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Anaplan

Anaplan

Overview

What is Anaplan?

Anaplan is a transformative way to see, plan, and run your business. Using its proprietary Hyperblock™ technology, Anaplan lets you contextualize real-time performance, and forecast future outcomes for faster, confident decisions. Anaplan enables connected strategy and planning across your enterprise…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Anaplan has been implemented in various industries to address a wide range of business challenges. Users have found that the software …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 45 features
  • Flat file integration (281)
    9.5
    95%
  • Forecasting (282)
    9.3
    93%
  • Scenario modeling (284)
    9.2
    92%
  • Management reporting (283)
    8.3
    83%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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N/A
Unavailable

What is Anaplan?

Anaplan is a transformative way to see, plan, and run your business. Using its proprietary Hyperblock™ technology, Anaplan lets you contextualize real-time performance, and forecast future outcomes for faster, confident decisions. Anaplan enables connected strategy and planning across your…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.anaplan.com/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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PlanGuru is budgeting, forecasting and financial analytics software for SMB's, Nonprofits and the Accountants/ Advisors that work with them.

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Product Demos

Financial Consolidation demo

YouTube

Anaplan Demand Planning Demo

YouTube

See the Future Clearly by Planning Demand with Anaplan

YouTube
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Features

BI Standard Reporting

Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.

7.7
Avg 8.0

Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.

9.1
Avg 8.3

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

8.8
Avg 8.2

Data Discovery and Visualization

Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.

8.2
Avg 7.6

Access Control and Security

Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.

9.2
Avg 8.7

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

8
Avg 8.0

Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting

These activities are designed to assist with both data-driven operational, short-term planning and strategic long term planning

9.1
Avg 8.3

Consolidation and Close

Consolidation of data from multiple entities with currency management, reporting and audit trails.

7.2
Avg 8.0

Financial Reporting and Compliance

Financial statements and regulatory filings

8.6
Avg 8.2

Analytics and Reporting

Dashboards and scorecards for KPI monitoring and benchmarking

9
Avg 8.0

Integration

Ability to integrate with external applications.

8.8
Avg 8.3
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Product Details

What is Anaplan?

Anaplan is a transformative way to see, plan, and run your business. Using its proprietary Hyperblock™ technology, Anaplan lets you contextualize real-time performance, and forecast future outcomes for faster, confident decisions. Anaplan enables connected strategy and planning across your enterprise to move your business forward. Based in San Francisco, Anaplan has over 200 partners and more than 2,000 customers worldwide.

Anaplan Features

Budgeting, Planning, and Forecasting Features

  • Supported: Long-term financial planning
  • Supported: Financial budgeting
  • Supported: Forecasting
  • Supported: Scenario modeling
  • Supported: Management reporting

Consolidation and Close Features

  • Supported: Financial data consolidation
  • Supported: Journal entries and reports
  • Supported: Local and consolidated reporting
  • Supported: Detailed Audit Trails

Financial Reporting and Compliance Features

  • Supported: Financial Statement Reporting
  • Supported: Management Reporting
  • Supported: Excel-based Reporting

Analytics and Reporting Features

  • Supported: Personalized dashboards
  • Supported: Color-coded scorecards
  • Supported: Cost and profitability analysis
  • Supported: Key Performance Indicator setting

Integration Features

  • Supported: Flat file integration
  • Supported: Excel data integration
  • Supported: Direct links to 3rd-party data sources

BI Standard Reporting Features

  • Supported: Customizable dashboards

Report Output and Scheduling Features

  • Supported: Publish to PDF
  • Supported: Report Versioning

Access Control and Security Features

  • Supported: Role-Based Security Model
  • Supported: Report-Level Access Control

Mobile Capabilities Features

  • Supported: Responsive Design for Web Access
  • Supported: Mobile Application
  • Supported: Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile

Anaplan Screenshots

Screenshot of Platform: The Anaplan platform is a unified cloud-based solution that connects people, data and plans to enable complex scenario modeling and drive growthScreenshot of OpEx Planning: Review revenue-target-setting goals by brand, season, and capacity all on one, unified, highly-visual dashboardScreenshot of Supply Planning: Break down costs across assembly production to project profitability and align your supply chain to market opportunitiesScreenshot of Territory and Quota Planning: Keep track of sales goals and quotas across territories and industries to optimize sales performanceScreenshot of Headcount Planning: Easily align workforce plans with your strategic plans and quickly see where the best qualified talent resides to fit your organization’s staffing needsScreenshot of Marketing: Eliminate spreadsheets to drive efficiency across planning and manage budget against planned activity

Anaplan Videos

The Anaplan platform supports detailed hyperscale models that can see a business from edge to edge, and plan with signals down to the transactional level.

Watch Anaplan transforms the way users see, plan, and run their businesses, to move forward with confidence in a complex and changing world.

Anaplan Integrations

Anaplan Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Mobile Web
Supported CountriesAll countries
Supported LanguagesMulti-lingual support

Frequently Asked Questions

IBM Cognos Analytics, Oracle Hyperion, and Prophix are common alternatives for Anaplan.

Reviewers rate Financial budgeting highest, with a score of 9.6.

The most common users of Anaplan are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).

Anaplan Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)0%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)10%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)90%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(479)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Anaplan has been implemented in various industries to address a wide range of business challenges. Users have found that the software replaces duplicate spreadsheets and simplifies reporting processes, resulting in one version of the truth. Anaplan's inbuilt version control and access controls have improved forecasting accuracy and simplified forecasting processes. It has also helped standardize forecasting and reporting approaches across different asset classes, benefitting functions such as HR, Finance, Accounting, and Management Controlling.

The flexibility of Anaplan allows users to customize the software to meet their specific business needs. It supports a multitude of use cases including financial planning and analysis, customer success, collections, capex forecasting, opex forecasting, headcount and personal spend forecasting, balance sheet forecasting, cash flow forecasting, P&L forecasting, collections forecasting, and management reporting. Multiple users can input forecast assumptions in real-time, enabling dynamic results. Furthermore, Anaplan allows for faster implementations by providing a single platform and source of truth for multiple planning use cases.

Anaplan's powerful calculation engine enables users to run multiple scenarios in seconds, facilitating what-if analysis and scenario comparison during budgeting and forecasting processes. The software is widely used in sales performance management for functions like territory management, account planning, quota allocation, and incentive compensation planning. In addition to its extensive use cases in finance and sales planning, Anaplan is employed across various industries including real estate development, insurance, telecommunication infrastructure, and banking. The platform empowers organizations by providing scenario planning and sensitivity analysis capabilities that enable informed decision-making. With its user-friendly interface and real-time calculations, Anaplan assists businesses in centralizing data and maintaining a golden source of truth for better planning outcomes.

Highly scalable and flexible data integration and modeling capabilities: Reviewers have praised the Anaplan platform for its highly scalable and flexible data integration and modeling capabilities, allowing for easy evolution from simple calculations to complex formulas. Many users have highlighted this as a major strength of the platform.

Real-time data capabilities enabling informed decision-making: The real-time data capabilities of Anaplan have been widely praised by reviewers for enabling informed decision-making based on up-to-date information. Several users have mentioned that this feature has greatly contributed to their ability to make agile decisions in a fast-paced business environment.

User-friendly interface contributing to high end user adoption: The user-friendly interface of Anaplan has been consistently highlighted by reviewers as a key strength of the platform. Users appreciate the intuitive design, which resembles Excel and allows for quick task completion. This ease of use has contributed to high end user adoption and overall positive feedback from customers.

Limited storage: Some users have found the limited storage in Anaplan to be a hindrance in efficiently managing their data. They have expressed difficulties in storing and organizing large amounts of information, which can impact their ability to effectively utilize the software.

Expensive: Several reviewers feel that Anaplan is expensive and could be more cost-effective considering its features and capabilities. This pricing structure may make it less accessible for smaller businesses or organizations with budget constraints.

Glitches with the interface: Users report experiencing glitches with the interface, causing difficulties in navigating and performing tasks smoothly. These issues can disrupt workflow and decrease efficiency for users.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(26-50 of 303)
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Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
In our current project, we are bringing their production & material planning from excel spreadsheets into Anaplan.
  • Scenario planning
  • Connected planning since on a single platform, you can build any process/use case
  • single source of truth & real-time data sharing
  • unify data collection, analyzing & reporting
  • Limits of workspace or model size
  • User concurrency issues
  • since most of the formulas are excel equivalent, would like to see more functions coming in
It's mainly fall under EPM (Enterprise performance management) category so it best suitable to use it as a planning tool. It shouldn't be uses as an ERP tool because it's not well suited to handle big chunk data.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Working for a consulting firm I both Implement Anaplan and also Use Anaplan to plan our business internally. It is incredibly flexible and easy to use which makes it great for Finance, Sales, Supply Chain, and everything in between! The beauty of it is the ability to use the same data sets so that the business is all aligned in terms of the decisions it is making important decisions off of.
  • Demand Planning
  • Sales and Operations Planning
  • Supply Planning
  • Built in integration
  • Data Prep
  • Pricing Clarity and Consistency
The flexibility and ability to be owned by the business are unmatched. My background is in supply chain and the reason i made the jump to start implementing Anaplan was so that I could be around the software that I wish I had as a practitioner. In Supply chain we are so used to having to adapt to platforms created for us, and for us to be able to define what we wanted with Anaplan is unmatched!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Scope of the use case: Implement a solution to forecast revenue that is having an impact on Expenses, Balance sheet, Capital, Risk, and funding forecasts based on very low-level drivers. It should support sensitivity analysis and Attribution Analysis to analyse the forecast accuracy. Pros: Currently the firm uses very high-level forecasting where the forecast data is not being coded and justified with any tool. If there is any change in the market, the impact is also assumed based on the experience but not based on logical data points. After implementing the solution in Anaplan with clearly codifying the forecast data based on very detailed nodes, we can create multiple scenarios on the fly based on the market change or based on different drivers and we can accurately analyse the firm behaviour for the change. This solution provides a lot of transparency in the forecasting for all businesses and eliminates unforeseen impacts on the business revenue.
  • Real-Time Calculations.
  • Connected planning to help driver decisions faster.
  • Faster Implementation cycle.
  • Sensitivity and Attribution Analysis can be implemented easily.
  • Hyper workspace now solves for huge volumes of data.
  • Better user experience with added management reporting
  • Separation of dense and sparse engine helps in solving different use case efficiently
  • Huge user base in Anaplan community for better collaboration across Anaplan users
  • CloudWorks made Scheduling of Actions easy without external systems involvement
  • Workflow can be improved
  • common excel formulas can be supported in Anaplan
  • User Experience can be improved
  • Security around Cloudworks.
  • API Support library can be improved.
  • ALM Branching for multiple teams implementation and merging into target model.
Quota Planning, Incentive Planning, Sales Forecasting Sales, Operation Planning, Financial Planning, Integrated Planning and Expense allocation.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We implement solutions with the Anaplan tool for enterprise customers on a wide range of use cases that their line of work requires. The most common problems we aim to resolve are outdated processes using robust tools that are very time-consuming for the end user, as well as creating a stable connected planning experience for every branch of the organization. Our scope are multiple CBP implementations that are currently live, and have been helping our users make better decisions faster and easier. To update our portfolio, we've been working on several FP&A process models and their respective integrations with our customers' extensive environment.
  • Simulation planning (FP&A, S&OP, etc)
  • Compensation planning
  • Constantly enhancing and evolving UI
  • Intuitive and easy to understand platform
  • Fast and early adoption among users
  • CoE planning
  • Process optimization
  • API integrations
  • The way LISS works and can interact with other components
  • Can have more visualization (chart) options
  • The way the engine reacts to syntax errors (sometimes can take several minutes depending on model size and complexity)
  • Pages flexibility (in terms of possible and available functionalities as compared to old UX)
The tool is amazing for implementations in the areas of Incentive compensation planning, S&OP planning and analysis, FP&A; We also had several very successful implementations of statistical forecasting for AOP creation. These are all areas that the platform [that] provides very flexible capabilities to react to the user stories that need to be resolved. There aren't many areas in which Anaplan cannot be useful, in my experience the only business case that was hard to implement via Anaplan was a Rebates calculation solution - it had its difficulties due to the need of the tool to hoard large amounts of data and historization. That way the client wasn't utilizing the calculation engine capabilities of the tool, but rather storing data, which is not the primary key benefit of Anaplan.
November 15, 2023

Review of Anaplan

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Anaplan is used across the organization in multiple different use cases, including compensation forecasting, profitability, expense forecasting, and much more. The business problems it is mainly addressing the providing a consolidated and consistent platform for users to conduct the business forecasting process. Each business unit does the forecast in a different manner and the challenge was getting them to do something consistently and effectively.
  • Multi-dimensional analysis allows you to gather more insights.
  • The table layouts are familiar to business users.
  • Speed and execution of calculations is pretty much instant.
  • Better workflow functionality.
  • Additional data integration options.
  • More AI abilities.
Anaplan is well suited for work that is repeatable and does not change many forecasts to forecast. Work that is handled in excel and does not change cycle to cycle is an ideal candidate for Anaplan. Anaplan is challenging to use if your organization goes through many re-orgs, structural hierarchy changes, or if the outputs required to change often.
Brian Shepley | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
As an Anaplan Partner, we work to implement highly successful connected planning projects at global leaders across myriad industries. Many companies will begin with a pressing use case, such as financial forecasting or OPEX planning, that stems from an overarching corporate objective. Once the first use case is stood up, companies find that having everything in one cloud-based system (vs. rogue Excel spreadsheets) creates synergies and increases productivity, and choose to build additional use cases. As a partner, we help guide companies on how to build these additional use cases out as a 'honeycomb', to ensure they aren't building silos, but rather, a connected planning ecosystem.
  • Native hierarchies help ensure data integrity and allow for real-time "slice and dice" of data (vs. flat data in Excel or other EPS systems)
  • Real-time calculation of multi-dimensional data spanning billions of cells gives the user powerful forecasting capabilities
  • Features such as selective access to lists, user roles, and dynamic cell access allow you to ensure each user has access only to what they need, helping to ensure data security.
  • PlanIQ is a newer offering from Anaplan that helps augment the platform's power through the use of AI and Machine Learning.
  • The UX continues to be a little buggy at times when building pages. It can seem sluggish at times when loading pages that have a lot of content on them. It definitely helps to plan pages out and focus them on logical areas, instead of trying to jam everything onto them.
Compared with other EPS platforms that I've worked on or interacted with, Anaplan is by far and away the best. The biggest advantage is the real-time multi-dimensional nature of the platform. Most legacy platforms work in flat data and create 'faux' hierarchies, whereas Anaplan has native hierarchies that you can navigate on-demand. This gives the user a lot of power when it comes to forecasting across regions, products, etc. For instance, Anaplan gives you the ability to view data at a Regional level on one UX Page, identify outliers that may be affecting the forecast, and then (on the next UX Page) zoom down to the most granular level to investigate. The smoothness of that ability to look at data between levels and across dimensions is something I haven't seen in any other competitor to date.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Anaplan is used as a solution to a myriad of pain points that exist within a firm's corporate planning cycles. The tool is extremely flexible and allows organizations to obtain forecasts and outlooks for almost anything in a much more timely, accurate, and detailed manner than old processes such as handing off excel spreadsheets around and organization to be updated. Anaplan is also much less error-prone since the manual manipulation of data is drastically reduced when implemented properly. Multiple-use cases have been addressed during my time from Biopharma, Technology, Manufacturing, Demand Planning, Workforce Planning, Revenue planning, all across the use case spectrum. These cases have been addressed effectively as well leading to major reductions in the effort it takes for an Anaplan customer to come up with a forecast.
  • Connectivity with other systems
  • Acting as a single source of truth for data
  • Powerful, Anaplan's calculation is very fast compared to a lot of legacy systems
  • More space at a base workspace level. 130GB just doesn't cut it for larger clients, I'm sure this has come up a lot
  • UX Changes such as on a worksheet the page selector at the top has to be driven by the primary grid which might be at a lower level and you are forced to use this.
  • Everything is custom so it can be quite tedious to build if you're not experienced.
Anaplan from my experience seems most appropriate when customers are willing to change their current business to work best with the tool. A lot of times this involves getting the client comfortable with planning at a higher level. Sometimes companies cannot do this and this limits the ability of the tool because of space. Anaplan is not well suited for detailed reporting if company leadership 'needs to see everything by 7 dimensions' and that is the way they look at it. The best thing to do here is export the plans out of Anaplan and view them in Power Bi or another tool that is better suited for viewing and manipulating large sets of data. This is because building a reporting module off of an example like this, (even 1) can take up most of the remaining space available. This I see as the largest limitation. This however has not been an issue as most customers already have subscriptions to those tools.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall 6+ year of experience in Anaplan we implement Sales Planning, Headcount Planning and Financial Planning. To manage monthly, Quarterly and Annual planning for all use cases. Anaplan helped to integrate many data sources, Prior to using Anaplan we used to excel and workday Planning, sometime it is difficult to maintain. We are now planning to implement demand , Capacity and Scenario planning in Anaplan..
  • We are use using cloud works to run the weekly data into Datahub to Account Metrics and then to Territory and Quota Planning.
  • While creating formulas with automatic suggestions.
  • We integrated the different sources example - SAP to IICS to Anaplan
  • For end user should have provided more options
  • Reporting should be more stronger
  • Sizing issues
During my 6+ year of experience have implement many uses cases, When we compare with other products with Anaplan is excels connected planning which covers all the uses cases, Very flexible to implement any uses cases and great platform for make integrations. Recently with new cloud works features helped our business to run the weekly data , we are able to schedule the time and with all the process in one time go. Hypermodel ability to hold large data of various use cases.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
Anaplan is the planning tool of choice for my organization globally. I have also implemented Anaplan for other organizations in various industries/sectors such as real estate, banking, insurance, hospitality, transport, mining, and energy. Within my organization, it is used for people planning, short-term strategic planning, and global long-term strategic planning. Prior to implementation, like most organizations, the process was manual and time-consuming.
  • Multidimensional modeling
  • User-friendly scripting
  • High-velocity agile development
  • Application lifecycle management
  • Wide range of integration options
  • Scenario capabilities
  • Workflow functionality
  • Dealing with sparsity (the new Polaris engine should be available with the basic license!)
  • Applying different summary methods for each dimension in a module
Anaplan is a beast when it comes to planning, budgeting, and forecasting across different teams when collaboration is required, with appropriate levels of security, autonomy, and automation to keep the wheel turning. Due to how the multi-dimensional engine works, it may not be ideal for consolidation use cases. While it can get the job done, there are other tools in the market that will be easier to use for consolidation purposes.
November 09, 2023

Anaplan- a great tool

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Our company moved completely from the standard locally stored data into Anaplan Cloud solution. It improved a lot the whole process of transforming source data into financial results. Many aspects of the daily job were enhanced - security, managing ability, accuracy, scalability, efficiency. I'd like to recommend Anaplan to all those people that need a solution having a database + calculation functions on big sets of data.
  • Flexibility.
  • Scalability.
  • Cloud experience.
  • Access management
  • Hearing community.
Anaplan is well suited for all the cases where the data sets need to be fully compatible without losing any numbers in between. If somebody had a database where numbers and master data are stored and wanted to use this data for calculations in many different aspects, then Anaplan would definitely be for him.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I use Anaplan to design and manage monthly, quarterly and annual financial planning cycles. Prior to using Anaplan I used to have to do this in Excel which can be inefficient, prone to human error, and difficult to audit. Anaplan has helped me in all of these areas. The specific use cases that I use Anaplan for are to produce a forecasted P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, and Workforce Plan.
  • Collaboration amongst previously siloed teams
  • Integration and consolidation of data from disparate sources
  • Can be updated and managed by business users
  • ALM is helpful, but could use improvement
  • Size constraints are often an issue
  • Out-of-the-box solutions are not very mature
Anaplan is incredible at facilitating and coordinating any type of planning cycle. I've seen FP&A teams that didn't talk to each other and even used different inputs (e.g. different Sales Targets) into their separate models. Anaplan is very well suited for getting disparate teams like these to work together and ensures that all teams are working off the same information. It's also constantly being updated and improved upon, so many shortfalls have been corrected over the years. Anaplan is possibly less suited for a small organization or company that doesn't have the capital to invest in this type of software.
Vignesh Murugaiyan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are using Anaplan since last 9 years, and currently 30+business use case model in use. Before Anaplan, we had to consolidate 100+ spreadsheet from asset managers from various location to be collected/combined to produce one top level report by Fund and Group, more time was spent on data collection, error checking, and reporting. After Anaplan, zero time spent for reporting as anaplan is powerful enough to produce real time consolidated reports, one platform to manage 100+ properties. Key use cases are below, a.Real Estate - using Anaplan to underwrite new properties to see the ROI and budget/forecast the revenue/expenses for the existing 100+ properties across European b.Expenses Calculation - using Anaplan to budget/forecast the people and non people costs(salary of the FTE\contractors and expenses such as Capex\Opex) for the 3 countries (UK, Ireland, and Canada) c.Profit and Loss from selling an insurance product - using Anaplan to set up the target for the Canada Market and forecast the P&L for the next 2 years based on the historical performance of the products.
  • Customer support is excellent. All clarifications related to products are mostly answered within few hours.
  • Continuous product improvement, such as adding new features. In the last 5 years, I have seen more than 50+ new features be released.
  • Cloud-based planning tool, which provides users the flexibility to access Anaplan from anywhere in the world.
  • User security, which controls user access with read-and-write capabilities.
  • I believe there is room for improvement when it comes to UI, recent NUX release largely covered most of the gaps, still improvement required it to make more user friendly
  • Some functionalities which exist in excel are not available and had to find a workaround which is not super complex.
Anaplan is well suited for all the use case, solution can be customized/built as required as per use cases. Below are some scenarios I have experience implementing and using it, 1) What-if scenario planning: compared to other tools Anaplan takes less time to set up scenario planning 2) Forecasting demand based on historical data using Plan IQ
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I help other companies implement Anaplan, mostly for use cases in the alternative investment space. These use cases vary by client, but typically involve carry calculations, carry allocations, fund modeling, or portfolio monitoring. I have also worked on a few valuations use cases recently. Anaplan's flexible, multi-dimensional platform allows you to create unique models that meet the client's specific needs.
  • Versioning
  • What-If Analysis
  • Scenario Planning
  • workflow management
  • predictive insights
  • ALM for dashboards
Anaplan is best suited for use cases where there is already some level of standardization. Obviously, Anaplan can account for one off overrides, but to have a model that is user friendly, you want to account for about 90% of your key functionality. Any one offs would be solved using an override. If you have a process or use case that is unique every time, this product is not for you.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Anaplan is one of the vendors we use in organization for EPM consulting. We provide EPM/Financial solutions to customers. Anaplan has come out as one of the preferred vendors for businesses of various sizes and scales. Its being used to address Financial Planning, Sales planning, Supply chain planning and Workforce planning solutions.
  • Financial Planning
  • Customizable Features
  • Integration Capabilities
  • Hot Reporting
  • Extended Capabilities like Cloudworks, PlanIQ
  • Performance and Model Locking
  • Integration Performance
  • Workflow customizations
Anaplan is best suited to Business of low and medium scale to support with their planning process of forecasting and budgeting. Anaplan provides customizable platform and is easily integrated with other tools. Anaplan is less appropriate for consolidations, Financial close and long range financial planning.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Anaplan for sales and operations planning within Go-To-Market organization that includes Territory and Account planning, Quota allocation and Incentive compensation planning
  • connect various planning processes across BUs
  • Easy to implement and deploy, faster ROI realization
  • Flexible and scalable - start small and then expand to other use cases
  • Version control/Application Lifecycle Management
  • Native Integration options with other enterprise softwares
  • Better Guardrails and Governance
suitable for most use cases across business functions (sales, finance, HR, supply chain etc.) where planning was earlier done in excel and there's need to connect those planning models. The tool has good UI and real-time reporting capabilities with easy and fast implementation. Not suitable for scenarios where there's large volume of data involved, it could impact the performance.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Anaplan provides a great deal of flexibility when business rules. With its strong calculation engine, I'm able to run multiple scenarios in a matter of seconds. This helps my clients do What-if analysis and compare scenarios during their budgeting and forecasting processes.
  • Calculation Engine - Very fast even when calculating millions and millions of cells
  • Flexibility - Able to model all of my business rules
  • Collaboration - Able to work on budgets and forecasts alongside all other users.
  • Reporting - Would like to see Anaplan bring us similar capabilities as the other reporting tools
  • Data Management - Would like Anaplan to provide additional feature that accelerates data cleanup
  • ALM - Would like to push certain changes from our development workspace to the production workspace without having to move all of them.
Anaplan is well suited for anything related to budgeting and forecasting. It is a flexible tool that can scale to multiple scenarios, which is especially helpful for what-if analysis. Even though it is not a tool that I would recommend pixel perfect reporting, it is going in the right direction in that area.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Anaplan is solving complex business problems. We are using Anaplan to forecast the revenue & the costs. It gives the capability to perform scenario planning/sensitivity analysis with the critical business drivers that could have a significant impact on the business in uncertain times. It gives management powerful insights for making the right decisions at the right time. This is one platform that orchestrates all the functions in the organization. Anaplan tool is very helpful in Scenario Planning & assessing the the impact of unforeseen business/market situation on business performance. It's management reporting capabilities have the lives of the planner easier. Now they don't have to make cumbersome Powerpoint presentations every month to their management. Instead they can get their entire set of Powerpoint slides automated with Anaplan will real time updates on the performance & commentaries.
  • Simulation of critical business drivers & impact on the bottom line
  • Allows users to slice & dice across different business scenarios
  • Provides real time insights for decision making
  • Automation of monthly presentations for Management Reporting
  • Workflow automation
  • Provides flexibility for complex Supply Chain Business processes
  • Workspace capacity limitations
  • Integration with source systems
  • Integration with communication channels like Microsoft Teams
  • Automatic triggers for alerts from the system
Anaplan is less appropriate where the volume of transactional data is very high & there is a looping logic scenario involved. It impacts the performance of the application. While there are no other scenarios that cannot be achieved with Anaplan. That's the best part of Anaplan. If there is a need to store transactional data Anaplan may not be the right tool.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Currently use Anaplan to address business management and planning. Anaplan allows for the improvement of many common problems facing organizations currently relying on tools such as Microsoft Excel for many complex business needs as they grow and need a product that will allow them to scale their models with their growth. Some common examples are the single source of truth nature of Anaplan vs. multiple versions of spreadsheet files, ease of auditability Anaplan provides, and the varying levels of control over access by user/role type.
  • Consuming large amounts of data for manipulation and calculation.
  • Low code nature allows business users to learn the tool and own it.
  • Easier to write, maintain, and audit complex models.
  • Great user interface to interact with the models.
  • There is a bit of a learning curve to get started, but great resources are available to help with this.
  • The user interface is somewhat limited in presentation, but data can be exported to more dynamic presentation tools (Tableau, PowerBI, etc.) if it better suits the users need.
  • Model size and constraints can become a factor in larger, more complex models.
Anaplan has a successful track record across many use cases such as supply chain management, financial planning and analysis, among many others. Personally, I've seen successful implementations for use cases including sales performance management, sales pipeline management, as well as many varying use cases in the private equity and alternative investments spaces. Anaplan is a great way to bring outdated tools and processes into the modern era and will add efficiency to most organizational modeling use cases.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am part of the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) practice of a specialised consulting firm focused on creating value through technology and process transformation for private markets and financial services companies. Our EPM practice designs and implements solutions for financial and operational planning and reporting using tools like Anaplan and Workiva. We empower our clients to improve performance and achieve their goals.

Over the last 5 years, I have implemented Anaplan for clients in various industries including real estate, telecommunication infrastructure, and insurance. Use cases for the implementations I have done include leasing metrics reporting, operational income forecasting, asset cashflows, and traditional FP&A use cases.
  • Anaplan is great at unifying enterprise data and facilitates a very fast way of updating data from source systems which reduces (or eliminates) inherent risks associated with traditional MS Excel based reporting.
  • Anaplan enables forecasting processes to be streamlined and be collaborative making it easier for users to share data and insights that assists in improving communication and decision making across an organisation.
  • Anaplan can scale easily so that businesses can start with one use case and then easily add more users as other parts of the business decide to allow Anaplan to be used to solve their business problems.
  • The standard Anaplan integration tool (Anaplan Connect) seems very archaic compared to other available tools in the market and does not have the ability to transform data prior to it being ingested into Anaplan. They do offer another tool that does a better job and is more user friendly but it is for a fee. However, they will be introducing something called Data Management System in the next few months which is very promising and seems to be something that will handle all the things that an ETL tool does and more!
  • Calculations at various levels of a dimension can be tricky and requires more effort for a model builder. I have personally seen other tools make calculations at any level of a dimension so much more easy to build which in turn makes the drill through of those calculations less complicated and more easily understood by users. Would be great if Anaplan can improve on this area.
  • Companies requiring very large transactional data sets to be used in Anaplan have the option of using a different calculation engine called "Polaris" which allows larger "sparse" models to be built and can work side-by-side with the traditional Anaplan engine. Companies needing these very large models built may then have to have models built using the traditional calculation engine (for smaller, dense models) as well as the new Polaris engine (for larger, sparse models) which will make the model build a bit more challenging. Having said this, I haven't yet seen an existing client need the new Polaris engine as yet.
Overall, Anaplan is a great tool for the use cases I have dealt with over my 5 years implementing this solution. The only reason I didn't score it a 10 is for the reasons outlined in my comments for improvements.
Michael Vascovitz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Connected Planning Tool that Changes Companies Ability to Forecast I use Anaplan to create demo models to showcase to clients for HR/Finance/Energy/Biopharma use cases. For example, creating a 2-year workforce planning model that integrates net income from an FP&A model to identify company growth, plan employee costs, and identify gaps in the company's profile is an excellent way this tool transforms planning In all models, scenario planning is an easy section of each model that allows companies to prep for unknowns and allow real-time business decisions.
  • Long term and short term volume planning for the energy sector.
  • Scenario plan.
  • Create a single source of truth.
  • Connected planning by integrating parts of a company that currently do not Communicate well enough.
  • Eliminate spreadsheets.
  • Provide transparency into all planning logic as numbers and model logic is transparent.
  • AI/ML - this is an area the tool is currently improving in.
  • Mobile experience.
Anaplan is a great solution for a company that has trouble: Due to cumbersome spreadsheets Departments not communicating Understanding where a forecast came from apply bottoms-up or tops down adjustments Planning and entering inputs at a top or lower level of their business area's (planning hierarchy) Creating a single source of truth generating a rolling forecast needing to scenario plan.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Internally, Anaplan is used for planning forecasts in regard to staffing. Each employee enters a forecast of allocated time to projects which are tracked against budgets. Actuals are sourced in from another source system. This provides management insight to budget vs actuals, staffing needs, and forecasting capabilities. Project managers have visibility into the project budget overtime.
  • UX Capabilities
  • One stop shop for reporting
  • Real time updates
  • Integration capabilities
  • Downloads can be wonky
  • Size constraints
Anaplan can really address any planning needed within an organization. People can start to see the value when there is reports already available that users can slice and dice to their liking. I think Anaplan wouldn't fit a company that is resistant to change and would not be able to support ongoing enhancements or troubleshoot issues.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our organization uses Anaplan across Supply Chain, Sales, Marketing, and Finance. We use Anaplan to help forecast sales from gross dollars all the way down to the standard margin. Anaplan helps us operationalize these forecasts in Supply Chain, and then realize these forecasts with our finance team. It is an extremely helpful tool for collaborative planning.
  • Forecasting
  • Collaboration
  • Automation
  • Integration
  • Easy to over-engineer.
  • Marketing materials always promise more than can be delivered.
  • CloudWorks limited to external sources.
It is simple to build (point and click instead of writing code). It is fully customizable. It can be architected to build any train of logic. Therefore, it forces the business to truly understand itself when building models. So not only does Anaplan helps teams plan more effectively because it puts structure around their process, but it also allows businesses to think thru, collaborate on, and develop the logic of their business in more detailed terms.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I implement Anaplan at client companies. My client's use it for OpEx, HR, and Capital Budgeting and Forecasting.
  • Anaplan is really good at real time collaboration across multiple business units and finance.
  • Anaplan does a fantastic job at aggregating data across multiple dimensions and allowing end users to very easily slice and dice the data in any way they need.
  • Anaplan is also super intuitive and easy for users to quickly learn and develop themselves. It is completely configurable, so that administrators can maintain and update it without needing to learn a complicated coding language. Most of the formula syntax will be familiar to anyone who has used excel.
  • Anaplan isn't a black box. It allows almost any value to be quickly drilled into to determine exactly how it is being calculated. This enables very easy troubleshooting of issues.
  • Anaplan is not designed to warehouse transaction level detail. Having an in-software tool for querying transactional data from a warehouse would be amazing.
  • Anaplan doesn't have strong application lifecycle management/change controls for user experience dashboards.
  • Anaplan could use a better in-software tool for managing process workflows. I believe it is on the roadmap for release this year, but building workflows is a current pain point.
Anaplan is very well suited to budgeting and forecasting, especially when there are dependencies where it is necessary for users to see real time updates to plans made by other users. It is also great at showing variance analysis and allowing users to drill into the drivers of variances.
Kudiarasu Masilamani | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Anaplan in HR, Finance and Sales planning teams. we integrate all these organization using Anaplan leading to Connected planning.
Prior to using Anaplan all the teams were using Excel worksheets leading to delay in submission and incorrect version.
Using Anaplan we have eliminated such issues. The Data transfer between systems and teams have improved and created more trust in the data and team, the process.
  • Real time consolidation
  • Tracking History
  • Data Security
  • Integrations
  • Dynamic Reporting
  • Model sizing factor
Anaplan is well used in Finance, Sales, Supply chain planning. It is good for consolidating and connected planning.
It can improve in areas of reporting, current set is good for management reporting, but not so useful for end user reporting where they have competition from Power BI, Tableau and Qlik sense.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
A very valuable, scalable and powerful platform. It was is very easy to implement and can be implemented on very short time scales to deliver value quickly.

The business problems it solves is lack of agility, no single source of truth and lack of collaboration between the different business functions.

The platform can be used to solve any planning, modelling and analysis usecases.
The best thing to do is build a road map with some quick wins so you can deliver the value the tools brings quickly.

  • Anaplan has built in machine learning using the PlanIQ feature which allows you to forecast using industry machine learning algorithms such as Amazon forecast.
  • Anaplan is very much like the leading spreadsheet tools so it is very easy to learn and build in for most competent spreadsheet users.
  • Anaplan has the best in class calculation engine which means calculations are real time and at scale.
  • Capacity is definitely an issue when it comes to certain usecases like consolidation however this is in rare occasions
  • Its not the cheapest platform so licensing cost reduction would help
  • Sometimes can be slow to release new features
I love the Anaplan platform and would highly recommend it.
I'm yet to see a tool that competes with it's flexibility and scalability.
It's my platform of choice for FP&A use cases such as workforce planning, cost modelling, budgeting and planning.
It's not ideal for consolidation but Anaplan is constantly improving the platform so this might not be an issue in the future.
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