Anaplan Reviews

The most valuable features are the dashboards and Model Map, as they speak to the business and they are the backbone of the modelling.

It’s very agile and we can do changes in minutes, rather than waiting for consultants and change requests. So, it’s as dynamic as the business.

• The sizing can be improved.
• Need more subsets for Versions and Time.
• Reporting can be vastly improved.

Right now, if we build a module using 3 versions, 100 GL Accounts, 25 Cost Centers, and 13 periods (12 months + 1 Year), the sizing of the model calculated would be 3*100*25*13 = 97500, irrespective of the data present in the module. I mean, even if you have only 1000 cells with data out of those 97500 cells, and the remaining cells are null, still the sizing is calculated for all the 97500 cells.

Further, we do not have an option of having only a few months or a few versions (Actual Forecast in module). We should either use them or not use them; if we can get a subset for the version and time, then we can reduce the sizing to some extent.

In the above example, if the module was only for forecasting purposes, then the sizing could be reduced to 65000 instead 97500 by reducing the number of versions to 2 from 3.

Sizing is the biggest challenge in providing solutions.

I have been using it for 2+ years.

The projects I have worked on were of medium scale and had no issues with stability.

The projects were of medium scale and had no issues with scalability, but sizing of the cloud server directly affects scalability and thus affects the cost.

Technical support is 8 out of 10.

Previously, we had a built-in and Excel-based solution. We switched for more agility, data control and transparency.

Initial setup was complex to design due to the diversified planning methods used by different operating companies within the organization.

The sizing is the biggest culprit, so please get your sizing done properly by giving all the details before you decide on going with Anaplan.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated TM1, along with SAP Business Planning and Consolidation.

Please keep in mind the sizing; the way sizing includes even empty cells is big disadvantage. The reporting for now is not up to mark if you do not use dashboards intelligently.

You can use this solution for almost everything that you need, that includes the sales forecast, workforce, planning of technical KPIs, etc. It's not a focused solution for a specific use case.

It's simple to use and has a lot of functions suitable for many use cases. Here, you don't have to know how to code. So it's like Excel-based syntax.

Workspace allowance and integrations with external systems are the things to be improved. Apart from that, everything else works well except for the poor ETL capabilities. They should first solve the issue of integrations and modeling sparsity. That would be great.

I have been using this solution for five years. It's a SaaS solution so it's always up-to-date.

I would rate it nine out of ten.

It's one of the solutions that could be scaled up quite easily if its architecture is set up correctly at the beginning of the project, compared to many others marketed by big and well-known CPM/BI providers. Currently, we have approximately 20 Anaplan users in our organization.

I would say it was a good experience. I faced probably zero unsolved issues. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it all nine. They're good at solving issues.

Positive

I switched due to the company's policy I work for now.

It's not easy to start from scratch, but the complexity is something you can also find doing your planning in Excel. So, I don't think Anaplan has an outstanding complexity.

As it is cloud-based, it doesn’t need to be deployed on your servers and it's usually deployed via partners. We just make sure it serves the needs of the organization considering the demands of the specific projects.

It's not that expensive compared to the vast majority of other products. But it's not cheap, it's somewhere in the middle. I would rate the cost five out of ten.

I would very likely recommend the product to my colleagues. 

We are a solution provider and we take on support and integration projects. I provide resources to my clients and one of the products that they work with is Anaplan.

Anaplan is used for different business cycles. For example, in sales, we can use it for the ESD cycle, order-to-cash process, and the procure-to-pay process, to find the sales turnover. 

Another use case is finding out sales demand and forecast.

There is a full set of reports available for sales.

Automation needs to be built into this solution. There are various cycles within the platform and I am not able to easily enter a single case.

Anaplan is a stable solution.

This product is scalable.

Technical support has been good.

The initial setup is straightforward. There is no complexity to it.

It is deployed with code that has been designed for Anaplan.

We integrate this product for our clients, and we also handle the support.

ROI is not something that I see in my role.

This is an expensive product and if the price were reduced then it would attract more customers.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is that they need the right partner to implement it. I am certified in Anaplan and I recommend that people use somebody who is certified. They will know the process and understand end-to-end business cycles, so it will be easy for them to implement.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Anaplan is used for various financial planning, such as supply chain, and consolidation.

My clients exhibit enhanced efficiency in financial planning, supply chain management, demand planning, and financial consolidation. They possess superior visibility, enabling swift action-taking.

The most valuable feature of Anaplan is machine learning. The solution is constantly evolving from feedback. Additionally, there is a wide range of training material online.

The price of the solution can improve.

I have been using Anaplan for approximately eight years.

The solution is generally stable. There are tweaks that need to be made for optimum stability.

The solution is highly scalable.

We do the support ourselves and rarely needed global support from the vendor.

We did not use another solution previously.

The initial setup of Anaplan is easy because it is low code or no code deployments. The full process of deployment can take six months. We do not need a lot of resources for the deployment.

We do the difficult customization for the customers. We provide our customers with feedback.

The price of the solution is expensive.

If the solution is built correctly there is no maintenance needed.

The crucial aspect is to ensure that there are individuals who possess the knowledge to effectively utilize the tool. It is akin to piloting an airplane, where one must first acquire the skills to fly before attempting to operate it. Otherwise, they will crash it.

I rate Anaplan a seven out of ten.

We use Anaplan for a lot of different things, but mostly in sales planning.

The features that I have found most valuable are that it is web-based and easy to use.

In terms of what could be improved, when there is a lot of data, it sometimes takes long to load.

In the new experience, it does not let you pick a list in the formula box like it did in the old experience. I would like that to be included in the new release.

I have been using Anaplan for about a year and a half.

It is a low maintenance solution.

The support is pretty good. They get back to you within a week.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Anaplan an eight.

We use Anaplan as a retail budgeting and planning solution. We use our retail private-based planning solution for almost one hundred entities. Anaplan is a cloud-based solution. 

We have integrated SAP with Anaplan because our base is SAP. Anaplan doesn't require any coding language. It's very Excel-based with respect to the models, so a user should be very strong in modeling.

Anaplan is a driver-based solution. For a finance-driven project, the business inputs the revenue or the expense lines, which is directly connected to your financial statements and further integrated to your core systems for your consolidation of other things. For example, with store planning for new stores, it calculates the ROI.

It's real-time connected planning, so the calculations are pretty much seamless as far as your model is connected. That's the major advantage, and it's cloud-based and very UX friendly.

There are workspace issues, like the limitation on model sizes. The model is very limited to 130GB, a base model. We were one of the use cases to go beyond 130GB for a model size. So it's not enterprise-wide. Performance is quite weak if there are concurrent users. In the next release, I would like to see performance improved. It can't handle concurrent users because of the way it's designed.

Integration is not that strong. We use a connector called Anaplan Connect, which needs a lot of interface to work on.

License cost is quite huge compared to the other solutions we ran in the market. It's too costly for SME businesses.

I have been using Anaplan for three years.

Anaplan invests a lot. In the past year, there have been a lot of developed features. They have spent a lot of time on R&D and pretty much every day, every quarter, or every 15 days they do an announcement pack, and every month I see new features coming in because they have made a lot of improvements.

But they have also made a lot of improvements that might not add value to us. However, I like to see more and more as we get into new business cases. Within a month, there could be 10 to 15 improvements, and not all will be useful for us, but from a product strategy perspective, it's good. From a business point of view, we use maybe one or two developments because of how we have developed it earlier.

They have restrictions on the space, so scalability is currently limited, but they are working on that because they are trying to make it wider.

We have around 300 people using Anaplan in our organization, and they have a category of users to work on. Model builders manage the model and there are also planners and then reporting users. We have a wide range of users, like IT consultants, who are on the lead level. I lead, but I also do hands-on. There are developers and then FP&A professionals, and I have brand managers and finance managers who are doing the reporting.

Our entire retail division is on Anaplan for FP&A solutions. Every business is using it. Once you get in, you can't come out because you have replaced your traditional way of planning using Anaplan, so pretty much all users are bound to use it. From a scalability point of view, our organization is quite wide with respect to divisions, like retail. We brought treasury in for cash flows. We are working on real estate and probably will go with automotive soon.

We are thinking that our numbers will increase to around a thousand plus. The reporting is quite huge because that's the cheaper one in Anaplan. With planning, you will be reaching around 400 plus because it's not financial alone; it's business cum finance, so it's a wide reach.

They are very customer oriented. You get your responses very quickly, and their turnaround to fix problems is also very quick: around four hours. They don't have any kind of portal, but they are building on it. It is all through mail communication. Once you send something,  there is somebody immediately supporting you 24/7.

They have a huge documentation space for troubleshooting. Because it's a very small solution with less customization, it's more about your thought process and they have forums to help you out based on user experience. From a technical side, it is very easy to understand. But to do the customization part you need someone for support, and the forums are helpful.

We have business planning and consolidation SAP BPC. It's primarily a financial-driven tool because you just do it at a high level and collect information as a data dump. You don't have any driver-based solutions that extensively in BPC. We went with Anaplan because our focus was on driver-based solutions and cloud strategy.

The solutions are completely different because the other solution is purely an Excel-based solution, a native product, and is much less driver-based. It was very finance-focused, but Anaplan is quite a different strategy for us.

It's very straightforward actually and much more user friendly. A business can run it, and I learned Anaplan during this course.

Normally, the deployment shouldn't take more than three to four months for simple usage. For us, we took around six months because of the user adoption, which is a hundred plus entities. The six months included the customization and testing.

It's a top-down approach. Basically, you go to the end to see what you want and work backward to the calculations and data.

Right now, we haven't seen any ROI from using Anaplan. With the current solution, we are trying to make that work because that was our first learning. When we thought it would reach to business, we struggled to establish the finance itself. When it reaches to business, you get the ROI. If it doesn't reach to business, it is just another tool where people just upload data. We got licenses and we pretty much use them for different focus areas. We have had success in a few cases, but we haven't gotten the full ROI, which is what we invested initially.

The license is a yearly subscription. There are three licensing tiers: the model builder, planner, and the reporting. The reporting is the cheapest. Model builder is the costliest one. Depending on the type of license you buy, you get more spaces to work on.

There are some additional costs to the standard licensing fees. For example, we go with the extended workspace ISIS. For that, they charge for model optimization if you are below the premium customer level, so we were having more licenses. We are in the premium level, but if you are below premium, they charge for your model optimization, or they charge you if they want to investigate something on the licenses.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10. There is still room for improvement because of the integration issues. 

If your strategies are more toward driver-based solutions and if you have a very lean implementation approach, Anaplan is the best solution you can get. If you're okay with spending lots of money and aren't SAP-bound, Anaplan is the best in the market right now.

I'm using Anaplan to provide production support for my client. The Anaplan model is already there and what I'm doing is fixing bugs updating the logic. That's my main role in the project. I will fix those queues for the business and update some processes or dashboards to better suit business needs, as per their requests.

I believe Anaplan is a new cloud tool, and from time to time, there's a lot of improvement that the Anaplan company deploys with the system. So, with that improvement, we need to really adapt and know the new system trends.

I like updating the current model. For example, if the business wants to see a different version or a different report style, I'm happy to work, manipulate, and do some data visualization changes for them.

The dashboard could be better. Because within a dashboard or report, you have to do a lot of scrolling. You need to scroll down because the table doesn't fit in a single view. That's why even the users aren't happy with that kind of user experience. They need to scroll to see all the data, and it could be better if it fits in just one page. That way, you can see everything.

In the next release, I want automation that's connected to Anaplan. For example, to load master data from SAP to Anaplan. I don't know if this already exists, but a log where you can see the progress and see if there's an error will also help. It would be better to give you the error message, for example, if there is an error within the automated process importing to Anaplan.

I have been using the Anaplan tool for about three years.

Right now, Anaplan is very stable. It has some downtime from time to time, but they're able to reinstate it to work as it is. I think many of our users have a demand planner, and they are the main users of Anaplan for our clients. Many of them are in field sales roles, and these people are in the market selling the product. I believe the number of users ranges from 30 to 50 for one country.

In terms of scalability, Anaplan is great. Right now, there's a lot of changes that need to happen in our model, and I believe you can easily ask for an increase in size, and it can adopt the new logic that encouraged a lot of space.

Sometimes, we find bugs within the system, and we don't know how to fix them. So, every year we file maybe five to ten tickets with Anaplan support to fix the bugs that we found.

I used IBM Cognos TM1, which is now called Planning Analytics. I started using Anaplan because I was given an additional role, and I started supporting Anaplan simultaneously. 

I think there's a lot of differences between Anaplan and IBM because Anaplan is cloud-based. But I believe IBM Planning Analytics is getting on the cloud as well. The old version of IBM is more like a remote desktop. But Anaplan is on the cloud, and you can access it via the web anywhere you go.

The initial setup is quite complex because we have this one development team, and we have plenty of markets connected to one model. There's a lot of customization to tailor-fit with the market requirements and with the country requirements. Setting up a new model takes the team at least three months or five months at most.

We implemented this solution. We followed the Agile methodology, and there were a lot of sprints for two weeks and then we released all the enhancements or deployments. It's very fast-paced.

I would advise potential users to have a good model builder and a solutions architect to transform their business complexity into an Anaplan module or dashboard that fits and works for them. They need to have a great solutions architect, a finder, and the end model builder, which will convert this complexity in Excel and to an equivalent Anaplan report.

The biggest lesson I learned using the Anaplan is that everyone can learn to use the Anaplan tool if they have the perseverance to learn. Everything is in Google, and you can Google the logic that you need to apply to a given bug or issue with the module within the system. It's continuous learning, and you have to keep learning and using the Anaplan system every day to be more familiar with the tool.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Anaplan a nine.

We concentrate now on financial planning. However, we have intentions to move towards supply planning. My company uses the tool to know the key players in the market.

I am impressed with the tool’s real-time calculations and intuitive interface. The tool’s user interface is the best compared to other software that I have worked with. I also find the tool’s management reporting feature valuable.

The tool needs to work on its integration with MS Excel and MS Word. The tool does not allow data analysis in spreadsheets which is possible on other platforms. I want the solution to be more collaborative to facilitate decision-making in organizations.

I have been working with the solution for three to four years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. There are around 10-20 users for the solution.

The tool’s support is responsive but its Workaround Time is not very helpful.

Neutral

We chose Anaplan based on the client’s requirements.

The tool’s setup is easy. The tool’s deployment depends on the requirements of both users and clients. The overall deployment will not take more than four to five weeks to complete. One week is required for the determination of user requirements and another four to five weeks for the solution’s deployment.

The tool’s pricing is reasonable and competitive with other solutions.

I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. This product is an important Enterprise Performance Management tool. It has one of the most powerful calculation engines called Hyperblock.