Likelihood to Recommend Anaplan revolutionizes the planning process by standardizing it, creating transparency in data, particularly in showcasing results to the management team. By replacing Excel-centric planning methods, Anaplan not only opens the door to handling larger datasets but also enables a more intricate level of data granularity at an accelerated pace. What sets it apart is its capacity to facilitate a seamless collaboration within a cross-functional model, accommodating diverse departments and business functions in a dynamic, real-time environment.
Read full review If you find yourself in the ocean of traditional spreadsheets, overwhelmed by broken links, errors, model audit problems, hardwiring, etc. here is a lifebuoy for you. If you want to have full flexibility in your budgeting and forecasting in contrast to ERPs with rigid structures and one-size-fits-all concept. If you are small or medium size company and do not want to invest in costly enterprise solutions. If you need a fast implementation
https://youtu.be/5W_q5Xhw5fg Read full review Pros Forcing structure and auditability to processes that used to exist in spreadsheets Strong calculation engine that can account for many dimensions Formula Syntax that is not overly complicated and can be learned by the business in order to have ownership of their models internally Read full review Building complex financial planning model availing of a multidimensional data structure coupled with a powerful formula language, with the immediacy and intuitiveness typical of spreadsheets Implement quickly model modifications (new products, new scenarios, new time periods) simply adding new "items" to "categories" (corresponding to dimensions in a multidimensional data model) Scale up models to very large datasets with very fast computation times Easily import data from text files, other Quantrix models and external databases via DataLink and DataNAV Save snapshots of tables computed in Quantrix to external databases via DataPush Read full review Cons The "new" UX front-end offers a lot of modern and intuitive features, but it lacks the ability to view multiple "tabs" of dashboards and reports. The "classic" dashboard had this feature but now with the UX, you need to be really smart about how to design a single page where the users won't get "lost". Lacks the ability to "wrap text" (similar to excel) and auto-size grid rows Read full review Hard to be critical of the Quantrix team as I know they strive to produce the best product possible. I suppose the next thing on my wish list would be the application of the new Solver functionality to be available in the Qloud. A big help for new users would be a good book on transitioning from Excel or other environment into Quantrix. I know first hand it can be difficult to transition when having to learn the program through a help guide, forums and tech support. I had a lot of trial and error in my journey to producing the desired models. On one hand it was a valuable method as it taught me a lot of what not to do, but I will admit it was not the most efficient way to do things. Would also love to see local user groups being formed at some point in the future. Quantrix puts on a fantastic conference once a year in beautiful Maine, but it is a big journey for someone in Southern California (and limited to one or two days a year). I would like to see some local chapters formed in different areas of the country so local Quantrix users can get together more often and collaborate (maybe a quarterly or semi-annual meetup?). Our Quantrix community is still relatively small and may be a difficult task for some areas, but is also the very reason why this would be great idea. Read full review Likelihood to Renew In any line of work, a tool that is flexible and would allow different departments of your company to easily interact and exchange valuable insights, is highly anticipated and needed. For me, what Anaplan provides to a business, be it a smaller one or an enterprise customer, is an easily scaling, agile planning and modeling platform that can meet almost any need and give a high-end solution to the problems any company faces on a daily basis.
Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review For a newbie it can be difficult until you get the hang of the system. Quantrix is a very logical system, once you understand its underlying ideas.
Read full review Reliability and Availability There are very few outages. Maintenance is scheduled on two or three Saturdays per month, so as not to affect businesses. When there is an outage, users are kept informed of progress to restore the platform and typically this takes no more than an hour. Anaplan customer support is very responsive if we ever have questions about platform issues
Read full review Performance 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.
Read full review Support Rating 1. Anaplan has separate 24/7 customer support channel to help with queries, 2. Customer Partner from Anaplan to support vendor with their queries like license purchase, use case implementation support, customer advocacy 3. Anaplan Learning Platform to help learning new product features free of cost and Yearly Anaplan connect across globe to share success stories of various companies.
Read full review In-Person Training 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.
Read full review Online Training Anaplan training materials are clear, simple, easy to understand and to follow. Visuals are excellent. The vendor is good at updating training materials in a timely manner and encouraging users and administrators to keep coming back to Academy site for refresher courses or new feature courses. I really like their interactive diagrams
Larissa Lowe Director, Sales Operations Business Systems and COE
Read full review Implementation Rating 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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Anaplan is what I would consider a modeling platform. It excels at taking a forecasting or planning process and systematizing it - and allowing for whatever nuances and granularity you need to perform that modeling. It is not positioned as "data collection" platform - which are typically designed to take data uploads from Excel to calculate basic opex and revenue models. It's much more customizable and flexible.
Read full review Overall, I was not part of the ultimate decision to purchase Quantrix. I terms of user-friendliess and robust reporting capabilities I do think
Tableau has Quantrix outclassed. That being said, Quantrix does provide more in-depth analyses for our relevant data and provides better modeling for our forecasts out of the box. The accuracy of the tools output is also much better
Read full review Scalability We have managed to leverage Anaplan for financial planning and forecasting across the business. It is now used by almost every department, with more than 50 users (but I know of companies that have hundreds of users) and still the platform is quick and reliable. It is easy to make changes to divisions and departments or add users and apply different user settings - the core part of the model is not affected and end users can continue their work without any disruption
Read full review Return on Investment Speeding up the process of closing and updating the current month forecast Reduced work on the preparation of reports and presentations. We used different Anaplan approaches with varying success, but the overall result was there. It's hard to gauge, but the overall increase in process and algorithm transparency, along with data protection, has given an excellent platform for scaling up the company's processes. Read full review Capacity forecasting used to take hours to calculate with a ton of manual modifications. Quantrix has automated that so a model can be updated at any time with a click of a button The accuracy of the models is incredible. It took some tweaking to add in data scubbers, but now it runs almost flawlessly The confidence the management teams have in the output of the model is amazing. Before, people would question the output, have you rebuild it, and then compare. Now the report comes out and the output has high confidence. Read full review ScreenShots