Outsanding Solution!
Updated April 16, 2021
Outsanding Solution!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Workday Adaptive Planning
As a growing company, we needed to shift from Excel-based budgeting/reporting models to a much more capable (and sophisticated) model. We selected Adaptive based on the tool's capabilities, the fact that it's cloud-based (SaaS), and easily scalable. We deployed Adaptive for all budget owners within 3 months of making our decision.
Using Adaptive, our budget owners and executives now have a much better (and faster) view of our financials, as well as allowing the finance team to spend time on analysis/insight.
Using Adaptive, our budget owners and executives now have a much better (and faster) view of our financials, as well as allowing the finance team to spend time on analysis/insight.
- Overall structure of the model is both powerful and simple. Accounts and levels (legal entities/cost centers) drive the overall data structure. Once this principle is firmly understood, the tool is quite easy to understand from an implementation and administrative perspective.
- Customer support is outstanding. Even though we're a small company, Adaptive doesn't recognize that (or care). I've had conversations with a variety of their team members on a number of different topics, and they are very good at supporting our company.
- Reporting tools are world-class. It's nice that you can have a best-in-class planning system, but without equally strong reporting tools, it really doesn't mean much. Adaptive's easy-to-build reports are both flexible and powerful.
- Administration is easy. Helpful tools to make your system secure.
- Our biggest challenge is that more people want the tool than we (originally) budgeted for. (This really isn't a con, but be aware that if you're moving from an Excel-based manual model, people will be really hungry for this type of tool/application.)
- Positive: We are much more efficient now than previously. The time savings alone, and our ability to focus on insights/analytics using less resources has been a great strength to our company.
Do you think Workday Adaptive Planning delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Workday Adaptive Planning's feature set?
Yes
Did Workday Adaptive Planning live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Workday Adaptive Planning go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Workday Adaptive Planning again?
Yes
Adaptive is much more flexible and powerful for our needs. It provides a wealth of reporting tools and capabilities that Cognos simply didn't or couldn't provide. The ability to have a team of one completely implement and manage the solution for a company is not unreasonable (as I'm currently doing this). Based on my previous experience, that would probably not be the case with other solutions.
Workday Adaptive Planning Feature Ratings
Using Workday Adaptive Planning
All operational aspects - G&A, Marketing, R&D, Manufacturing
Since I'm the administrator of the tool, people generally come to me with any questions or issues.
- Planning (Forecasting, Budgeting)
- Management and Statutory Reporting
- Analytics
- Stock-based compensation forecasting linked with workforce planning. This was historically a very challenging calculation, given our headcount growth and manual process. Using Adaptive, we were able to generate formulas based on our overall workforce plan, along with highly "auditable" calculations (i.e., we don't have a "black box" where nobody can explain how the number is calculated).
- Linking our PO system directly within Adaptive, so that business/operational leaders can see a list of all their open POs and plan accordingly.
Evaluating Workday Adaptive Planning and Competitors
Yes - We used "old-school" Excel-based forecasting/budgeting models. As a growing company, our ability to forecast/budget and report actuals on a timely basis simply would not be sustainable using a manual process.
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Prior Experience with the Product
- Vendor Reputation
- Existing Relationship with the Vendor
Product Usability: The ability to generate very detailed forecasts/budgets - with multiple user inputs across the organization - and automatically include actuals (with transaction level details) as part of that particular forecast cycle, was key for our operating team. Adaptive has come through flawlessly for us.
During the vendor review/selection cycle, we would attempt to identify "best-in-class" core processes, and then rack/stack the vendors accordingly. Knowing what I know now, Adaptive would still come out on top for me.
Workday Adaptive Planning Implementation
- Third-party professional services
Carlson Management Company
Yes - 1. Foundational elements: structure of the reporting organization (departments, cost centers, profit centers, etc.), accounts
2. Reporting: development of both web-based and OfficeConnect reports
3. Training was interspersed throughout the course of the training, including Administrator training.
2. Reporting: development of both web-based and OfficeConnect reports
3. Training was interspersed throughout the course of the training, including Administrator training.
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled - Initially, we wanted to slowly roll-out the tool for operational leaders. However, after showing a demonstration to our team, I was blown away by the number of people who wanted access to the tool, and their desire to begin using it. This was actually a great "problem" to have, and naturally led to many champions throughout the organization.
- Foreign currency-related issues, which the Carlson team expertly understood and resolved in a timely manner.
Workday Adaptive Planning Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
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 |
Not Available
As a new administrator, I was trying to resolve an issue with my cash flow model (I thought a custom account wasn't calculating correctly). However, one adjustment that the Support team recommended I make very quickly solved my issue. Importantly, they also taught me understand the "core" principle so that I use this feature going forward for other areas of my model.
Using Workday Adaptive Planning
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Integration with our core ERP platform. Once this is set up, scheduling data feeds from any source system is simple and fast.
- Workforce planning is outstanding. We have several inputs in our workforce model (including location, benefits, etc.) and the ability to have drop-down menus with appropriate selections appear is excellent.
- Scenario modeling: I'm particularly pleased with this aspect of Adaptive, since we do quite a bit of scenario modeling for each budget/forecast cycle. The way we've structured our model allows for many different scenarios, with the ability to easily turn each scenario on/off.
- The functions themselves aren't difficult to use; like any system/tool, it does take some training to fully understand how to exploit the power of these functions and the tool's overall capabilities.