiSense team has been excellent.

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Verified User

Analyst in Marketing

Retail Company, 51-200 employees

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Usability

Anaplan 8.2

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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Sisense 7.3

Based on 4 answers

New V5 is ground floor of an exciting collection of possibilities. Weekly Sisense developers come up with new functionality that they share with us in their forums. The move to HTML5 has been pleasing in that widgets auto size themselves into appropriate forms in the board but everyone of them can be popped out to full page size to be looked at in more detail

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Daniel Colussi

Director of Data and Innovations

GOAL AcademyPrimary/Secondary Education, 201-500 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Anaplan 10.0

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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Sisense 8.2

Based on 1 answer

There are very few situations when there is unexpected downtime. Mostly during development, new dashboard implementation and during upgrades. other then that there were very few crashes.

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Michał Becker

Head Analyst

Wbliskosci.plInternet, 11-50 employees

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Performance

Anaplan 9.0

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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Sisense 8.2

Based on 1 answer

SiSense is usually performing better then other solutions even if going for complex reports/dashboards(of course within reasonable frames). I haven't noticed any bad influence on other systems, usually if something happens it stays within SiSense.

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Michał Becker

Head Analyst

Wbliskosci.plInternet, 11-50 employees

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Support

Anaplan 8.1

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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Sisense 10.0

Based on 5 answers

SiSense's support ninjas are very knowledgeable and are exceptionally responsive. So far, all of the issues we ran into were resolved within minimum time. My sense of dealing with the support staff at SiSense is that they are very focused on not just answering your immediate question, but also to delve into the cause of the matter.

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Wicus Verhoef

Lead Data Scientist

WorkshareComputer Software, 51-200 employees

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In-Person Training

Anaplan 3.0

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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Sisense 7.3

Based on 1 answer

Easy and free training that allowed us quickly understand basics in SiSense and start using them. More advanced features requires some browsing through SiSense forums, but there is always support to help, and SiSense support is one of the best whith which I worked so far.

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Michał Becker

Head Analyst

Wbliskosci.plInternet, 11-50 employees

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Online Training

Anaplan 5.0

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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Sisense 8.2

Based on 1 answer

Many examples, videos and scenarios which you try on your own right away. This combined with in-person training gives you enough to utilize most of SiSense's power.

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Michał Becker

Head Analyst

Wbliskosci.plInternet, 11-50 employees

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Implementation

Anaplan 6.7

Based on 12 answers

Agile methodology and breaking the work down into sprints was very helpful. Implementation required a deeper dive into our data than expected for the consultants to be able to construct the data model. But once it was in place, the focus on knowledge transfer enabled us to be able to use the product effectively after the team rolled off.

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Steve Ridgley

Head of Sales Compensation

Robert HalfStaffing and Recruiting, 10,001+ employees

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Sisense 7.1

Based on 3 answers

Remember to migrate the plugins. The documentation however is pretty straight forward.

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Holke Visser

BI Architect

PluripharmHospital & Health Care, 51-200 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Anaplan was an easy choice because two other divisions in our company used it in limited ways - either only sales ops or financial reporting. In addition, it was the hands down best choice given the complexity and size of our organization. We operate in a highly matrixed organization across the globe therefore, we needed a powerful and flexible platform; not all options allowed for this flexibility nor were they suited for large multi-national companies.

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Tara Kirby

Senior Director, Planning & Analysis

Schneider Electric SoftwareIndustrial Automation, 10,001+ employees

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1) Easy to use, really, there is nothing too much to say. The set up is easy and not confusing. You can use it internally or externally.

2) Customer Service, having spoken to various product reps from similar industry. Sisense rep provides you with the best support to get started, and it is really appreciated.

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Verified User

Employee in Other

Computer Software Company, 11-50 employees

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Scalability

Anaplan 7.0

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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Sisense 8.2

Based on 1 answer

Product is quite easily scalable. The whole installation can be easily moved to stronger machine if needed.

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Michał Becker

Head Analyst

Wbliskosci.plInternet, 11-50 employees

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Return on Investment

I'm sure the impact is positive. We have streamlined many processes and created capacity for our finance team.
It's great to have "one source of truth" and know that everyone is looking at the same metrics.

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Kelley Haghighi

Sr. Finance Director

DaVita Kidney CareHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees

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Report development time is reduced from 2~3 days to 2~3 hours.
Report querying time is improved from 0.5~10 mins to 2~30 seconds.
A 2-staff team delivers 10 times the BI output that we did on the old system.
We were able to deliver BI and data analysis for all business functions instead of a very limited group of users

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Hui (Ken) Zheng

Senior Insight Lead

WaveAccounting, 51-200 employees

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