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A Modern, User-Friendly Planning Solution
Updated November 04, 2022

A Modern, User-Friendly Planning Solution

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • Modeling
  • Planning
  • Reporting and Analytics

Overall Satisfaction with Planful

We use Planful (formerly Host Analytics) within our FP&A and financial reporting teams. Planful (formerly Host Analytics) is used to input our budget scenarios, monthly forecasts (including workforce planning), and long-term models. We replaced SAP BPC system, which would take 3+ hours to pull new GL data. Now, using Planful (formerly Host Analytics), we have GL data refreshing every 30 minutes during close.
  • Customer support
  • Product updates
  • UI design/ease of use
  • User feedback
  • Wages--actuals vs forecast reporting
  • Workforce--reporting number of employees with the same role
  • Scenario management--folders/grouping
  • Our GL integration went from 3+ hours to load down to every 30 minutes in Planful (formerly Host Analytics).
  • Users are able to create their own reports easily; it was very cumbersome in our old system.
  • It's very easy to audit different sources of data using data load rules and verify data.
Planful has allowed our team to maintain a single source of truth for our monthly forecasts and budgets.
We don't use Planful's consolidations, but being able to do planning (financial, operational, and workforce) and reporting all from a single platform allows for greater confidence in the data.
We have some report collections to help automate reporting out of Planful (formerly Host Analytics), but I think there's still additional work we could do to further streamline the process.
It's very simple to create and modify reports within Planful (formerly Host Analytics). We've only recently enabled dashboards (wasn't aware it was a feature we had access to use), but they seem pretty straightforward to create. Not as robust as a full visualization reporting tool (e.g., Tableau) but seemed to have lots of options.
I'd say for 90% of my user-base, it's very easy for them to create their own ad hoc reporting for analysis. I do have at least one user that tends to need additional assistance with any report changes that aren't simple dimension changes. Also, I frequently get very specific/complex reporting questions, too.
  • SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
Not sure if this was specific to our specific BPC configuration, but here are a few major issues we had with that system that have since been resolved switching to Planful (formerly Host Analytics): It was painfully slow to load new data into the system (3+ hours for new GL data) Contacting support was impossible (I had to request our IT team to contact SAP support. 0 direct contact for questions.) No integration with our HR system for forecasting employee data Managing and creating new reports was a very tedious process The UI was purely Excel-based and felt very outdated

Do you think Planful delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Planful's feature set?

Yes

Did Planful live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Planful go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Planful again?

Yes

Pros: The Planful (formerly Host Analytics) application is well suited for workforce planning. It's easy to manipulate the employee roster to make changes. Planful support is extremely responsive and typically able to resolve most basic issues within a few hours. Cons: We've been able to configure the system to load actual wages by employee, but it's a very clunky monthly load process. Reporting by employee position is difficult, as we aren't able to select a single role. If 20+ employees have the same role, we'll see that selection duplicated 20+ times.

Planful Feature Ratings

9.6
Long-term financial planning
10
Financial budgeting
10
Forecasting
10
Scenario modeling
8
Management reporting
10
Not Rated
Financial data consolidation
Not Rated
Journal entries and reports
Not Rated
Multi-currency management
Not Rated
Intercompany Eliminations
Not Rated
Minority Ownership
Not Rated
Local and consolidated reporting
Not Rated
Detailed Audit Trails
Not Rated
9.3
Financial Statement Reporting
9
Management Reporting
10
Excel-based Reporting
9
Automated board and financial reporting
9
8.2
Personalized dashboards
9
Color-coded scorecards
8
KPIs
8
Cost and profitability analysis
8
Key Performance Indicator setting
8
10.0
Flat file integration
10
Excel data integration
10
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
10
8.0
Pixel Perfect reports
8
Customizable dashboards
8
Report Formatting Templates
8
10.0
Drill-down analysis
10
Formatting capabilities
10
Report sharing and collaboration
10
10.0
Publish to Web
Not Rated
Publish to PDF
10
Report Delivery Scheduling
10
8.0
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
8
Predictive Analytics
8
10.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Single Sign-On (SSO)
10
10.0
Responsive Design for Web Access
10
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Not Rated

Planful Features and Attributes

Planful support is always extremely responsive and gives frequent updates until a ticket has been marked complete.
Planful has a great, modern UI that allows our new FP&A team members to be on-boarded to the tool very quickly so that we continue to maximize our productivity.
We reduced our GL data pull from 3+ hours (prior system) to every 30 minutes (in Planful).
We've been able to create specific reports to validate our Planful data and ensure accuracy for user submissions into our monthly forecasts.
In one of our quarterly check-in calls with our CSM, we described an issue that we were facing with actuals vs forecast wage reporting. Our CSM offered to setup a call with one of the Planful architects the following week, and I was able plan out a solution for our implementation, without any additional costs.

Planful Support

ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
N/A
Yes - Yes, the support team escalated to the appropriate team and was able to have it answered within a couple of days.

Using Planful

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Data load rules
  • Reporting
  • Dashboards