IBM Planning Analytics, powered by IBM TM1®, is an integrated planning solution designed to promote collaboration across the organization and help keep pace with the speed of modern business. With its calculation engine, this enterprise performance management solution is designed to help users move beyond the limits of spreadsheets, automating the planning process to drive faster, more accurate results. Use it to unify data sources into one single repository, enabling users to build…
Gemini is well suited to help track issues and change requests, projects, bugs, time logs, etc. It is less appropriate for reporting needs or general office management needs.
Very powerful modeling capabilities. It has a really good OLAP engine memory. Strong scenario planning for what if analysis. Flexibility of integration with ERPs or WM systems for both cloud and on premises. Centralized planning and alignment of governance is also a plus. Having one single system for many different functions.
Gemini's development team continues to improve the product and provides a comprehensive roadmap of upcoming features that makes you want to upgrade as soon as a new version comes out.
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.
Like learning to play checkers, the interface is easy, but the strategy has more of a learning curve. Figuring out the best prompts to use to get the desired outcome with less tries is taking me awhile to develop that skill. The images that I am able to generate are close to "camera-ready", but most do require some tweaking in image editing software to fix AI artifacts like distorted faces and randomly spelled words.
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.
I've never had any problems with the support for the Gemini application itself, but it seems every time I re-install (on a single machine), I run into a licensing issue. As a result, I need to go to the app's website and request that my activation key gets reset or resent. In either case, it's a pain, but as I have to reinstall infrequently, it's a small price to pay for an otherwise solid application.
IBM support has been very quick to respond and handle the very few issues we've had. We've had a third-party who partners with IBM to be our consulting team which has helped greatly reduce the need for us to contact IBM directly. I highly recommend researching and selecting a well-respected partner to help with an implementation as well as ongoing support as needed.
In my case, it's not that Gemini won; I simply use Gemini regularly as a backup plan to compare results obtained with the leading AI in my corporate environment. I believe it's important to have this comparison of results, especially when dealing with critical issues. I think the most powerful AIs for the general public today are ChatGPT and Gemini, in that order, although CoPilot is very well positioned due to its integration with widely used Microsoft products in the corporate world.
As it is related to MS Excel, IBM Planning Analytics is a much more robust and complete solution for the CFO or COO in mind. Oracle Hyperion stacks up nicely against IBM Planning Analytics. However, IBM's investment in AI allows Planning Analytics users more options and speed.
