Ensured functionality meets user needs, yet complexity remains a challenge
What is our primary use case?
I make sure that developments inside are matching our end user needs. I check monitoring and assist newcomers in developments. TM1 is not used as a reporting database. We elaborate the budget inside, extract data, and make it available through different tools.
We use it for planning all the costs and budgets for production parts in our company. TM1 is mainly used by the financial controlling department, and they use Excel directly connected to TM1 to make their dashboards.
What is most valuable?
TM1 is primarily used for planning functions. We use it to manage and plan costs and budgets for production parts within the manufacturing department. TM1 is used for calculating and elaborating our budget, which is time-consuming. Its stability helps controllers win time in their planning processes. This level of stability is crucial for a product like Cognos TM1, as using an unstable platform would result in loss of time.
What needs improvement?
Since I'm using TM1 as an old version of Planning Analytics, it wouldn't be fair to specify what needs improvement because it's possible these issues have already been addressed in newer versions. If we talk only about the TM1 engine, it's quite rich and possibly too rich, making it complex to perform simple tasks.
The abundance of features results in complexity, requiring strict guidelines for developers to ensure simplistic approaches are adhered to. This complexity makes it hard to maintain and evolve developments.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using TM1 since 2012 and have overall experience since 2007 for Cognos Analytics.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
TM1 is quite stable and I would rate its stability as an eight out of ten. This stability is really important as we use it for budget calculation, which is time-consuming. A stable platform prevents loss of time during this process.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is quite hard to implement in TM1, largely since the on-premise installation chosen back in 2014. On a scale, I'd rate scalability at four, out of ten. It's difficult.
How are customer service and support?
Support is generally good. We have a multi-level support system, with the initial level handled by the company we bought the license from and subsequent support from IBM. I rate this support at a seven out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
TM1 is not easy to implement. Based on my observations, I'd rate the initial setup between a five or six out of ten.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
TM1 is quite expensive, and I'd rate the pricing as an eight out of ten. While we do get what we want in terms of functionalities and compatibility with other IBM tools, given the product's old architecture and interface, they need to make it more affordable.
What other advice do I have?
Comparing it to newer solutions like SAP Analytics Cloud, TM1 is more expensive and harder to implement. Overall, I rate TM1 as a six out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
IBM Planning Analytics: A Comprehensive Review
What do you like best about the product?
It is one of the most powerful forecasting and budgeting tools in the market right now. It excels in providing advanced forecasting, budgeting and planning capabilities. It allows real-time data access and collaboration across multiple departments. Also, the tool is highly scalable as per the business requirements.
What do you dislike about the product?
The learning curve is quite steep and might take a lot of time to have a proper command on the tool. Cost of implementation and maintenance is also on the higher side. Also, experienced some performance issues with larger datasets.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It automated the time-consuming financial planning process, reducing the manual efforts in tasks like budget creation, forecasting and scenario modelling. It also centralizes data, ensuring we have a single source of truth.
IBM Planning Analytics Technical Lead
What do you like best about the product?
Installing and configuring IBM Planning Analytics is straightforward across any platform. Its seamless integration with other applications ensures a smooth and excellent customer experience.
IBM Support is quick on all P1 cases during production environment installations.
What do you dislike about the product?
Integrating Cognos Analytics on AIX servers can be challenging, requiring multiple changes and additions to configuration files. Additionally, manually terminating cube refresh processes can be time-consuming, and occasionally, it becomes necessary to forcefully kill process IDs directly from the terminal
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Mostly related to planning and budgeting.
Boost Smart Decisions using IBM Planning Analytics.
What do you like best about the product?
I used IBM Planning and Analytics to automate the process of budget forecasting and planning. It is also helpful for data analysis and provides a cloud-based solution to store and monitor your data efficiently.
What do you dislike about the product?
IBM Planning Analytics requires basic knowledge of data analytics; apart from that, there is nothing else to dislike from my perspective.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
IBM Planning Analytics has really helped us to monitor and manage our budget and provide a platform to analyze your data.
Easy understanding of the applications
What do you like best about the product?
The ease of interaction with the metrics established by the company
What do you dislike about the product?
The extraction does not include the screen display
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The information assists in making strategic decisions;
Very good
What do you like best about the product?
Easy access to information through reports.
What do you dislike about the product?
I don't have anything I dislike. As I said before, the report accesses are easily accessible.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
In carrying out my work in the planning area, where can I rely on specific reports to meet my needs?
Always met the needs of the company.
What do you like best about the product?
It is the modeling of reports, creating bases as we need.
What do you dislike about the product?
Sometimes slowness in the update process.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
At the moment we don't have any problems, but the tool helps a lot to track the results on a daily basis.
Great work tool, however very unstable.
What do you like best about the product?
I can assemble my reports according to the views that best suit me.
What do you dislike about the product?
The reports have a line limit, sometimes we need to break the query into several parts.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I can create reports with views that facilitate my analysis and problem-solving.
practical and agile
What do you like best about the product?
the way we managed to consolidate the data quickly and achieve the expected results.
What do you dislike about the product?
Slowness when several people are using it and it freezes multiple times during use.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
does not have
I practice
What do you like best about the product?
A very practical system for creating views for analysis
What do you dislike about the product?
Quantity of export, which makes the analyses a bit difficult.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Agility in the assembly of reports and dashboards for analysis and decision-making.
