My client is using Anaplan for budgeting and planning purposes. They execute their budgeting and planning processes by utilizing this tool.
Anaplan
Anaplan LimitedExternal reviews
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Good adaptive tool for supply chain
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is easy to use. It can be customized to your business and manufacturing model. What I liked best was it's ability to scenario plan supply chain outcomes based on our requirements .
What do you dislike about the product?
I would like Anaplan to integrate high level analytics into the software so it can be used without having to use other tools.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Other legacy tools were complicated to integrate and use especially for a small and meduim scale industry. Anaplan worked perfectly for our business needs and was easy to use and maintain history.
Planning tool that does most of it well
What do you like best about the product?
With a solid foundation of data, integrations, financial models, the tool can be as flexible as the company needs. The code is easy to understand and easily built out with the proper talent (either in house or contracted). Users do not need extensive architecture knowledge to stand up models and then connect the pipes together. This allows teams to trial and error fairly quickly to build new use cases. The ability to manage a large portion of the infrastructure within the function and outside of IT is also very appealing. Typically, finance functions rely on IT to perform regular tasks and wait for results - with Anaplan, a lot of those activities can remain with the business. There are a variety of integration tools available as well as native tooling that can support an enterprise.
What do you dislike about the product?
Without major talent, the models can quickly go awry and be poorly designed. Though the functionality may work, it might be less performant or create complexities when trying to adjust existing logic. Talent is also a large factor when considering this tool as it requires either building a team in house or contracting out. With contractors, you run the risk of knowledge gaps & lack of documentation for proprietary processes. To facilitate the implementation phase, business owners need to actively participate and devote a large number of hours to support the build. This is expensive to manage with larger organizations and could be less likely with smaller organizations. On the support side, you may contract out activities but there is a ramp up time that companies need to factor in (though this is true with most tools). The pricing model is quickly evolving to a subscription based model (again not uncommon amongst most SaaS platforms these days). Customer support is fairly basic and can be escalated, but is cumbersome during critical periods.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
FP&A and close use cases at the moment, but are exploring additional use cases as we grow. As a global enterprise, we have performed several M&A activities that resulted in many planning processes & Excel-based packages. The tool consolidates all activity into 1 tool and eases corporate's requirement for consolidations. The tool also acts as the single source of truth for the forecast/budget and allows finance teams globally to perform their close reconciliations. There is a large automation piece factored in so users do not need to update Excel sheets manually every period or forecast cycle. This is a major time saver and resolves most user errors when managing manual calculations. The tool also consolidates master data so all teams operate on 1 standard and prevents the misstatement of KPIs based on segregated hierarchies. Overall, Anaplan is the starting point to create consistency and flexibility in how we manage our FP&A processes.
Cloud technology enhances budgeting and reporting with intuitive features
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Both Hyperion and Anaplan serve the same purpose for budgeting and planning, but Anaplan is cloud-based. Previously, my client was using Oracle Hyperion Planning and Essbase, which was on-premises. Anaplan, being a cloud-based platform, allows customers to adapt easily. It is easier to enter data, load data, and develop reports compared to Hyperion.
In Anaplan, once you create a system, the end user can utilize the reports immediately. Users can create UX pages with boards and worksheets. The boards contain different cards such as bar cards, chart cards, map cards, KPI cards, and field cards. These cards are used for high-level reports and top-level management reporting. For plant-wise location, worksheets can be created for analysis purposes, analyzing data at the plant level, while reports are used for top-level purposes.
The board functionality works similarly to a dashboard, where users can add different cards. Users can drag data and add chart cards, field cards, map cards, and KPI cards to a single board.
Anaplan can handle large sets of data and models within its ecosystem. Data volume is not an issue for the platform.
What needs improvement?
The tool is very effective from a user perspective, providing good analysis and reporting capabilities. It is an excellent tool for financial planning, supply chain planning, and territory and quota planning.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have a total of 3.5 years of experience in Anaplan.
How are customer service and support?
I provide technical support for clients but have not had experience contacting Anaplan's technical support directly.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The setup of Anaplan is very straightforward.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Currently, Anaplan is more expensive compared to other tools. This pricing is based on the tool's demands. However, I believe the price might decrease after some time.
What other advice do I have?
I previously worked with Hyperion Essbase and Hyperion Planning from Oracle, and now I work with Anaplan technology.
I provide technical support to users for security-related issues, creating new administration roles, and workflow management. We assist with security provisioning, user creation, workflow issues, and technical business logic modifications. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Anaplan a 9.
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Anaplan For Financial Planning and Forecasting
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is robust and powerful modeling tool that promotes collaboration across various teams.
What do you dislike about the product?
Space constraint. UX formatting can be improved
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Automating the monthly forecasting process and providing leadership with faster insights
Anaplan: Connected Planning For The Enterprise
What do you like best about the product?
Anaplan is a great connected planning tool that can break down silos between different teams, enable version control for planning, and reduce the amount of time it takes to plan through automation of datasets & calculations, predictive AI & through multi-dimensional planning
What do you dislike about the product?
Anaplan has some challenges when it comes to concurrency for loading datasets, as well as with size when handling large quantities of data
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Anaplan enables teams to plan in real time, it allows for complex business rules to be applied within the platform, and it enables version control while being on a cloud based solution. Anaplan also has AI capabilities to enable planning using predictive AI with PlanIQ
Anaplan: Balancing Agility and Complexity
What do you like best about the product?
Modeling Flexibility: Anaplan allows handle complex models with ease and it's multidimensional modeling capabilities allow for scenario planning and forecasting which accommodates various business needs in the EPM ecosystem.
Real-Time Data Updates: The platform supports real-time data integration with it's need in house integration system called Anaplan Data Orchestrator (ADO) which enables quick decision-making. This feature allows the system to be updated with latest data from your various legacy system within seconds, enhancing the planning experience and also collaboration across teams.
User-Friendly Interface: With the onset of New UX a few years ago, Anaplan's user experience allows easy navigation, even for users without extensive technical expertise. It allows for users to easily get accustomed to the system encouraging them to use the system.
Scalability: Building on the "Honeycomb" idea of Anaplan, the free design within Anaplan allows for clients to scale their small models to big implementations with ease, taking different use cases within a single Anaplan umbrella.
Collaboration Tools: Built-in collaboration features like comments notification, workflows etc. promote seamless communication within different teams working on the model. It fosters the idea of collaboration among different teams prompting better planning and forecasting exercises.
Real-Time Data Updates: The platform supports real-time data integration with it's need in house integration system called Anaplan Data Orchestrator (ADO) which enables quick decision-making. This feature allows the system to be updated with latest data from your various legacy system within seconds, enhancing the planning experience and also collaboration across teams.
User-Friendly Interface: With the onset of New UX a few years ago, Anaplan's user experience allows easy navigation, even for users without extensive technical expertise. It allows for users to easily get accustomed to the system encouraging them to use the system.
Scalability: Building on the "Honeycomb" idea of Anaplan, the free design within Anaplan allows for clients to scale their small models to big implementations with ease, taking different use cases within a single Anaplan umbrella.
Collaboration Tools: Built-in collaboration features like comments notification, workflows etc. promote seamless communication within different teams working on the model. It fosters the idea of collaboration among different teams prompting better planning and forecasting exercises.
What do you dislike about the product?
Cost: Despite it's amazing feature, Anaplan does come with a good price tag. The new bundle costing method might help out large scale enterprises to adopt Anaplan, it will remain out of each for a number of smaller organizations with limited budgets and resources.
Performance Issues: Even though Anaplan very much allows large scale scalability, it can have a few performance issues specially when working with large datasets. New calculation engine called "Polaris" is now available for clients to tackle some of these issues, but it does require good model building to ensure justification of using the Polaris engine.
Performance Issues: Even though Anaplan very much allows large scale scalability, it can have a few performance issues specially when working with large datasets. New calculation engine called "Polaris" is now available for clients to tackle some of these issues, but it does require good model building to ensure justification of using the Polaris engine.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Agility in Decision-Making: With real time data integrations using ADO, fast calculations and real time reports allows organizations to be agile with their decision making and make room for swift adjustments to plan based on the market conditions and updated budgets. This ability comes in handy special in a world like today with multiple economic and political situations which pivot every few days.
Scenario Analysis and Forecasting: As Anaplan allows detailed scenario planning, planners have the ability to play out various scenarios, playing with wide range of planning assumptions - allowing organizations to be agile with their plans and make informed business decisions in line with their strategic objectives.
Collaboration Across Teams: Having seen Anaplan in action within my own organization, I can see how well Anaplan allows collaboration among various teams and business units which wouldn't easily collaborate on some of the key decisions. This allows break down silos and contributes to a shared vision.
Scenario Analysis and Forecasting: As Anaplan allows detailed scenario planning, planners have the ability to play out various scenarios, playing with wide range of planning assumptions - allowing organizations to be agile with their plans and make informed business decisions in line with their strategic objectives.
Collaboration Across Teams: Having seen Anaplan in action within my own organization, I can see how well Anaplan allows collaboration among various teams and business units which wouldn't easily collaborate on some of the key decisions. This allows break down silos and contributes to a shared vision.
Connected planning and rapid calculations streamline financial forecasting
What is our primary use case?
Currently, I am working on financial planning using Anaplan. We use Anaplan for companies' planning and budgeting, which helps us build scenario-based cases and conduct forecasting. It acts as a consolidated engine.
What is most valuable?
Anaplan's connected planning feature is its most valuable aspect, allowing for seamless financial planning, HR planning, and updates. The in-memory engine ensures super quick calculations without delays for data refreshes. Recent developments in dashboarding and other functionalities enhance the product greatly, making it an outstanding tool for current needs.
What needs improvement?
There are minor improvements needed on the dashboarding side and with the formulas, but no significant issues. Advanced planning with AI, machine learning, and related plugins would be great to see in the future.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Anaplan for more than six or seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate scalability between six and seven. Anaplan had issues before, but the new Polaris engine solves them, although its implementation is more challenging compared to the Classic engine.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support from Anaplan is amazing, with a dedicated team to assist in case of any issues.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
There are several competitors, but Anaplan differentiates itself with its unique in-memory calculation engine and other features that enhance its functionality.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very simple. You just need a workspace license, username, and password. There's no need for a separate setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is slightly on the premium side, but I do not have detailed knowledge about the exact licensing structure.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Anaplan eight out of ten in general. While the product is mainly for medium and enterprise-level companies, it may be too costly for smaller ones. Overall, I recommend Anaplan to other users. I would rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Product Review
What do you like best about the product?
It relatively easy to learn and intuitive to use.
What do you dislike about the product?
The occasional availability of the models and the platform compare to other cloud services.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It allows for data integration with databases, allows for better control of formulas, reduces number of errors compare to old spreadsheet process. It speeds up decision making due to automating manual tasks.
High Flexibility＆High Performance
What do you like best about the product?
High flexibility
Anaplan's high flexibility allows it to replace most of the work done in Excel. It is like writing code.
High Performance
Anaplan can handle huge amounts of data that Excel and spreadsheets cannot handle. If designed well, there is no waiting time.
Quick development
Since a wide variety of components such as functions, batch processing, simple ELT, and AI functions are provided in advance, the system can be developed much faster than if you had to write code from scratch.
Anaplan's high flexibility allows it to replace most of the work done in Excel. It is like writing code.
High Performance
Anaplan can handle huge amounts of data that Excel and spreadsheets cannot handle. If designed well, there is no waiting time.
Quick development
Since a wide variety of components such as functions, batch processing, simple ELT, and AI functions are provided in advance, the system can be developed much faster than if you had to write code from scratch.
What do you dislike about the product?
Fewer graphs
While we already have simple graphs that are commonly used, in rare cases we are unable to meet our client's needs due to graph limitations.
While we already have simple graphs that are commonly used, in rare cases we are unable to meet our client's needs due to graph limitations.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It consolidates data siloed by planning work done in Excel into one single source of truth. And it will rapidly accelerate the speed of your business.
A product that does many use cases well! Flexible modeling for endless Oppritunity
What do you like best about the product?
I like Anaplan is flexible in it's modeling and does not hold you to 1 use case.
This is very valuable to bring to a firm and have endless growth with the tool.
The tool is relatively easy to learn and can be picked up my anyone.
This is very valuable to bring to a firm and have endless growth with the tool.
The tool is relatively easy to learn and can be picked up my anyone.
What do you dislike about the product?
Some aspects of the developer experience could be improved. Knowing what line items are used for what actions could be improved. Also, cloudworks having a snowflake connection would help.
"Toastering" of the model when a bad formula is inputted is very aggravating for users.
"Toastering" of the model when a bad formula is inputted is very aggravating for users.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Anaplan real time design is very helpful for our business. They can input their assumptions and see in real time the impact of their plans. This makes it so the tool can always be used as a conversation piece.
Anaplan was able to help allocation use cases, where we didn't previously have a tool to help us with completing large allocations. Users can assign drivers and see the impact in real time, where user's can truly "integrate easily on creating their allocated financials.
Anaplan allows for data to be exported to Power BI, which is helpful for storing data and merging with other data sources in a data lake.
Anaplan was able to help allocation use cases, where we didn't previously have a tool to help us with completing large allocations. Users can assign drivers and see the impact in real time, where user's can truly "integrate easily on creating their allocated financials.
Anaplan allows for data to be exported to Power BI, which is helpful for storing data and merging with other data sources in a data lake.
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