Appian is a low-code development and business process management platform. It features drag-and-drop design for app building, automated work processes, unified data management, and cloud-based deployment.
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) is a solution that helps users model and plan across finance, HR, supply chain, and sales, streamline the financial close process.
Pricing per user varies by component within the Oracle EPM Cloud solution. Please see pricing information for the EPM Cloud components on cloud.oracle.com or contact Oracle Sales at +1.800.633.0738.
Appian works great for automating manual processes and integrating multiple systems through its toolset. It gives great flexibility for establishing rules for approvals, routings, escalations, and the like. Because of the low code toolset, it's very easy to deploy and make changes as needed as processes evolve and as the organization learns to utilize the system better. Minimal maintenance is required to support the applications build on the platform. Some of the automated testing integration with tools like Jenkins is limited so that may be an issue for some.
It is well suited in a geographically distributed environment where you have various key participants in multiple time zones providing input and necessary explanations on performance and measured success It is less appropriate where you have a single office environment with a single finance department working together. It is also less suited when the GL is NOT an Oracle product and the interface between the GL and the reporting software needs to be implemented with utmost care and handling.
Allows at a glance workflow documentation which assists in the need we have for information readiation.
Drag and drop interface for workflow development greatly speeds our apps time to market.
Using the advanced features of Appian, we are able to create working sites in a fraction of the time it would take to do so using "traditional" development.
Account Reconciliation CLoud Services provides tight integration with Oracle R12 and 11i . Provides drillback capability. It is flexible and provides rich functionality to users.
We have implemented ARCS on cloud and migrated planning and budgeting from On premise to PBCS and EPBCS. Functionality is onpar with onpremise. Provides regular updates monthly
We don't need to upgrades every year and saved a lot on Hardware.
Search issues when type ahead and database search are used in the same field.
Buttons implementation where user is require[d] to click on the button description - if clicks on the button outside that text - button will not work.
Problems with using certain off-the-shelf performance tools like WebLoad or Neoload. That is because of different dynamic variables being used internally in Appian - which these tools are unable to correlate. We are still investigating using other tools like Jmeter to overcome dynamic correlation problem for performance testing.
The limitation of constrained out of the box dimensions that requires ripping the initial implementation to add the new dimensions is a major drawback.
Smartview interface is cumbersome for many.
The only financial adapter is available for integration for other modules we have to go with file-based uploads which is cumbersome and not real-time.
It is very costly in terms of licensing unlike other Oracle products.
We recently renewed our license with Appian. We are convinced that its flexibility, relative ease of use, the support they provide, there mobile advancements and their general willingness and desire to see us succeed all contributed to our reason to renew our agreement with Appian
We have a pretty good userbase who are at the high level who gained value from this tool. Discontinuing this tool is prone to impact their day to day operations. Also the data in this tool cannot alter the source, which maintains the integrity of this tool. Smartview is a cool addition that gained lot of traction as well.
Appian is a low code environment, because of this, a very good visual interface is required. Appian is providing a feature-rich dashboard [that] we can use for building the dashboards and other interfaces. Appian also provides patches and releases to enhance these features. A developer can start off development just by going through a basic course from the Appian learning community.
It produces consolidated multi currency reports faster and more accurately whilst adding additional pivotal functionality. The Smartview reporting is a key for us and a flagstone of the application
Appian is one of the leading low code business automation platforms that support RPA, decision rules, case management, workflow automation, and machine learning all in a single bundle. But it is also harder to implement and replace the traditional business process.
Support from our implementation partner is a 10/10, but support from Oracle is awful. Case in point: recently over a 2-day period, there were a series of intermittent outages. Oracle actually asked US for the outage time-stamps. I would have thought that, since we were paying them, they should probably be able to tell us!
As analyst I participated in a developer boot camp. At times it was hard to keep up but most of the time it made sense. Trainer took the time to explain and slowed pace down to answer questions etc.
I suggest doubling the time to implement from the initial quote you get from the Sales team. That's always been the case for me for multiple EPMs now. The out-of-the-box functionality of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud is pretty robust so I appreciate that and it really helped us get the ball rolling quickly.
Appian has enormously transformed and keeps on updating the product every quarter to meet the latest needs of the world with new innovations & technologies being integrated within the platform. What gives more pleasure than a product that keeps on continuous[ly] improv[ing]?
Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud fared very well against Adaptive, Anaplan, and Host Analytics. We ultimately decided on Oracle due to its reputation and strength of existing customers. We are happy with our decision.
I believe it has negatively impacted our release dates. There may have been a misunderstanding as to the learning curve, even though it is "low code."
The look and feel of the applications created using Appian have uniformity and it's easier to have "reuse" between applications.
There is less developer control when it comes to features. I think this mainly has to do with the amount of plugins available. I would think there should be many more available plugins. But again, our use case is probably different than most others.
