Five Years and Counting
November 04, 2016
Five Years and Counting
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Anaplan
Anaplan is used only by FP&A. It is great for modeling scenarios for the forecast as well as collecting the data, pivoting the data, and keeping a clean hierarchy. It is also used to consolidate all parts of the business. Cash flow statements and balance sheets have been constructed on a master model that brings everything together.
Pros
- Anaplan is great at organizing data. You can have one module for importing and then other modules that feed from there. It acts as a one stop shop for data that comes from several different SQL tables. Plus the pivot function is so easy to use.
- Anaplan is money when it comes to modeling. You can test scenarios with different subsets changing one data point which will flow through all modules and particular versions that you need it to.
- I am able to keep a very detailed and constantly updated hierarchy in Anaplan. From there I can branch off subsets that I need to test, such as bottom stores, merged stores, closing stores....thus I can extrapolate or dismiss certain groups. I also love Selective Access. Operators can see their group only and efficiently make changes to the forecast where they see fit.
Cons
- The charts. It has been a battle for years to have Anaplan add little nuaces here and there. For example, you can't change the font on tables on a dashboard. The little things do matter. Most of the time I just export my data and create a graph in Excel.
- If I want to add an available column to my view, I have to show all on everything and then dig through ALL the rows/columns on the screen. It's like having to create the (original carefully constructed) view from scratch.
- Desktop Support is weak. When we first acquired it was one of the strengths of anaplan. Gurus were always available and you could solve a problem at first contact via a GoToMeeting. Nowadays guru availability is spotty and it usually takes several conversations where someone has to ask someone else how to solve the issue. By the time I finally get an answer I've already found an alternative and have moved on to something else.
Anaplan provided a whiteboard that allowed us to set up our unique business as we saw fit. Other programs had built-in forecasting modules that we needed to adapt to. Our company is retail but also collections so flexibility was the key when making the final decision. Plus, Anaplan seemed more cutting edge, new school, in comparison to the other competitors.
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