Powerful fast engine that provides solid planning and reporting solutions
Updated June 16, 2022

Powerful fast engine that provides solid planning and reporting solutions

lee lazarow | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Planning Analytics with Watson

IBM Planning Analytics is used as an overall planning and reporting tool. It includes summarized modules associated with financial reporting (income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow) and detailed modules associated with revenue (by customer), staff planning (by person), and capital planning (by asset). It also includes allocations, eliminations and currency analyses. Overall, the model is used to help automate tasks associated with planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting and analysis.
  • Fast processing.
  • Ad-hoc analysis.
  • Complex calculations - nothing that it cannot do.
  • Web interface.
  • Ability to store complex calcs means training is required.
  • Easy to import and link to external data.
  • Easy to pre-seed and perform budgeting.
Scenario planning is a requirement for the business. IBM Planning Analytics allows for multiple scenarios. It allows for public scenarios that everyone can see and also allows for personal scenarios that only one person can see (called sandboxing). Sandboxes are used to create personal what-if scenarios before submitting the results to the overall plan.
Other tools include Essbase, Outlooksoft, and BPC. When comparing the length of the implementation and the speed of the engine, IBM is the fastest on the market. I have not yet found a calculation or planning approach that cannot be done with IBM PA. In one situation, an allocation that took 24+ hours in another tool was created in Planning Analytics and only took 45 minutes to run.

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

IBM provides a solid support base. This includes direct interaction with IBM personnel (via the IBM site), a shared knowledge base (sometimes found using Google), a large customer base (which includes many chat boards), and a large consulting base (which includes many blogs ... both technical and business oriented). Sometimes the support is slower than expected, but it's generally solid.
Planning Analytics is a powerful tool that is easy for end users. The engine is extremely fast and can be customized to perform any type of calculations: financial or metric, detailed or consolidated, live or on demand, etc. We have used the system for basic calculations such as revenue (units * price), moderate calculations such as compensation (spread a salary across months based on the number of working days in the month), and complex calculations such as allocations (spread the administrative costs to IT and then do a secondary spread of the IT costs based on the number of employees in each department). All of the interfaces are easy for the end users to navigate and use due to simple buttons, icons and right-click options.
Well suited - if you are looking for a fast and solid engine, if you have complex requirements, if you don't want to change your business process to fit into a box, if you need a tool that can provide fast calculations and fast answers. Not well suited - if you are looking for a "quick-hit" tool or if you are looking for a cheap "fit into the box" approach.

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
8
Multi-currency management
10
Intercompany Eliminations
10
Minority Ownership
10
Local and consolidated reporting
10
Detailed Audit Trails
8
Financial Statement Reporting
10
Management Reporting
10
Excel-based Reporting
10
Automated board and financial reporting
10
XBRL support for regulatory filing
7
Personalized dashboards
10
Color-coded scorecards
8
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
Pixel Perfect reports
8
Customizable dashboards
9
Report Formatting Templates
10
Drill-down analysis
9
Formatting capabilities
9
Integration with R or other statistical packages
7
Report sharing and collaboration
10
Publish to Web
10
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
10
Report Delivery Scheduling
9
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
10
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
10
Predictive Analytics
8
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
10
Single Sign-On (SSO)
10
Responsive Design for Web Access
8
Mobile Application
Not Rated
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
8