Anaplan Reviews

It can be used for FPNA, forecasting, and planning. It can also be used from a tax point of view and an allocation point of view.

It's highly flexible. If you've got a complex environment with complex calculations, you can build that out. So that's a really good positive.

Because of that flexibility and ability to build models in the way you want to build it, it means you can tailor it to the company's requirements. You can really tailor it, which is the big positive with Anaplan, and the fact that you can track what everybody does. There are more constraints within SAP and Oracle than in this kind of product.

It's like Excel but with a mix of VBA, and it's a bit more controlled. So you have, from a client's point of view, an internal/external audit trail. The audit trail logs absolutely everything you do. That's really useful when people build out these models for it because you want to know what people are doing. It's very difficult to do that in Excel. So it's like Excel, but a more controlled version of it. You are using formulas and you build it out with formulas.

Anaplan can be easily deployed and scaled.

The negative is that the higher the flexibility, the higher is the complexity. That can act against you as a negative because it does require a model builder or a coder/developer.

It's not something that can be easily learned. It's a full-time job for someone who's a kind of specialist. Once you've learned it, it's great, but it does take a few years to build that knowledge up.

Any integration or interfaces into it and out of it can be hard, depending on the client and the tools available.

As additional features wise, if it could be more intuitive, it might be helpful.

We're in the midst of implementing it.

It's very easy to scale. It's not that hard. However, the cost can go up depending on the volume.

The client's previous software was less flexible, more clunky, and didn't give them what they wanted. Anaplan has been more flexible, more streamlined, and gives them what they want. If they want X, they get X, and they don't get Y instead.

It can be deployed quite quickly. It would take about three to six months.

You can have both external support or internally trained support, and the maintenance can be either. The software itself, because it's cloud-based, will get automatically upgraded. It's software as a service.

Staff wise, you would need a PM. Depending on the number of models being built, you will need one or two model builders. One model builder per model is probably the expectation. You need to have a subject matter expert and an architect involved. You will probably need four staff members at minimum for deployment.

You can have both external support or internally trained support. So the maintenance can be either, but the software itself, because it's cloud-based, will get automatically upgraded. It's software as a service.

It's going to give the clients what they want, so the return on investment will be pretty rapid. They could expect a return on investment within the first year.

We evaluated PCM.

It's a good product, but you need to consider whether you need a center of excellence in-house. You need to consider process mapping, the standard operating procedures that you would produce with it, and the integrations or ETLs, and your interfaces, inwards and outwards. You need to be very clear about your business requirements and know exactly what you need, in terms of your inputs, the calculations you need to run it through, the outputs, and the end results that you would provide to the client, along with the master data/static data.

If you're not clear, then you can't implement it, and you'll just waste money with the developers, the model builders, and the consultants that you're dealing with. However, if you're clear about it and you can provide clear examples of what you need, then it works like a dream.

It takes a long time for a beginner to understand what's going on. You need to make sure that the developers that you use or the model builder you use puts copious notes on everything, especially at the back-end from a technical point of view.

Then at the front-end, with dashboards, you need to make sure that there are lots of good quality instructions, operating procedures, and process maps.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Anaplan at eight.

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.

There are four or five main use cases. One is for P&L. It's for profit and loss planning forecast and actuarial reporting. We also use it for balance sheet reporting. And then I have what is connected to payroll and HR. I have a lot of business cases and allocations by product, by customers, et cetera, as well.

We are able to create and build the yearly budget and the yearly focus. It allows for a direct saving of human capital.

The modeling part of Anaplan, which is a model builder in which you can build whatever you want, has been great. There is no limit. The sky is the limit with Anaplan.

The initial setup is very straightforward. 

The solution scales well.

We have found the product to be very stable. 

The limit today is in the ability for business people to describe what they actually need. I don't see any need for improvement on Anaplan's side. The limit is within the people who use it and not the product itself. 

It's not easy to test the Anaplan processes completely, as it's so large, that it is covered by Anaplan. It's quite difficult to test everything, including all the business rules all the business cases. It requires a lot of data to be able to test everything because it's so big. When you implement the accounting software you just have to test two devices and just two customers invoices, two customers, and then you know it works fine. However, when you implement Anaplan on the scale on which it is implemented, it is difficult to test every single business case.

The ability of the end-users to manage the software is due to the fact that it becomes so sophisticated. On top of that, there are so many business rules to set up in the system that as a business user it's hard to gauge what they're doing and it's possible to get lost.

The advantages of Anaplan are its weakness. You can set up whatever you want, however, it tends to be really big, and the users have to be very competent, very efficient, and have to know what they need to do to use Anaplan. There needs to be a good understanding of the solution. When the user was working on Excel, due to the fact that Excel is very small and it's very limited, a user can understand everything. With Anaplan, the scope is so wider, which makes it difficult for the average user to manage and drive the process. Some users are very skilled. They have good knowledge of what they're doing. Others are not. It will become difficult for them.  

I'd like to see the ability to print papers, as it's not easy to do so right now. I know that we are in August and by the end of August Anaplan will release new features about reporting. However, in France, we are quite old-fashioned people. A lot of clients like to have a sheet of paper - something printed. That's not easy on Anaplan. Anaplan is designed to be worked on from a screen, on a laptop, on a smartphone. It's not designed to allow a person to print a sheet of paper with data.

I've worked with the solution for more than ten years. 

The solution is very stable and very reliable. there's no doubt about that. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

I have never met a limit in Anaplan as far as scalability is concerned. I understand from a certain point of view that there is a limit. However, with my daily customers, for 10 years now, since it's more than 10 years that I've been working on it, I have never met any limits as far as scalability is concerned.

I have various clients on the solution, and their users range from just five to up to 100 people in the sales area. 

I would say in the first year clients are using perhaps two or three percent of the company are using Anaplan. The second-year is the same. By the third or fourth year, they grow and up to 10% of the company will use it. Within six or seven years, you may go up to 50 or 75 percent.

Technical support is really fabulous. I've been working in data processing for the last 25 years, and Anaplan is incredible. They're fast, they are skilled, they are competent, and they are accurate. It's really great. They're wonderful. The support is incredible.

We did previously use IBM Cognos. We also noticed people were using Orion Hyperion, however, it is called something else now. 

Cognos is very limited. It takes quite a long to implement and it is not scalable at all. You cannot extend the usage of Cognos as very quickly you are faced with a limit. IBM and Anaplan are like day and night.

In terms of initial setup, I would say 95% of the time it's very straightforward.

Deployments, for a small project, can take between two and three weeks. Bigger ones can take two or three weeks. That's between 10 and 15 days. Even larger projects can take three months. That's for a very sizable project. 

The implementation strategy is agile. We design the scope with the customer, with the business user. First, we define the scope with the business user, and then we do an agile process. And after that, there is a test process.

For the customers who are using Anaplan exclusively from a financial SPNA point of view, the only return on investment we can expect is about savings in relation to personnel count. It can shrink staff. That said when the customer uses Anaplan for sales composition planning, or sales management, or supply chain project, there is a direct return on investment within six months. It really depends on what field of the business they are implementing with that. In finance, you will not have a return on investment and in supply chain management you will see an ROI.

While the cost is on the higher side, the value is high as well. The customer's plan is a yearly cost. It's software as a service. Beyond the standard licensing fee, there are no additional costs. 

I'm using the latest version. I am not using the beta, however, I am using the live version.

I am a consultant and a partner, so I am working on the cloud deployment. 

I would advise new users to not try to create something too complex in the first year. Keep it simple. It's so powerful. You can do so many incredible things with Anaplan, however, if you try to go there in the first year, you will lose yourself.

Anaplan is the type of software that requires collaboration between people, more than ever. You cannot have an Anaplan project if you are not a team and a collaborative team. Previously, with IBM Cognos, this was not the case. 

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten.

My first project in Anaplan was about capacity planning for the factory's RCT and NCTC capacity planning. My second use case was about CapEx and OpEx planning for another client. Mainly it's finance and supply chain related activities.

In finance, mainly, earlier, we were using Excel spreadsheets. Every time their monthly cycle ends, the company needed to go back to the reporting. They would have to pull all the data from all the users and then publish all final reports. However, in Anaplan, everyone reports their numbers through the cloud and wherever the end-user or the planner wants to see the data collated, he can just simply open the Anaplan and then see the reports ready-made. It's much less work-intensive.

The modeling is very easy. It's almost an Excel-like model building. It is very easy to change the logic or business rules. You can do it anytime. It's not like you need a different team set up for the changes.

The solution is very user-friendly.

The initial setup is very easy.

The solution is scalable.

The solution has been very stable so far.

We have found that the product integrates well with SAP and they have ready-made connectors. In fact, it is easy to integrate with any other system. They have plug-and-play software which makes integrations easy with very little time consumption required. 

You don't need to have a programming language to use Anaplan.

There is no demand planning, no dedicated demand planning where it can do statistical forecasting. They have engaged with a plan queue to do the statistical forecasting. However, if we compare it with SAP or others, they don't have an in-house forecasting tool or anything.

It would be nice if the solution offered better extensions. For example, in SEC Excel, they have one extra extension, which is really good in terms of performance. It would have been really great to have something similar, however, from what I have seen so far it is not up to the mark. Whenever you load the data in Excel and then send it back to Anaplan, it takes a lot of time. It's very hard to use it. Rather than using the available extension, people prefer to go back to Anaplan again.

Plastic dashboards were a little bit hard to create, however, it's my understanding that it's a bit better now.

I've been using the solution for more than two years at this point. 

The solution is stable. I've never faced any issue where it had downtime or anything. It has never failed, at least for me.

The solution is very scalable. In previous projects, there were some changes that the business wanted to make, however, they were not able to do it in SAP or Cisco systems. They used append models to do those changes and send them back to SAP.

Considering the previous project, there were almost 300 to 400 users. There are finance project managers across the zones or the CapEx and OpEx controllers.

Our latest client does plan to increase usage. They've already forgotten all about trying to make Excel reporting work.

Technical support is very good. I have also worked on SAP previously, and, if I had to compare SAP support and Anaplan support, Anaplan support is quite responsive. We're very satisfied with them overall. 

I didn't use business performance management, however, I do use SAP, IBP, and APO. These are mainly ERP-related Software solutions.

The initial setup is not difficult or complex. It's very simple and straightforward. 

Generally, the deployment takes four to five months to complete at least the basic agenda. Later you can keep on adding the functionalities once the users start filling the Anaplan, they go ahead and ask for more requirements.

The four to five-month deployment includes, for example, the process of customization and testing.

We did not use an integrator. I'm in consulting, so we get the projects for the deployment.

I don't know anything about the cost or the licensing. It's not an aspect of the solution I work on.

We have partners and we do the implementation for clients. 

I am using a SaaS version of the solution.

Generally, people rush to design the scope and just start building. I would say that new users should focus first on designing the process and scope. Once that is finalized, then move into the model building rather than pushing everything in one go.

During our training in Anaplan, there was one quote saying, "almost everything can be built in Anaplan". There were scenarios where I thought, okay fine, Anaplan can't build this logic, and yet, after a point, we were able to build that logic. It's pretty scalable.

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We use Anaplan for organizing and planning the data in a supply concept.

Anaplan is a three-dimensional cloud platform that is good for analyzing data, visualization, integration, terrific for visibility. Additionally, it is continually being updated and allows collaboration. When comparing it to Microsoft Excel, in Anaplan when you make a change to a sheet you do not need to make the same change to all the sheets as you do in Excel. 

The solution could improve by better dashboards and while entering the form loss and project implementation the ability to use graphical shapes more effectively.

I have been using Anaplan for one and a half years.

Anaplan is highly stable.

The scalability is very good.

We have 15 model builders using this solution in my organization.

Anaplan has an online community group and if we have any technical problems they can provide us support answers within 15 to 20 minutes. Their technical support is very good.

I have used Microsoft Excel previously.

The initial setup was straightforward. it took us approximately 24 hours.

There is maintenance being conducted every month by Anaplan.

We are currently using a free workspace license for 90 days. We are satisfied with the price of the solution. There are additional costs if you want more storage, the default limit is 250 GB.

I have evaluated other solutions and Anaplan is better than other competitors out there.

I rate Anaplan a ten 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.

Anaplan can be used for many types of planning, such as finance, supply chain, sales, and workforce.

My organization has benefited from the solution providing us with very good forecasting models. Additionally, there is a tool where users can go through different dashboards,  a feature called Dimension where you can use multiple dimensions, and the granularity is very good for us.

Anaplan provides 130 GB of cloud storage for organizations to use as part of their license. 

It is easier to implement for the developer teams and client users who are using it. For example, if a client is using thousands of Excel documents, it becomes very easy for Anaplan to do all of the calculations and move things around inside.

The flexibility is very good, it is easy to make new changes to the deployments.

The solution can improve by providing an easier form of integration to different platforms, such as receiving data from different Salesforce. There is a process to do it through the use of APIs but it could be made much easier. This would be a large help to us.

I have been using Anaplan for approximately three years.

The solution is very stable.

Anaplan has been scalable, there are a least 40 domains where this solution can be used, such as OPEX and financial planning

In my organization, we have approximately 10 clients using this solution.

We are extensively using this solution in the project we are currently involved in.

We provide the implementation and the after the support of the solution.

The installation is not difficult but I would put it in the easy to medium level of difficulty.

The amount of technical staff required for the implementation and maintenance completely depends on the requirements of clients. There is some flexibility that comes after the first deployment, we can do enhancement for the same deployment instead of creating a new one.

We follow the Sprint method of implementation and it can take approximately two weeks. However, as previously mentioned the time is dependant on the client's requirements. For example, we are doing an update to enhance a previous implementation that will take approximately two months.

We are not the end-user to know if the clients are receiving a return on investment. However, I would conclude they have been receiving a good return on their investment because we are having an increasing number of clients and we are doing enhancements to previous deployments.

I would strongly recommend this solution to others.

I rate Anaplan an eight out of ten.

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. 

Anaplan's most valuable features are that it's a no-coding platform, everything can be scaled to your other functions, and it's easy to learn and use (especially because Anaplan provides excellent interactive training).

Anaplan should come up with flexible options to connect to a data warehouse rather than an Anaplan hub, like a data decoupling layer with an option for customers to maintain their data on their own cloud. They could also continue to improve their UX and provide more features on the reporting side, including more options for charts and graphs.

Anaplan is quite stable.

The initial setup is straightforward and rarely takes more than twelve weeks.

Anaplan gives a good ROI.

So long as Anaplan fits your requirements, it's quite affordable. It's a value-for-money product and a very reasonable price compared to competitors like SAP or IBM. There are multiple pricing models, and you only need the costlier license if you use the model builder.

I would advise those implementing Anaplan to go through the L1-L3 training program. I rate Anaplan as eight out of ten.

My main use of Anaplan is for financial planning and budgeting forecasts.

Anaplan's strongest feature is that its GUI is very modern and user-friendly.

Anaplan could be improved with a stronger consolidation module. In the next release, Anaplan should include out-of-the-box integration with software systems. Currently, they don't have a connector, so you have to work with an API or directly with a company to build connections, whereas their competitors already include native connectors.

I've been using Anaplan for seven years.

Anaplan is a bit pricier compared to its competitors - the license costs about $4,000 per user annually.

Anaplan's technical support is very good.

Positive

The initial setup is very easy, though it can vary based on users' needs. Depending on the scope of the user's requirements, it can take anywhere between two and twelve months to deploy everything.

Anaplan is a great product for large organizations with multiple locations that want to do FP&A. I would give Anaplan a score of eight out of ten.