Great cloud based budgeting/forecasting/analytics solution
May 10, 2016

Great cloud based budgeting/forecasting/analytics solution

Scott Kirk | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Adaptive Suite

We are currently about 2 months into the implementation of Adaptive within our company. The implementation is not yet fully complete, but we can already see the value that we will be getting from this software. Our user base will initially be the department heads of each business unit. We are a growing company, and the growth was making our Excel-based models more and more difficult to maintain and update. Adaptive solves that problem by creating a cloud-based scalable option. It increases collaboration by allowing the users to login and input their own data. It has helped our company integrate numerous data sources under one roof- allowing us to integrate and use the data in smarter ways. Adaptive has a small learning curve, but it is very user friendly and simple to make changes and understand how it works.

Pros

  • Data Integration- Adaptive integrates data from numerous sources extremely well.
  • Ease of Use- the user interface is simple to use and easy to understand and intuit.
  • Scalability - Adaptive is easy to set up to scale for growth.

Cons

  • Learning curve- although the user interface is simple and easy to use, there is still a small learning curve for tips and tricks for using Adaptive. This is the only small downside - as it is easy to get up to speed.
  • Sheet functionality- Adaptive is a great and powerful product; however, there are a few small things that feel slightly unfinished with the ways that sheets work.
  • Report customization - There is a built-in report builder that is very basic. The customizations available in the report builder are limited. I know that Adaptive plans on releasing a revamped report builder later this year, so this might fix this issue. The other work-around is to use their Office Connect product to bring data into Excel and create final reports in Excel.
  • User collaboration - Adaptive allows users to input data into one system that can be then used to drive core forecasts.
  • Data Integration - previously our data had to be manually pulled in and integrated together. Now Adaptive does that for us.
I used IBM's Cognos TM1 with a previous employer, and although TM1 is powerful, it also requires a lot of IT work. Adaptive can be completely supported and maintained by the finance users who use and implement it. It does not require any IT support or maintenance. The administration of the software is easy, and the setup is fairly simple.
I believe that Adaptive is a great option for any company/industry. It seems like it would be applicable to most companies- especially with its ease of connecting to various data sources (even Excel).

Workday Adaptive Planning Feature Ratings

Long-term financial planning
10
Financial budgeting
10
Forecasting
10
Scenario modeling
10
Management reporting
8
Financial data consolidation
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
Financial Statement Reporting
8
Management Reporting
8
Excel-based Reporting
9
Automated board and financial reporting
10
XBRL support for regulatory filing
Not Rated
Personalized dashboards
10
Color-coded scorecards
10
KPIs
10
Cost and profitability analysis
10
Key Performance Indicator setting
10
Benchmarking with external data
10
Flat file integration
10
Excel data integration
10
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
10

Comments

More Reviews of Workday Adaptive Planning