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Adaptive Insights vs Board comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cognos
Sponsored
Ranking in Reporting
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (7th)
Adaptive Insights
Ranking in Reporting
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (8th), Financial Performance and Strategy Management (3rd), Data Visualization (12th), ESG Reporting Software (5th)
Board
Ranking in Reporting
20th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (24th), Business Performance Management (10th)
 

Featured Reviews

Carlos Larrad Salgado - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved the quality of our KPIs, while reducing calls to the IT department
I don't like that when we use Colab packages, we get less functionality. For example, you can make groups of data with Excel or with the data sets from the packages, but when you use the Colab packages directly, you can only group the data when you analyze it with Analysis Studio. I think Cognos needs to improve more on this functionality. The user experience is also very important. Cognos is not very easy to understand sometimes, especially when they change the layout but keep the functionality the same. The help is not very graphic and they have no examples. Cognos has to make a big effort to help with understanding the functionality by improving the documentation. There is a lot of documentation, but the examples are hard to find and they should make their help section easier to understand for non-technical users.
Andrew Rosenberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Adaptive scales well, simple to create new budget versions and models
For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.
Wiboon Thabsuwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use and requires less time to learn or understand its features
I think the product is good in terms of ease of use. The interface looks really nice and very easy to use. Every command appears in the icon. It looks like you don't have to understand everything about the command. You do not necessarily have to know more, or I would say that there is less time for our study about the products. Functionality-wise, it is quite easy to use and requires less time to understand or learn about the product. I am a software vendor, so I do not use the tool myself. I use it for my clients. My clients mostly use it for budgeting and timing purposes. I would say that's really less maintenance at all because they can do everything by themselves. It is good in terms of ease of use.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"This solution allows you to input a wide range of file formats."
"Report Studio: This is the most powerful and sophisticated tool for professional reporting."
"Previously, we were doing static reporting. Management would request a report, and it would take staff a week or more to provide it. With Cognos, we have dynamic reporting, and it has reduced both reporting and decision making times significantly. With the solution's dashboard, the company's management team has updated records at their fingertips. This means that they can directly access the data they need to make decisions."
"One of the strong suits of Cognos is its robust corporate reporting capability."
"IBM Cognos offers tools so that you can design and develop your own test queries and reporting solutions."
"The comprehensiveness or broadness of the software functions or business intelligence functions that it provides is valuable. It is also quite easy to use and user-friendly."
"The dashboarding offered by this solution is very valuable to us."
"The main difference that I like about Cognos compared to other solutions is its data splitting functionality. We have all our company data inside the Cognos environment and so we prefer to split the information Cognos itself. It's more efficient this way."
"We utilize planning on a daily basis, therefore we find it to be the most valuable product for our organization."
"It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company."
"The integration with our payroll system to complete staff modeling during our budget and forecast processes."
"Automated reporting."
"The important feature is integration with source data. It connects to various ERP systems, including Workday, Intact, and others. It can also import actuals and compare them to PlanPoint quite easily."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its dashboard."
"Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements."
"It's very stable."
"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."
"It is useful for self-analysis regarding company data and helps to find areas where we can improve."
"Primary valuable features are its flexibility and versatility and, obviously, functionality goes along with that. Plus, it does that at a small footprint in the file servers, and does it very efficiently."
"My favourite feature of BOARD is the ability to write back to the OLAP DB, as well as the Rdb, and secure user data allowing databases to be flushed and rebuilt daily."
"The ability to do write back and visualization, with minimal IT development orientation."
"It is easy to make quick updates. As the business changes, we can maintain the tool without programming help from IT."
"The support from the BOARD team and their consultants is great. Whenever I use technical support, they are good."
"With the combination of 24/7 global support and their community, there was great customer service, tech support, and community support."
 

Cons

"One key area for improvement is the need to improve the self-service nature and functionality of the product in terms of visual analytics."
"It would be nice to offer free online training on the tool for end-users."
"It is a costly product; it is comparatively expensive."
"The AI-based features could be further enhanced by the solution."
"Most of our company's customers want to be able to deploy IBM Cognos on a web application and use it as a desktop application, which is not possible currently."
"It could have more options for themes."
"I would like them to reinclude PowerPlay. One thing that I am missing in the current Cognos is what was formally named PowerPlay. They have basically removed PowerPlay from it, which is something that I fail to understand because it was the most wonderful tool for business intelligence that I've ever used. As far as I know, they don't provide this functionality anymore, so this is one thing that I dislike about Cognos."
"I would like to see is more easy building, movement in the reports, and dashboard functionality within reporting. Overall more simple elements within reports. If the elements are simple then you don't have to render a full page, but you can move separate parts in the page."
"Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident."
"Users continue to become more advanced and are looking for more advanced solutions."
"It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that."
"Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals."
"The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up."
"We tried Discovery and OfficeConnect at one point and found them too cumbersome, at the time."
"Better user interface (UI)."
"The upload feature exists, but isn't terribly useful."
"​One of the things that I would like to see is the ability to have a rule directly referenced on the cubes.​"
"In terms of scalability, I would say that there are some limitations in the solution. It cannot handle data that is too big."
"It would be nice to be able to host your site and actually have BOARD be the driver of your site. So you could have anybody in your organization go to www.myorg.com, for example, and then go through what you allow them to go through. So rather than having to go through the application, to be able to go to actually host it to a website."
"​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. ​"
"We have had some challenges with newer version of the rollout in terms of stability."
"It can have more functionality for narrative reporting. They should also improve their training courses, which are currently very lightweight. When you get into more complex things, it is quite difficult to figure out what you're supposed to do, and you have to look at a lot of videos before you actually understand, which is a bit frustrating. Their training can be more comprehensive."
"The one thing that I think we would like to see in terms of improvement of the application is the ability to print. It's fantastic to have all of these graphic visualization of data, but we're not able to very easily just print... From my perspective, if you can have a little "print" button and then you just click it and it would produce what's on the screen, that would be very helpful."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cognos is super expensive compared to Tableau ($70/month) and Power BI ($20/month) — I think Cognos is roughly $200 a month."
"The solution is affordable."
"The pricing of this product is meant for medium to large-scale enterprises."
"It is pretty expensive."
"There is some additional licensing that we needed to purchase because we were touching data outside of our core data platform. The cost was approximately $25,000 for the additional licenses, which were approximate 45 licenses. For the application itself, updates, and the core platform it was approximately $50,000. Giving a total cost of $75,000 annually for our usage of IBM Cognos."
"There is need to assess the purchase license accordingly so as to avoid audit penalties."
"It is averagely priced."
"It is quite pricy. I think Microsoft BI is cheaper. Tableau might also be cheaper, but it also depends on the usage. If you have very many users, Cognos can be a problem. It could be cheaper than Tableau but not for so many users. If you have a few thousand users, Tableau, which is generally quite expensive, can be cheaper than Cognos."
"Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing."
"It's affordable."
"Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place."
"Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings."
"Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others."
"Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value."
"Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable."
"It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money."
"The solution is quite expensive, if it is made cheaper then we can have more clients. I rate it four out of ten."
"The tool's price is a bit high compared to other solutions."
"​In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us."
"Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
55%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Legal Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik ...
What do you like most about IBM Cognos?
The solution's most valuable feature is its ease of use, which makes it easily compatible with other tools.
What needs improvement with IBM Cognos?
I need improvements, particularly with the Framework Manager, which has an outdated user interface from older version...
What do you like most about Adaptive Insights?
It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headc...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adaptive Insights?
12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few yea...
What needs improvement with Adaptive Insights?
The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up. So, there could be roo...
Is Board better than Anaplan as a Business Intelligence (BI) solution?
We've had several FP&A departments include Anaplan in their analytics discussions, and while BI information IS ge...
What do you like most about Board?
All the reports are prepared automatically.
What needs improvement with Board?
Some of my company's customers are interested to see the predictive analytics part of the tool. Some customers would ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Cognos, Cognos Analytics, IBM Cognos Analytics
Workday Adaptive Planning, Adaptive Discovery , Workday Adaptive Planning
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 23,000 leading organizations across multiple industries use Cognos. Some examples of Cognos customers include BMW Financial Services, Quinte Health Care, Troy Corporation, Michigan State University, and GKN Land System.
1. Cisco Systems 2. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated 3. Deloitte 4. DocuSign 5. Dropbox 6. Electronic Arts 7. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation 8. Fitbit 9. Fossil Group 10. Groupon 11. Hilton Worldwide 12. HP Inc. 13. Intuit 14. Johnson & Johnson 15. LinkedIn 16. Lyft 17. McAfee 18. Medtronic 19. Netflix 20. Oracle 21. Pandora 22. PayPal 23. Pinterest 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. ServiceNow 27. Slack Technologies 28. Spotify 29. Symantec 30. Tableau Software 31. Twitter 32. Workday
Coca-Cola, Puma, Desigual, Ricoh, KPMG, H&M, Groupe SEB
Find out what your peers are saying about Adaptive Insights vs. Board and other solutions. Updated: November 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.