Board Reviews

We use it for a few different things: 

• Our budget
• Sales reporting
• Performance tracking for some of our operations' groups. 

In the last year or two, we have seen a ramp up of usage. Other than some performance issues, we have been having some pretty good success with the product. 

It has definitely saved us time, especially in our budget and planning processes. A lot of time was previously spent manually manipulating information. Now, the information is there, so they can actually look at it and utilize it for forecasting and planning. 

The drill down is good for people who have that high level view, because they can do some analysis based on it. 

I also think the visuals are good; being able to get away from Excel and automate some things. Thus, people are not spending all their time manipulating manual data, and being able to pull from several data sources. Therefore, we have come up with some nice views. 

I would like to see more flexibility in terms of the visuals. Also, some more flexibility around the design and the formatting, because a lot of times the hard sell is to people who have a certain view in mind and we can't necessarily replicate it. In BOARD, even though it is better in terms of the process, they still want to change look and feel, e.g., colors, etc. 

It is pretty stable. The only issue that we seem to have is with the performance, which with version 11, it looks like they might have addressed it.

The more that we use it in our company, the more other departments are looking to use it. I think it has the ability to keep up with this growth. 

My analysts have used the technical support. Sometimes they have felt like they did not receive the answer that they needed, or you have to go and upgrade in order to address a problem. 

It was set up right as I started with the company. 

Make sure you know what you want before you start having someone work on building and designing something. A lot of times in the past (for us), people had what they thought was an idea of what they wanted, we would do all this work, then they would look at it and say, "No, that's not what we want." Then, we would have to start from scratch again. Definitely spend the time upfront to map everything out. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• Availability
• Good communication
• Good technical knowledge, but also being able to speak to non-technical people. 

We use it for budget development and revenue forecasting, and it's performing quite well right now. 

There have been some minor hiccups, not with the BOARD platform itself, but it's just the learning, getting familiar with the product, and the end-user accepting the application. In a government organization, there has been some struggle to get people to use the tool, versus what they've used before.

I don't think it's the learning curve, because the way New Brain designed the application for us, it's fairly user friendly. I think it's more of a hesitancy to stop inputting things on Excel spreadsheets and then inputting things into the BOARD software itself. We're only about a year and a half into it, and what I'm finding is that they kept both. They've kept their Excel sheets. So they are doing double entry. They're were doing entry into Excel as well as entry into the BOARD system, because they didn't quite trust the application yet. Now that we're in year two, the second budget season with the system, they've stopped using some of those Excel spreadsheets. They're relying more on the BOARD application itself.

The way that we designed the personal service forecasting module - about 80% of our operating budget is personal-service related in government. The way that it allows us to take all the variables in, and do a lot of "what if" scenario planning on it, I think is the greatest benefit.

For me, because I do a lot of the administration of the system, it's just how easy it was to set up and how easy it is to maintain.

Being only about a year and a half into using the tool, I don't think I know enough of what's still possible. I'm excited to learn about the e-learning tool and the community that's just starting out.

If I was to look at it, from my point of view, there's a lot of report writing that we have to do in the government sector, so maybe explaining how we integrate with, for example, a publishing software, would be helpful.

It wasn't because of BOARD, it was more because we have integrated it with our ERP system, and we have made changes in our ERP system without filtering those through to our BOARD software. So it wasn't BOARD, it was really a self-inflicted kind situation.

The platform has worked wonderfully for us. There haven't been any issues that I've seen with the platform. In fact, we're looking at - maybe in the next year, or next two years - integrating more into it, really expanding what we're currently using it for, which is just budgets; to look at it and see what else we can do with it. It's very customizable.

I think there's a lot more that we could be doing. Right now it's just really budgets that we're using it for. I'm really interested in learning how we can use BEAM for our revenue forecasting, or revenue predictive analytics; how we use that in a government setting. The tools that we have now are really just Excel. 

Excellent. We've only done it through their online technical support, but we have had where we couldn't just solve it through an email, and they have been really very good about setting up time for us to make service calls with them. I love their technical support.

The budget system that we were using prior to investing in BOARD was written back in the early 90s, and it had a hard-coded date in there that it would not let us to do any forecasting beyond the year 2017. So we were forced into looking at another application. I spent about a year looking at applications. 

I chose BOARD because of the way that I was able to change it over time and integrate, not only a line-item budget, but also a strategic budget. I was able to bring in all those other pieces into it, and it wasn't just strictly an accounting stream. I am able to do more of the predictive analytics and the forecasting, and move the city into that direction instead of just the numbers.

We worked with New Brain. New Brain made it really easy for us to learn the tool. They spent a lot of time with us just talking through the business. Working in the Finance department, we had to integrate - since the Finance department is decentralized, the capital budgets were done in a different department. New Brain really helped me work with the capital folks to identify their business process. They didn't even know all of their business process. So it was really nice that New Brain was able to help with all of those conversations, and help us even streamline our business processes within capital.

With New Brain, it was all about their experience with other local municipalities, and working with governments in fund accounting. Fund accounting is quite different from private business accounting. That's what drew us to New Brain, not only the BOARD application, but also their background in working with government.

Technical support is definitely a 10 out of 10. The system solution is about a nine out of 10, and the only reason why I would give it a nine and not a 10, is that it still takes IT folks to really support it. It's not totally able to be supported within Finance. Given the amount of resources that a government has, we have a very small IT staff, and the departments are more relied upon to do their own IT. That's the only reason why I would give it a nine.

I like this solution because it's so versatile, you can really model it after your specific business practices. It's not the case that you might have to change your business practices to fit into it.

Our primary use case is corporate reporting. We are implementing it in phases. We did finance, then we did what we call our direct consumer group. Now, we are working on our production case goods (inventory).

For the most part, it is performing okay. I am having some performance problems with the data. We are going back to all the transactions by day. Therefore, we might need to have a little help from our consultants with this at some point. We have not yet spoken with technical support about this issue as it is a brand new problem.

Our data is now more structured. Between our data warehouse and BOARD, which are both brand new, we now have a more structured data view with more accurate, timely data.

We can also build reports super fast.

You can build reports pretty quickly. 

We do not use BOARD as our main data store. We have a data warehouse that BOARD consumes data from. Therefore, our data's fairly organized before it comes into BOARD. All of the dimensions and fact tables are all lined up already in the data warehouse. Thus, it is an easy task to get the data into BOARD.

If we build a ton of procedural stuff, it is not good at alerting us to what may have failed, like logging and job steps. It is our understanding from the jobs we continue to run, even though one step might have failed, that functionality is not what we would like to see. 

We would like to see it stop and report that there was an issue, and that we need to resolve it from that point moving forward. In general, we would like to see better logging in the procedural world as we currently find it deficient in procedural areas. 

I have not seen any stability issues.

We have not tried to scale it much as we do not have that many users. At the moment, we have around 10 maximum. However, this could change.

It is hard because we are not speaking on the phone. We are going back and forth with emails, and I think it is getting lost in transition on a couple of the issues that I have had because it is an email chain versus a phone call or a chat. Emails are hard for technical stuff. 

However, I have not used the technical support that much, because we are still engaged with the consultants, not yet switching completely to the technical support. We have weekly calls with the consultants. They are a type of technical support.

It was before my time at the company.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

We evaluated Tableau, Power BI, and BOARD, then chose BOARD. 

Try to use all the out-of-the-box functionality. Try to use BOARD for what it is good at doing and do not tread outside its capabilities, because then you start running into issues, such as writing procedures. When possible, do not write procedures. Procedures are necessary, but we are backing away from writing them. We are trying to use BOARD out-of-the-box.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: The consultants have always been helpful. They make sure that we are successful. I appreciate that.

We implement the solution. We have about 50 customers, mainly around budgeting, planning, or supply-chain orientated.

In terms of its performance, our customers are very happy.

Better integrating of operational and financial processes. Driving everything to reduce working capital and inventory. Big things, as opposed to just deficiencies.

The ability to do Write-back and visualization, with minimal IT development orientation.

I'd like to see a more passive report user for enterprise report writers who aren't particularly technical, so you could really get it out there to literally every employee, or every customer.

It's good. I feel it's stable in our client base, and I'm quite confident that the new version will increase the scalability.

I think it is scalable. We have small customers, we have large customers. And it seems to go with the growth of the process and the data. We haven't really tested it for large volumes of big data yet. That's what we're exploiting with the new version when it comes.

The initial set up is really rapid, quite quick. It's simple, it's IT-driven, typically.

It's got that combination of everything. I'm a business person predominantly, so I don't like having technical solutions. And it's something even I - and I'm not a consultant - can  deploy. I like that about it.

I'd still recommend that you need an experienced practitioner to take you through a well-designed solution. It's not about the technology, I think it's about the experience that people bring to designing a solution: building the data architecture, integration; leveraging their smarts. At least the first time, work with a partner.

We are a supply chain software provider. We have been using BOARD to create a collaborative platform for users to modify and make edits. This is the primary use case, along with our clients. Also, the flexibility has been great and the performance has been optimal. 

Our organization doesn't use a dynamic feed, but our clients have improved a lot in terms of coordination and communication. This has improved their internal performance. 

The reporting part has been very valuable as the capabilities of the tool do not have to change graphs, change how grids are displayed, and can create reports on the fly. These are things that our customers tend to like. 

It is snappy, and it is quick. 

• We are looking for ways to distinguish zeros versus nulls in BOARD. 
• We are looking at ways to improve how we deal with security in BOARD and other similar things. 

The stability has been fine. We have an additional challenge because we have to integrate it not only with where we are pulling the data, but with our own technology, as if we are implementing three systems. This has been challenging, but we are slowly improving on it. Hopefully, future implementations will be quick. This downtime is mainly due to our learning curve.

It is highly scalable.

BOARD has been very supportive, though we still have to find a way to extract as much knowledge from them as possible.

I personally do not develop in BOARD. We have been investing in our own resources, therefore we have a couple of people who can develop in BOARD (to provide support).

We have an internal solution. However, we think it is sub-optimal. This is why we work with the BOARD. We have other partners with some similar cookies, but not exactly.

We switched to BOARD because we felt the need to have flexibility, and BOARD had the performance that others did not. 

Implementation is rather complex.

BOARD has a lot of flexibility, but it is sort of a development tool. It is not an out-of-the-box kit where you can just feed it in. It needs to be constructed, and it needs an expert to learn it.

We have been very happy with what we have seen. We are pretty new to this. We have done three implementations so far. BOARD has been performing well and is very efficient, though we have to improve the implementation time on our end.

I would personally advise looking into BOARD (depending on your needs).

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

1. Product
2. Relationship with our clients/partners.

If we do not have a sustainable working relationship, then we can't move forward, even if the product is outstanding.

Mainly with our sales forecasting, cost-center budgeting, and financial reporting. We implemented last September, and had some startup issues, but that's normal. Since we ironed those out, it's been working pretty well. 

We went live with our 2018 sales forecast. We're just starting our first revision of that annual budget. There is a little bit of work to get that going, but that seems to be working well. And we're getting in the various reporting for the different business uses. So, so far, so good.

It has sped things up - since we never have enough time to get things done. This has streamlined the process. Before, sales was doing Excel spreadsheets, and then we were putting that in a forecasting system. This, on the other hand, is all direct, and we can report right from it. Then we're loading actuals in, so it's a much more streamlined approach.

Having one version of the truth. And we're tracking each revision, so we can say, "Okay, this is what you said, and now it looks like you're coming down or you're going up. You need to explain why." It's good that everyone sees the same numbers and can see what we're seeing. It makes things a little bit easier.

We, and finance and accounting, use the client more, where everyone else is on the Web version. Going between the two makes it difficult sometimes. But nothing you can't deal with.

We've had a few little issues. We adopted the cloud version, we were something of a guinea pig for them. They've had a few issues that they were able to work out. But overall, it's a few bumps here and there, but it seems to be working well now.

Scalability is very good. We went away from our old system, partly because it had been life-cycled. But we always had issues with the size. We tend to budget at a detailed level, SKU-based, with all the customers. And we ran into limitations on what we could do. Where with BOARD, it seems, we have even expanded what we do, and we're not having any issues with response time and the like. It should be able to satisfy our needs for the coming years.

We were using Datum, I think Cognos bought them, or IBM. It reached its lifecycle, and they were reviewing, I think it was their TM1 system. We did a whole RFP, and had several vendors, from Oracle and BOARD and the TM1 system. We did a whole analysis and BOARD came out the winner.

We chose it for the usability. It was a lot easier to see the process and have the users involved. It was more collaborative, they felt it's their ownership as opposed to our trying to push that. So at least now they have the tools to make that easier for them. 

Again, it's our first go-around, so we're still working out the kinks. And there are complaints, but with anything new, that's always the case. Salespeople like to complain.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor are financial stability and a company that is looking toward the future and taking advantage of the new technologies. Our old solution, they life-cycled and they weren't really supporting that system and they had moved on. BOARD continues to grow and develop, and understands the needs of dynamic organizations, and seems to adopt their product to that. So it seemed like a good fit.

I was not involved in the IT setup, but setting up what and how we wanted to report, I was involved with that. It was pretty straightforward. Just getting used to the different way the BOARD handles things, as opposed to our previous systems. Nothing that difficult; just getting used to things.

I would tell colleagues to give this a good look. The setup may be a little bit more time-consuming, and understanding how everything works together. But longer term, it will probably save in the end. I don't have to be looking for other bolt-ons, it covers everything. So I would say that's probably the best advice. You may need more than one other solution, where with this, I think it will cover all your bases.

We have two primary use cases:

1. Visualizations and dashboards.
2. Budgeting, planning, and forecasting.

Relative to other products that I have worked with, it works quite well. Obviously, there is a little bit of organization that is required. However, overall, it runs quite well.

It allows them to look at their data differently. 

In the past, they were limited to spreadsheets. Coupled with this tool, they can catch their data to understand where they are at a lot quicker, then see what is going on.

The visualizations. It has a good set of visual elements that you can use and can explain quite well.

We are in the partner channel. I would like to see better relationships with the partners. For example, I have discussed it with the support team that when it comes to supporting the product, if a request comes in from a partner, we should be able to bypass Level 1 support. They should move to Level 2. They should assume that we have already done some of the initial legwork that Level 1 might have already done. We might know the exact cause, the exact root cause of the problem, and/or we need to figure out how we can fix it.

One of the things that I would like to see is the ability to have a rule directly referenced on the cubes.

The stability is pretty good. We have used other systems, and it is on par with the big competitors out there.

We have not had a chance to scale it up too much. We have had some test cases where we used some existing data to scale it up, but we really have not tested the limits of what it can do. I do not think there will be an issue in the years down the road with what they already have.

BOARD technical support is knowledgeable and helpful.

The product is much easier to use, because it is geared towards more of a user-friendly force with the implementation. The user substance view is a lot quicker. They see it, and you can quickly show something that they understand if their data is available. 

The implementation is probably quicker. With other products, because of the complexity, users might not like them so much.

We implement BOARD at different clients. We need to understand what their situation is, then we can figure out how best to help them with this tool.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: A commitment to the product as well as the willingness to help support the product.

We use BOARD for financial statements. 

It is performing great. My managers love it. It is easy for them to look at their budget and review their expenses at budget time so they can know what to budget for the following year, but also to keep track of their expenses during the year and not go over their budgets. 

It has streamlined the organization.

It has benefited us by reducing time. 

Also, we are able to easily export data. When directors need financial information, we can go in the system and export the data, then send it out so they have it ready and available. If they are not in the office, we can email it to them. In addition, all the managers are now more on top of their expenses and their budget, so it is better streamlined. 

It makes it easier for me since a manager can actually look at their budget and account, then understand it. Also, where it used to take me three days at the beginning of the year to create the new financial statement, now it is a matter of minutes because all the data is in the system. 

If we could upload other data, e.g., pivot tables which can be done in BOARD already, that we have pre-existing and have that data distribute to more complex spreadsheets, I would like that going forward.

No stability issues. Everything has been good.

We did have some downtime because there are only two staff members in my division. My managers continuously use it, except we do not have the time to continuously update it.

No scalability issues.

The person that we worked with, Roberto, understood what we needed and helped us when we had questions. We felt at ease and that we could always go back to him, email or call him. He was always ready and available to help us out.

We have not used technical support.

We were just using spreadsheet.

The initial setup was very complex for us. 

I am looking forward to the upgrade for BOARD 11. We have to learn all the back-end of the setup. We do not have the company that comes in with everything already preset. We have to learn it and set it up ourselves. If we dedicate the time to it, we will get it.

We did look at a competitor.

If you want to streamline your business and reduce hourly time using the creation of spreadsheets or other financial reports that they should go for BOARD because it drastically reduces time. It will also make your financials ready and available for any type of financial planning or reporting. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: We needed somebody who would understand what we wanted and the output that we needed.