IBM Planning Analytics review
February 13, 2020

IBM Planning Analytics review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Planning Analytics

We use it as a forecasting and budgeting tool for our whole organization. Our forecast model is based on the turnover forecast and expenses budget. The turnover is automatically calculated based on the forecasted hours done by our company consults and the customer-specific hourly cost. The turnover forecast is revised every quarter. Fixed costs are rather static in our company, so they are forecasted only once per year. Previous actual is there to help forecasting.
  • Rolling forecast, different versions and scenarios.
  • User friendly interface and no need for client software. Everything is done via web browser.
  • Web browser support.
  • More accurate forecasting is done more often so company leads have more data in their hands.
  • Forecasted profit and loss statement and balance sheet to see forecasted net profit in advance.
IBM Cognos Analytics is not a replacement for IBM Planning Analytics. IBM Cognos Analytics is focused only on reporting, but in that section it's an excellent addition to IBM Planning Analytics. You can directly use IBM Planning Analytics as a data source in IBM Cognos Analytics. In our business case we use IBM Planning Analytics for forecasting, but the more extensive reporting is done in IBM Cognos Analytics (for example forecast accuracy).
Support is good and you find many IBM Tech Documents and best-practices from the IBM Support Website. In our country we're missing local IBM Support and that means we have to be connected to foreign IBM Support with different time zones. However, the support works great and Support's response time is fast.

Do you think IBM Planning Analytics delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with IBM Planning Analytics's feature set?

Yes

Did IBM Planning Analytics live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of IBM Planning Analytics go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy IBM Planning Analytics again?

Yes

You can easily do different scenarios (as many as you like) from forecast and you can play with the numbers in sandbox mode. When you're satisfied with the numbers you can publish them. Variant calculations is easy to add and all kinds of visualizations can be added to help. Security to planning models can be built and you can hide numbers which are only shown to a specified user group (for example salaries is only visible to HR Department).

IBM Planning Analytics Feature Ratings

Long-term financial planning
10
Financial budgeting
10
Forecasting
10
Scenario modeling
10
Management reporting
10
Financial data consolidation
6
Journal entries and reports
3
Multi-currency management
10
Intercompany Eliminations
9
Minority Ownership
6
Local and consolidated reporting
6
Detailed Audit Trails
8
Financial Statement Reporting
10
Management Reporting
10
Excel-based Reporting
10
Automated board and financial reporting
9
XBRL support for regulatory filing
Not Rated
Personalized dashboards
10
Color-coded scorecards
9
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
Pixel Perfect reports
9
Customizable dashboards
9
Report Formatting Templates
6
Drill-down analysis
8
Formatting capabilities
6
Integration with R or other statistical packages
Not Rated
Report sharing and collaboration
6
Publish to Web
10
Publish to PDF
8
Report Versioning
8
Report Delivery Scheduling
8
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
10
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
9
Predictive Analytics
6
Multi-User Support (named login)
9
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Single Sign-On (SSO)
10
Responsive Design for Web Access
9
Mobile Application
Not Rated
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Not Rated