Deltek Ajera vs. IBM Planning Analytics vs. Microsoft Dynamics GP

Ajera is great for small firms in the AE industry. I would not use Ajera if you are not in the AE industry or if you are a very large company. It is the perfect software for those small companies that can not get the information they want from QuickBooks type softwares.

For a CFO or a COO to do budgeting and planning, IBM Planning Analytics would be essential. It is a tool that can take in multiple data sources and showcase them in a multidimensional way. If you are looking just for a BI or reporting tool, Planning Analytics would be considered "overkill".

Microsoft Dynamics GP is well-suited for our environment, as we pay a diverse group of employees, including on-the-road drivers, shop employees (some in other locations), and office employees. It easily tracks time off, taxes, pay, etc. The reporting allows us to verify with our drivers how they are paid each week, whether it be through mileage or stop-offs.

Incentivized

• Project cost management.

Incentivized

• Handle very large data volumes.
• Scale to a large number of users.
• Not having to compromise on business complexity.
• It can be run by business users.
• Availability of highly qualified consultants to support businesses.
• REST API allows for an open eco system and a variety of solutions to extend the product.
• Vast integration possibilities.
• AI-infused engine with IBM Watson.

Incentivized

• User friendly interface
• Able to be extended into multiple areas of your business
• One feature we have been using for a few years is EFT for payables - it has significantly reduced the time spent paying vendors and reduced our check printing and mailing costs. It is very easy to setup and use.

Incentivized

• They are working towards being browser agnostic. Ajera is still quite dependent on Internet Explorer's Runonce features for many functions.
• Developing custom SQL queries is quite difficult given the highly interdependent DB structure. No meaningful data dictionary is available.
• Their support department isn't always responsive.
• We'd like more options for electronic payments for AP/EFT.

Incentivized

• sometimes it is hard to produce pixel perfect reports from the Web UI. I know it is not made for this, but still, it'll be great
• getting in e.g. an Excel file just by drag and drop, and the AI should "understand" what the data is all around

Incentivized

• Supply chain management is adequate but not exceptional, and there are challenges tying the product to a website front end. These features are present and work fine in many environments but are often lacking for customers who need more robust systems.
• Reporting tools often require consulting expertise or an internal business analyst to develop. Many smaller companies don't have this skill set, so it can be costly to upgrade to GP from a smaller packages like QuickBooks.
• Some features that are available in competing products are still not present in GP, such as full copy-paste functionality and more intelligent workflow/batch processing functions.

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.

Due the economic challenges that Puerto Rico is having, the company has had to merge some companies in order to be more efficient. It has been easy in GP to process those merges, even thought we had to spend days to accomplish that the process was smooth and accurate. In addition we were able to streamline the purchasing and sales process and the organization is confident to keep renewing GP for the future versions.

Incentivized

IBM Planning Analytics is generally good in terms of functionalities. It can be used reduce time for budget planning, resource planning, demand forecasting, etc. The performance of IBM Planning Analytics is acceptable, but user interface can be improved. It would be good to see new features that allow users to customise the dashboard.

Incentivized

Menus are generally quite difficult to navigate, user-friendliness is lacking, platform can at times be unstable (crashes, etc), reports tha would seem to report one thing do not actually return that data. Usability is probably the biggest weakness of Microsoft Dynamics GP.

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

The rating is directed to the thrid party serive provider that we use. I do not now how good the Microsoft direct support is.

Incentivized

Basically the challenge with this implementation was the Business Portal, too many errors and even the aplication is up and running the users are still having issues. We will start planning the migraton to GP 2015 soon.

Incentivized

The previous systems were essentially timesheet systems only with very basic accounting. It's mostly the accounting subsystem that made us select Ajera.

Incentivized

For strong technical teams and flexibility IBM Planning Analytics is the way to go. For quicker adoption and less technical teams Anaplan is the best option. If consolidation, financials, and moving from legacy tools are main focus than OneStream will be a really good choice. If deeply invested into SAP already than the SAP BPC will be the best fit to maintain the investment.

Incentivized

Because GP doesn't do CRM we have looked at D365 Customer Engagement for our field service, and F&O as a replacement. Vaporware, no direct upgrade path, and if you want to continue with GP for your back office and just use Field Service it's an insanely complex integration import/export. D365 F&O is a huge implementation cost, and without a direct migration path every bit of data has to be custom imported. There really is no straightforward way to stack up GP against these programs currently. Again, the future of GP is in some doubt.

Incentivized

The functionality that GP and related ISV solutions offer and the ease of integration of GP to other systems makes it an extremely scalable solution

Incentivized

• Ajera has allowed our company to become more efficient when it comes to compiling project management reports.
• Ajera has allowed us to become more efficient when it comes to monthly invoicing.
• There is some initial downtime when we hire new project managers as many are not familiar with Ajera so we need to train them on the software and how to run reports, task management, budget management, etc.

Incentivized

• Much higher degree of accuracy in forecasting with the use of predictive analysis from historical data
• Dozens of man hours saved in routine processes that are now handled with minimal human interaction
• One system that holds the "source of truth," consolidating multiple systems together that were only accessible individually before

Incentivized

• We have never missed a payroll using Great Plains. We have the ability to fix any issues that come up quickly.
• It streamlines our departments that handle money into one unified system. This gives accounting and finance the overall picture in one system.
• With Integration Manager we have to worry less about taking time to hand key transactions. This cuts down on entry time and increase efficiency for our clerks.

Incentivized