The SAP Analytics Cloud solution brings together analytics and planning with integration to SAP applications and access to heterogenous data sources. As the analytics and planning solution within SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP Analytics Cloud supports trusted insights and integrated planning processes enterprise-wide to help make decisions without doubt.
$36
per month per user
SAP Predictive Analytics
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
SAP Predictive Analytics is, as the name would suggest, a statistical analysis and data mining platform that can be deployed with SAP HANA.
N/A
Vena
Score 8.2 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Vena Solutions provides a financial process automation solution to automate Corporate Performance Management, accounting and budgeting, Regulatory & Compliance, and other finance-related processes. It is scaled for medium to large-sized organizations.
N/A
Pricing
SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Predictive Analytics
Vena
Editions & Modules
SAP Analytics Cloud for Business Intelligence
$36.00
per month per user
SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning
Price upon request
per month per user
No answers on this topic
Professional
N/A
Complete
N/A
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Predictive Analytics
Vena
Free Trial
Yes
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
A 30-day trial with SAP Analytics Cloud is available, supporting analytics enterprise-wide. A trial can be extended up to 90 days on request.
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The Professional Plan is the most flexible way to get started quickly and can be added onto as a company grows. The plan includes: Vena Platform, Customer Success Manager, Standard Support and Customer Portal.
Complete Plan includes everything in Professional, plus: Vena Insights, Premium Support, Sandbox Environment, and Expert Managed Services.
For a limited time, new customers who use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Online) as their primary ERP can get a free year of Vena and 40% off implementation costs.
Vena also offers special pricing for not for profit organizations. To learn more, speak to an expert.
Business Development Executive and Lead Generation
Chose Vena
Vena Solutions stands out due to its familiar Excel-based interface, making it easy for our team to adopt without extensive training. Compared to alternatives like Anaplan and Oracle Hyperion, Vena's strong customer support and efficient automation have significantly reduced …
They have superior database capacity due to the power of the cloud. Usability and user adoption is quick and immediate due to the direct integration with Excel and ease of use for end users and Vena administrators.
We spent about a year and a half in the selection process for our budgeting system. The issue that we kept coming across was speed, flexibility, and a lack of understanding of our process during the sales cycle. Most of these other products wanted us to change our budgeting …
Features
SAP Analytics Cloud
SAP Predictive Analytics
Vena
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
7.8
323 Ratings
5% below category average
SAP Predictive Analytics
-
Ratings
Vena
7.9
153 Ratings
4% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports
7.5272 Ratings
00 Ratings
8.0103 Ratings
Customizable dashboards
8.2314 Ratings
00 Ratings
8.2139 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates
7.6290 Ratings
00 Ratings
7.5145 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
7.7
328 Ratings
4% below category average
SAP Predictive Analytics
-
Ratings
Vena
8.0
251 Ratings
1% below category average
Drill-down analysis
8.1318 Ratings
00 Ratings
8.4238 Ratings
Formatting capabilities
7.6315 Ratings
00 Ratings
8.4238 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages
7.0238 Ratings
00 Ratings
7.199 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration
8.3305 Ratings
00 Ratings
8.1214 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
SAP Analytics Cloud
7.7
309 Ratings
7% below category average
SAP Predictive Analytics
-
Ratings
Vena
8.0
202 Ratings
3% below category average
Publish to Web
8.0263 Ratings
00 Ratings
7.6117 Ratings
Publish to PDF
8.1295 Ratings
00 Ratings
8.2155 Ratings
Report Versioning
7.7255 Ratings
00 Ratings
8.1169 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling
7.6250 Ratings
00 Ratings
8.1154 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers
7.041 Ratings
00 Ratings
00 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
>> Using SAC predictive analytics capabilities for inventory management in a Production line setup has helped generate Purchase Requisitions and Purchase Orders for raw or semi-finished goods without much head-banging into Demand management rules. It does it beautifully with seamless integration with HANA core MM and PP modules, along with BI integration. It has resulted in 30% greater warehouse storage capacity, thereby saving revenue from piled-up inventory and associated manpower costs. >> SAC sometimes shows latency in working out a large data set, thus giving a poor user experience compared to its competition. Also, it may occasionally show misinterpretations when embedding data from 3rd-party systems into the HANA core dataset.
It's a great tool to merge actual data analysis (which Lumira doesn't do that well) with visualization (which Lumira does well) - so it can be seen as Lumira for data analysts. However, a lot of the 'predictive' side is hidden/black box which can be frustrating for those analysts, so you could argue it is too complex for casual users, but too 'black box' for analysts.
Vena is great for managing data and putting all of your information in one easy-to-locate spot. It also makes finding data faster and easier. It is also great for tracking project performance and budgeting. It is fairly user-friendly and easy to use from an admin side.
It makes it easier yo analyse order and related records easily.
We can easily maintain and track the performance of employees in organisation.
Can easily track various aspects for the growth of an organisation thus allowing real time analysis and tracking of organisation's growth and performance.
It doesn't require you to have a Ph.D. to build models!
You can use it to address a very large and wide dataset without worrying about sampling.
Automation is in the product DNA. You can prepare your data, ingest it into the "Kernel", then get insights about what was found, decide to publish it and schedule scoring tasks or model refresh in the same product.
SAC supports various data sources, but improvements in the ease of connecting to and integrating with certain data repositories, especially non-SAP databases, would enhance the platform's versatility and integration capabilities.
An offline mode for SAC could be valuable for users who need to access and analyze data without an internet connection. Additionally, optimizing performance for large datasets and complex visualizations would contribute to a smoother user experience.
Preparing forecasts under different scenarios can be challenging. Your input templates need to be set up to toggle between the various scenarios. We found that certain templates, particularly workforce were not able to easily switch between different scenarios.
Connection to Bamboo - initial testing of this resulted in the history being deleted and only showing the current employees. For us it was important to have the history in Vena.
No native connection to Tableau - while a CSV upload is a way around would be great to have this since you already have a Power BI connection.
We are planning to review the licensing as we have issues with SAC dealing with huge datasets. Analytics area is good for import models but when we have live connections in place that's when we have issue with SAC dealing with huge datasets in live be it BW or be it HANA models in the backend.
Vena has been a huge win for us as an organization, as it vastly improved our budgeting process by removing manual consolidation that was incredibly time consuming, and it allows us to see a multi-year view of our organizational budget across all of our funding sources. We've seen Vena's platform grow over the years and we've not yet fully adopted some of them so it feels like there's still potential to get even more value out of the platform.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate 8 SAP Analytics Cloud's overall usability as a 7. SAC has a clean, modern user interface with drag-and-drop features. It is an integrated platform that combines reporting, planning, and predictive analytics in one tool. It has Real-time connectivity with SAP data sources like S/4HANA.
Self-service analytics capabilities allow non-technical users to build simple dashboards.
I would rate Vena's overall usability as an 8 out of 10. Vena offers a user-friendly interface, especially for those familiar with Excel, making it relatively easy to use. Most features are intuitive. However, some advanced functionalities may require more training or time to master, so it's not a perfect score. Overall, Vena provides a solid user experience that supports efficient financial planning.
I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud an 8 out of 10 for scalability. It offers a flexible, cloud-based architecture that supports expansion across departments and geographies. The platform adapts well to growing data volumes and user needs, making it a strong choice for organizations looking to scale analytics capabilities efficiently.
Vena has been available and running. There are notifications well ahead of scheduled maintenance and so far, scheduled maintenance has been occurring during off hours and fortunately has not occurred during a time that is crucial for us to be actively using.
I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud’s performance an 8 out of 10. Pages generally load quickly, and reports run within a reasonable time frame, even with complex datasets. Integration with other systems is smooth and doesn’t noticeably affect performance. Overall, it’s a responsive and efficient tool for business analytics. But
Vena Solutions pages load quickly and only a few times does it get a bit slow, only when there are many integrations and the reports are long. But in general it is always fast and honestly I am very satisfied with the speed in the generation of statistical reports and the pages
Since the implementation stage, the support team has been very helpful and assisting. Even in the later stages, the tech team had quite a rapid response. In general, SAP has provided us with great customer support, let it be for a specific product of SAP or for integration of different modules.
The documentation provides an explanation about what features are available but not necessarily what's happening behind the scenes. On the other side, the "community" has grown since the acquisition and most questions are properly addressed by SAP folks. Since the "product maintenance" mode announcement was made, there wasn't much new content published except on the Smart Predict side (which is built by the SAP Predictive Analytics team)
They are very quick to respond when you submit a ticket and typically fix issues quickly as well. I only didn't give this a 10 because there is still an open issue with our Salesforce connection that we've been waiting on now for a few months.
Our initial in person training was a little rough b/c I felt like our trainer wanted to focus on maximizing Vena rather than understanding what we were needing for our organization. He was very responsive and added insights, but could have worked to understand our needs a little better.
In hindsight, it would have been easier to have someone there in person. Questions were answered, but with 11 participants, it got a bit chaotic online
The training was structured as a group training to learn the basics of creating a data model and mapping a template. While we had nearly 10 participants, I was the only actual implementer so we probably didn't actually need the training and could have just learned the initial skills from the implementation consultant. Two years later, when we hired a new team member, they completed several modules in Vena Academy (a self paced learning course) which allowed them to get up to speed on the basics with just a bit of supplemental guidance from me as our existing admin.
SAC is a simple solution ad it works fine when connecting it to other SAP tools. On the other hand, connecting it to third party solutions brings difficulties when there's no previous design and the objetives are not clear. It is really important to integrate Business users from the start to provide with valuable business insights
The Vena consultant had great knowledge of both the Vena solution and Excel and Excel functions. He was able to help suggest ways to build our templates that met our requirements using Excel functions we had not previously considered using. And we have been able to use the Excel information he provided in other ways outside of Vena. He was very patient and flexible as we learned the Vena tool and created templates
SAP Analytics Cloud and Power BI are both tools that help businesses understand their data, but they have some differences. SAC, made by SAP, works well if your company already uses other SAP products. It's in the cloud, easy to use, and has features for analyzing data, getting insights, and planning for the future. Power BI, made by Microsoft, can be used in the cloud or on your own computers. It fits well with Microsoft tools, is easy to use, and can do advanced data analysis. SAC has built-in planning tools, while Power BI needs extra tools for detailed planning
We have typically used Spotfire for data analysis but decided to move to SAP Business Objects due to its innate connection with SAP. I found Lumira to be good for visualizations but it is not meant for data analysis. Therefore, we have introduced Predictive Analytics to see if it can fill that gap. So far, it's been far less intuitive than Spotfire to get started, and as far as I am aware so far, it does not bring many additional capabilities. I do, however, like that it utilizes the Lumira look/feel and integrates very well.
Vena is a strong fit for teams that want to keep working in Excel while adding structure, workflows, and a centralized database. Vena emphasizes its native Excel experience, along with planning templates, workflow automation, and integrations for budgeting/forecasting.
Planful is more positioned as an end-to-end financial performance platform, with a broader emphasis on planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, AI/ML-driven forecasting support, real-time collaboration, and enterprise-scale (including multi-entity/multi-currency environments). It also supports Microsoft 365 reporting via Spotlight. We selected Vena because it was a better fit for our current use case and team setup:
Our Operations and FP&A teams primarily use it for budgeting and forecasting, so the Excel-based workflow made adoption easier.
It was easier to implement and simpler for users to learn and operate day-to-day.
It fit well with our need to improve planning structure without forcing a major process change.
Is good for use across multiple locations. It allows users to access data and reports from anywhere, regardless of their location. Can consolidate data from various sources, including different SAP systems and external sources, which facilitates cross-location analysis. SAC enables access to data and models from SAP Datasphere to create new stories. Detailed permissions can be defined for cross-departmental use.
Vena solutios is a software that provides robust tools that help different departments in their statistics and we can visualize a lot of promising and visually attractive data. Vena Solutions' level of scalability is high and sustainable over time thanks to the fabulous technical support that is ready to help us at all times
Many manual data manipulations and exports in Excel have been replaced by the tool, providing management with improved insight into the amount of time spent at each stage of an invoice's lifetime, allowing bottlenecks to be discovered.
We now have more insight into the data, and people with little technical experience can easily build stories.
Automated monthly financial statements saves us 3 hours a month.
Moving reporting away from IT has begun to save hours of IT involvement, which will only grow as we shift more reports to Vena. This frees up IT to work on more important IT initiatives.
Using budget templates saved hours of copy and paste time when gathering inputs from each department.
