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IBM Planning Analytics vs Tableau comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

IBM Planning Analytics
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Business Performance Management (3rd)
Tableau
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
295
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Reporting (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. IBM Planning Analytics is designed for Business Performance Management and holds a mindshare of 9.2%, up 8.8% compared to last year.
Tableau, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 18.2% mindshare, down 18.7% since last year.
Business Performance Management
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Gnanavel-Chakkarapani - PeerSpot reviewer
Can easily create dashboards and helps businesses improve forecasting accuracy
The product has improved our company's forecasting accuracy since it serves as a very useful tool for our sales and controller teams as they easily get to enter the inputs using views in TM1, which gets loaded into our main database. If there are sales team members in different parts of the world, like in Hong Kong and Singapore, they may prefer to use IBM Planning Analytics, which is easy to use when compared to the Excel tool. Speaking about planning analytics and data analysis, I would say that our company used to use IBM Cognos Analytics for reporting, where we used to use Cognos Dynamic Cubes so that users can easily use its drag and drop features while getting to see the data for which the users had to wait for two to three minutes prior to its use. In our company, tons of data are loaded into the memory, and users can use Cognos Dynamic Cubes to analyze data and understand it. The AI capabilities of IBM have benefited our planning strategy as they are very useful for business. The tool allows the easy creation of dashboard reports using AI capabilities. No technical knowledge is required for business use cases. It is possible to integrate the product in scenarios where some new integrations are available. I remember that my company used Azure Data Factory to connect Azure, Oracle, and IBM WebSphere Application Server. When it comes to IBM Planning Analytics, it is complex to integrate it with LDAP and or any other authentication tool offered by Microsoft. In our company, some users like to integrate IBM Planning Analytics with the common LDAP or Microsoft AD, which we currently use for all our applications. The authentication part is difficult to configure with IBM Planning Analytics. The maintenance of the product is easy. My company has scheduled maintenance on the product every week, especially during forecast times, so that memories automatically lapse and users can freely access their servers. The use of the tool has had an impact on collaboration within our company's planning team since everyone knows how to easily access the data and publish the results. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
ROMIL SHAH - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time
When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Planning Analytics' best features include automatic updates and slicing."
"The tool is flexible."
"All the different platforms are well integrated."
"Navigating through the data to make analysis is really quick."
"It's a very stable, robust product."
"A lot of the platform is in-memory, so Planning Analytics can run calculations quite fast. It also offers several user interfaces. And in the newest version of Planning Analytics, there is a new one called the Planning Analytics Workspace. Maybe it could be useful for the business side."
"The ease of use is valuable. The fact that it's plugged into Excel spreadsheets is also valuable. It provides additional functionality where you can slice and dice the information in a way that you can't do with spreadsheets"
"The product's stability is good."
"Tableau is easy to use compared to some other solutions, such as Excel."
"The data blending capabilities is a huge factor for our team."
"The most valuable features are the visualizations, the way they show the combination charts."
"It is easy to use, and it can handle a large amount of data."
"It is an excellent tool for data capture, processing, and visualization."
"The solution is easy to use, flexible, our clients enjoy seeing the data on maps, and you do not need to be an expert in SQL to use it."
"The use of a storyboard helps the flow of the data visualisation."
"The platform's most important feature is predictive analysis."
 

Cons

"Adding predefined templates could be beneficial."
"The local authentication part is difficult to manage in the product, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The tool's transport layer could be improved when promoting development between environments."
"It is a bit expensive, but it does the job."
"The dashboard is very poor and needs a lot of improvement."
"The new frontend Planning Analytics Workspace is not very good, it could be improved. I like the Planning Analytics functionality but it would be helpful if it could be more customizable. You can create a prediction and receive information but you cannot do feature engineering regarding the predictive models. If this was added it would be helpful."
"It's highly competitive right now, and all the vendors are in a race to put out new versions with additional features. IBM comes out with new versions too often, and it has an impact on quality."
"Scalability is quite hard to implement in TM1, largely since the on-premise installation chosen back in 2014. On a scale, I'd rate scalability at four, out of ten. It's difficult."
"They need to improve the icons and the filters, because they look too old, resembling Excel from 1997."
"The ability to use it on MAC machines. As far as I know, this is not possible."
"Implementation requires a technical background."
"There's no mature ETL tool in Tableau, which is quite a negative for them."
"Most of the problems in Tableau Online that I have noticed have to do with performance or weird, inexplicable bugs that I can't pin down. For example, you might try unloading some data, and you'll be waiting for a long time without anything happening."
"An advanced type of visualization is a bit tricky to create. It has something called a Calculated field, and that sometimes gets a bit difficult to use when you want to create an advanced type of visualization."
"Navigating through activities like cleansing, reshaping, and wrangling extensive or complicated datasets could prove challenging within the Tableau environment."
"The charting is overly complex in comparison with Power BI's"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our licensing cost is approximately $50,000.00 per year."
"The license of this solution is paid annually. Most of my customers choose a license that includes support."
"IBM Planning Analytics is priced well, and licensing costs are yearly."
"Compared with the other tools in the market, IBM Planning Analytics is a bit expensive."
"IBM Planning Analytics is not the cheapest solution, but it's priced per the market standard for this type of solution. I rate the price at seven out of ten."
"It is a bit expensive, but you get what you are paying for."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten since it's expensive."
"This license is on a yearly basis."
"The company chose to purchase a creator license for me, which was $70. With that license, you can also be an administrator. We also have 20-25 extra licenses and they cost around $20-$35 each. Those are for normal users who will be viewing the dashboards. Those are monthly charges."
"The pricing of Tableau should be better to remain competitive in the market, especially when compared to alternatives."
"Tableau is free."
"The price of Tableau could improve. The license is too expensive."
"The price could be higher for the quality of software, so they revised the pricing in this version, and I agree with the price for top version. The top version costs about $70 per month, and the price is cheap for the quality."
"Cost is where tools like MicroStrategy, Power BI, or Spotfire come into play. Cost-wise, Tableau is a little bit costlier than other tools such as Power BI. I have been using Tableau all these years, but about four years ago, Power BI came out at a very low cost. Their desktop version was free from the beginning. Power BI Desktop has always been free, whereas Tableau Desktop is costly. When it comes to cost, people prefer Power BI because it integrates very well with Office 365. You don't have to worry about integration with Teams or SharePoint."
"Pricing is not bad. It's competitive."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
49%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Planning Analytics?
The most valuable features of IBM Planning Analytics for streamlining planning processes include a unified database where all data are centralized.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Planning Analytics?
The cost of IBM Planning Analytics is not cheap, considering the amount of money involved. However, it offers good ROI for customers.
What needs improvement with IBM Planning Analytics?
The workspace API should be improved and documented so we know better which objects and tier-one objects are used.
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 Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
 

Also Known As

Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos TM1
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ManpowerGroup, Convergys, AIG, Orchard Brands, Citibank, InterGen, Northwestern University, EF Education First, Ironside, Bazan Group, CSOB Insurance, Macquarie Group, Charles Stanley, SATO, Government of Sint Maarten, BMW Financial Services
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
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