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Good and strong, but still not grown-up for 21st century
October 20, 2020

Good and strong, but still not grown-up for 21st century

Felipe Fonseca | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Planning Analytics

As a Business Partner, my organization resells and implements PA in other companies, mid-size and large. It addresses the financial planning and performance management business processes' problems, in a consulting way, adding automation, coordination and reliability to the process as whole.
  • Automation by heterogenous data sources integration.
  • Business process coordination.
  • What-if scenarios simulation.
  • Fast financial modelling change response.
  • Front-end PAW does not provide pixel perfect design.
  • Front-end PAW does not provide in-session variables.
  • Calculations are still dependent of feeders, an old ugly constraint to achieve performance.
  • Time saved from more centralized planning.
  • Improved forecast accuracy.
  • Improved collaboration.
Very much, specially after COVID19. PA offers a private sandbox functionality for testing scenarios and choosing one to be the official. Also, a version dimension always help creating shared scenarios.

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

No

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

No

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

No

Did implementation of IBM Planning Analytics go as expected?

No

Would you buy IBM Planning Analytics again?

Yes

Mostly because the support is slow and often analysts don't have a solution.
Because we need to build everything from scratch, such as version management, backup management, time dimension management, non-admin can't easily have access to process errors or server logs, and at last but not the least, we cannot use in-screen variables to synchronise filters and visualisations.
PA is well suited where the company uses many Excel spreadsheets to run the forecast or month-end reports, and where many participants need to be coordinated to delivery a fast forecast. Also, where business case simulation and what-if scenarios are often required.

IBM Planning Analytics Feature Ratings

8.4
Long-term financial planning
9
Financial budgeting
9
Forecasting
9
Scenario modeling
7
Management reporting
8
7.8
Financial data consolidation
7
Journal entries and reports
Not Rated
Multi-currency management
7
Intercompany Eliminations
7
Minority Ownership
Not Rated
Local and consolidated reporting
Not Rated
Detailed Audit Trails
10
7.3
Financial Statement Reporting
7
Management Reporting
6
Excel-based Reporting
9
Automated board and financial reporting
Not Rated
XBRL support for regulatory filing
Not Rated
5.2
Personalized dashboards
6
Color-coded scorecards
5
KPIs
3
Cost and profitability analysis
5
Key Performance Indicator setting
5
Benchmarking with external data
7
7.3
Flat file integration
8
Excel data integration
6
Direct links to 3rd-party data sources
8
1.0
Pixel Perfect reports
1
Customizable dashboards
1
Report Formatting Templates
1
2.3
Drill-down analysis
5
Formatting capabilities
1
Integration with R or other statistical packages
Not Rated
Report sharing and collaboration
1
6.5
Publish to Web
7
Publish to PDF
6
3.3
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
5
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
4
Predictive Analytics
1
8.3
Multi-User Support (named login)
9
Role-Based Security Model
8
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
8
Single Sign-On (SSO)
8
1.0
Responsive Design for Web Access
1