Item: Vena
Rating: 9
Author: Brian Shun

Overall Satisfaction with Vena

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Vena is primarily used by FP&A, with limited workflows for other departments to provide input on KPI reports. This platform provided the robust backend needed to scale at the speed the organization required. Having Microsoft Excel as the front end made adoption and maintenance much easier than other platforms that I demoed.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Scenario snapshots.
Dimensional reporting.
Ease of import and export of data.

Cons

Robustness of troubleshooting tools in 365 versus desktop solution.
Ability to name output tabs in report books generated by script.
Ability to verify and stage data imports for any formatting issues prior to attempting import.

Return on Investment

Model tie out immediate once rules established instead of hours.
Delegation to team members with strong versioning decreases errors.
Decreased file sizes by 85%.

Full-Cycle Support

The sales process was robust and responsive. Continued support through implementation. Vendor is responsive as needed now, post-implementation. We have not had much need since the application is stable and works as expected. We have had a fabulous partnership with our outside consultant for ongoing support. The company's email updates are relevant.

Finance-Informed Decisions

It has enabled us to scale our budgeting capabilities at the velocity needed to keep up with a fast-paced environment with multiple needs and changing assumptions. The front-end setup has now given us enterprise-grade models that require less manual curation of versions across departments. Puts data into an easily exportable format for use in external business intelligence applications.

Alternatives Considered

Offered the most familiar front-end with Microsoft Excel to mitigate the learning curve. It also provided enough flexibility without external consultant support to enable easy self-service. Flexibility was a critical factor in the decision, as the industry I am working in is not mature and requires constant iteration on models and assumption configurations.

Key Insights

Do you think Vena delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Vena's feature set?

Yes

Did Vena live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Vena go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Vena again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Does a fantastic job of keeping snapshots of your work and requiring far less horsepower on your local machine. I appreciate the familiarity of the Microsoft Excel front end, especially when you have to adapt models often in a fast-paced environment. I do wish there were easier ways to expand working templates and models on demand to see all selected locations or departments, and to separate tabs for easier comparisons while modeling. Once you learn how it varies from an Excel-only environment, it proves its worth as an enterprise tool.

Vena Feature Ratings

Comments

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Familiar flexible front end scalable stable backend.