Board Reviews

• Drill down
• Split & Splat

• Budget & forecast process

• Supply chain

I have used it for six years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

Customer service is 10/10.

Technical support is 10/10.

We previously used Excel and OLAP cubes. We switched because BOARD is easier to use.

Initial setup was complex because my company has its own fiscal calendar that was difficult to set up.

A vendor team implemented it. I rate it 8/10.

The ROI is great.

• Great cost\benefit ratio

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated IBM Cognos and QliqView.

I hope to improve BOARD in all business areas.

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 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.

Our primary use for BOARD was initially to report income statements and other P&Ls to our executive team, which was our phase one of implementing BOARD. Our phase two would be uploading from external data, then analyzing the external data with the internal data.

It has been going great, but there is still a lot to learn (a lot of training) that we can get from BOARD because our company is pretty small. We do not have a team dedicated to BOARD because it is a full time job if you are deciding to develop it from the ground up. We would need to allocate more time into something like that. 

Right now, we are not using the product to its fullest potential.

I do not think it has that great of an impact on our company yet. We have not yet been able to dedicate the time and training towards it. 

For me, it is useful! We are a finance team, though not in finance, but it is working out well for our team.

The aesthetics of it are really nice. That is what attracted us to BOARD: the ease and functionality of it. Once you start using it, you can't go back to the old Excel.

I would like an eLearning platform for BOARD. I heard it was in development, and it is on the way. 

It is pretty stable. 

The product should fit our needs in several years.

The support from the BOARD team and their consultants is great. Whenever I use technical support, they are good.

Before BOARD, we were just using Excel.

We switched to BOARD because our goal is customer probability. I think its our executive manager's solution to consolidate all the data from different data points from all the different departments like marketing, operations, finance, and sales, then gather them all in one place and effectively distribute the information without developing a new solution.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

BOARD was the only company that came onsite to do a demo. Their demonstration blew us away. The dashboard looked amazing.

Before you implement. look at what you want to achieve before you start working on building a database, then starting an implementation. Make decisions on what you want to do for your company.

Looking at BOARD 11, it looks impressive. I like the new design, user interface, and everything is on the cloud.

What do you appreciate most in a vendor?

• All the different, little plugins that they have for Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint. It makes it very easy to use.
• The cloud and desktop client are very easy to use. 
• At first, the product was not very intuitive, but now if you get it, it is customizable.

I have been using BOARD for the last four years to create financial reports, create budget scenarios, perform budget cycle, run consolidations, create dashboards and visualizations. BOARD provides in-depth insight to enable users in their decision-making process. Taking data and making it easily readable/ready-to-use.

• BOARD helps by providing access to all sources and data. 
• Changes can be made easily by the users themselves. 
• The reports are easy to play around with. 
• Management can customise the filters as per their requirement.

• Easy to install
• User-friendly
• Data presentation is great
• Many features and tools to choose from
• Information is easily accessible and clear.

• More visualization could be brought in
• More customization of data in regards to specific user requirements.

Three to five years.

We started using BOARD as part of a solution. We're developing using BOARD to go into implementation for our customers.

In terms of performance, it's still pretty new to us. It's good. We know BOARD is very powerful, but there is a big learning curve that we still have to get through.

There are definitely a lot of benefits we're still discovering. We have our own software but our reporting functionality and different workflows are not as flexible and mature as what BOARD can do. That's why we have it.

It's very powerful. BOARD is a good platform. Without actually programming, you can develop a workflow and solutions for a lot of things.

Again, it's very powerful, but there is also a big learning curve. It should be a little more intuitive.

In development we have issues for which we have had to open tickets. It's part of the learning process. We don't know where exactly it's going wrong. It's not quite intuitive sometimes.

We're starting with two projects; we expect many more new projects that we're going to partner on with BOARD.

We were doing more home-grown development. Our collaboration piece, again, is not as powerful, as flexible, nor can it expand in the future, as much as BOARD can.

BOARD is a very good solution to compared to other reporting/BI tools out there. Also, because we are based in Boston and BOARD's headquarters is in Boston, I think helped make it an easy choice. And within our company, on the European side - it's an Italian company - they already have a relationship with BOARD.

When selecting a vendor the most important criteria are the 

• software features
• support
• education they provide to help the internal resources get up to speed.

Personally, I think the setup and the concept is intuitive, but once when you get into detail, try to get to a solution, that's where the challenge is.

I would tell a colleague the same thing we're experiencing. BOARD is very powerful, flexible, but it takes an initial learning curve.

Ease of use and completeness of the offering.

This platform has help our organization streamline our budget process and give us insight into our customers, products & services.

Product is excellent, no areas of improvement that are not currently in the product or on its roadmap.

3 Years

Very high level of customer service.

Excellent

Yes - Paris software POLAP and Business Objects from SAP.

Easy installation and minimal SQL skills to get it up and running quickly.

In-house

The primary use case is developing a demand planning/collaboration platform. It's performing well.

The collaboration part. That is the tool that our client is really using.

I would like to see a better Web client, where the controls work the same way as in the Windows client. I do think that the focus is now on the Web, so it should be improved upon.

I think the stability can be improved upon, but overall it is stable.

We've seen downtime from our side, that we did not design it the way that it was going to be used. But I also see that we have had to take away features because it was not supported in the way that we wanted it. We're using it in the client versus Web; in the client it works and in the Web it doesn't. So we had to pull certain controls off the screen.

I think it's very scalable. We hardly see the impact on the tool, the CPU, the memory, when the users are connecting through it, through the Web. The Windows client is a different story. It's not scalable at all, so we decided to go with the Web.

There is room for improvement. In the beginning there was a struggle reaching the right person, especially in the same time zone. That has been resolved. I think it's getting better over the months, but it can still be improved upon.

The company that I work for is based in Italy, so all the support was coming through Italy. Now, the support now is U.S.-based, which is better for us.

When selecting a vendor, in general, the most important factors are their

• being responsive
• being truthful.

If I have an issue, I don't care if they say, "We cannot fix it," or, "We'll fix it in a later version." Communicate that.

My advice would be, you should seriously consider this solution.