Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Reviews

I'm managing the PBCS instance of our Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud.

The most valuable feature of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud is ad hoc reporting.

The FR recording studio that is used to build reports is clunky and awful to use. This could be improved a lot. The solution does have problems and limitations.

I have been using Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud for approximately four years.

The stability of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud is good. When everything is working, it's working and when it's broken, it's not working. If it's only the solution operating, it's good, but there are all sorts of other things associated with the solution. For example, daylight savings time changes the scripts, what time they run on a server. If that is out of sync, then potentially your data loads can fail.

Things are overwriting each other and things aren't working in the right order. Overall the solution is 85 percent stable.

The scalability of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud is great.

We have 100 plus users using the solution and it handles them well. We're adding new functionality every few months. For example, we added flex forms. We replaced a huge burden on the administrators with flex form functionality.

Oracle response time for customer SRs is horrible. For example, we've had a ticket unresolved for nine months. It takes eight hours to refresh and they have not been in contact with us for nine months. They need to improve their support.

I was not present during the installation of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud but from what I heard it is complex.

My company paid a lot of consultants a lot of money to do the implementation. You need someone that knows what they are doing, it is complicated.

The solution is free.

My advice to others would be for them to hire consultants, but for day-to-day operations, such as use and maintenance, anyone can be trained on it. Don't assume you need to buy the skillset, I came in knowing nothing about the solution and now I know everything about it. I haven't had any formal administrator training.

I rate Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud an eight out of ten.

Planning and budgeting is the core part of the tool. It's the body of the tool where information fits into this planning application and filters out to the other pieces, like reporting, consolidation, and other cubes. Planning is the most stable and solid tool available in the market.

We have recently moved this solution to the cloud.

The workforce, the cube database, is the most valuable feature where you do planning for your headcounts. There is a direct connection now with the cloud that you can connect to the Workday system, which is HR. Most of the planning and budgeting is done around headcount. That is now available to you with the live data from HR.

For HR, the workforce planning out of the box is complicated. For most users, it's not easy, and it requires a learning curve. It's not very user-friendly. It can be improved.

I have heard that it's being worked on constantly. There are changes going on with benefits, taxes, additional earnings, and all those. One piece that is missing is the  international taxation piece, which is not available in the tool. Companies like ours use this Bloomberg software. Most companies are international, so you need to have a tax structure, or benefits from the UK, Europe, and Asia built into the system or already available. It's not there yet.

I have been using this solution for 10 years.

This is one of the most stable solutions out there. I also hear this from colleagues and friends.

Tech support has gone down. Initially when it was on-prem, tech support was very sophisticated and knowledgeable. In my IT area, it's a common complaint that with some of the resources that Hyperion and Oracle have, these folks have no knowledge about how the tool works. When there is an issue, complaint, or inquiry, they're not able to help properly, like before.

I used Cognos for a couple years, which was bought by IBM. Cognos didn't gain the recognition that Hyperion has.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

We use Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud everything. We have passed from using an entirely Excel spreadsheet system to one that incorporates not only the making of the planning but also the execution of the expenses. We can see every area of the budget.

From using Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud we do not have to deal with any infrastructure or maintenance as we did before.

We previously used Oracle EDS, and when comparing it to this solution, this solution has a much better interface. There are lots of advantages of the new solutions. Having it on the cloud, we are able to forget about keeping them updated or taking care of the database. We have minimal maintenance.

We have a lot of Oracle systems that we are planning on bringing to the Oracle cloud. It is going to be easier for us to keep them updated and use the latest functionality.

Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud could improve by having better integration with some other modules that we would add to this solution.

I have been using Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud for approximately one year.

I have found Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud to be stable.

The Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud solution is scalable in the sense that you can add some more modules to allow the whole organization to use the services.

We do not have many people using this solution. The area that uses the budget and planning is small, there are approximately four people. However, the benefits of the modules are used by the whole organization. We all make our budget and planning in a way that ends at the budgeting module.

We are thinking of moving many of our processes to Oracle modules in the cloud.

The technical support is good. Whatever we need, the regional office of Oracle manages to give us support by connecting us with the experts of the system.

Previously to using Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud we were using a set of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets designed for us to handle all of the processes.

The initial setup is straightforward. We did not receive any formal training on how to use the system, it's very intuitive to use.

The whole implementation did not take long. It took a couple of weeks for them to do the provisioning for the environment and make the software available for us and other aspects, such as assigning the users. It has been easy. The IT department has done almost nothing to help the users.

We did the implementation directly with the regional office of Oracle that is located in Costa Rica.

We have units that take care of our Oracle products. We have two units dedicated to every Oracle product. One unit is dedicated to the e-business suite of products that are extensively used in our organization. In the other unit, takes care of the maintenance of Oracle Retail. However, no one is taking care of the cloud products because there is no need for us to take care of them. They require no maintenance needed for Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud.

By maintaining the use of our on-premises solutions is very costly for us. Since we moved to Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud for some of our processes it has saved us money.

The cost of the solution is approximately $40,000 annually and the price is based on the company size and the number of users that have access to it. We are paying for the license and we do not pay any additional fees.

The price of Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud is expensive. However, it solves a lot of issues at the company. Having a better price could make us think about using more cloud products for Oracle and increase usage.

We're were amazed at the ease Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud was to implement and how good the design was. The integration with other Oracle products is very good. We highly recommend using this solution as a cloud product.

I rate Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud an eight out of ten.

There is always a chance to improve a product.

Our planning is on-premise but we are moving towards the cloud.

Beneficial analysis and easy to do management adjustments.

Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud could improve. There are times when the forms are slow in saving and calculating.

I have used Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud within the past 12 months.

I rate Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for creating financials.

The product has a direct plugin to Microsoft Excel. The ease of pulling in data and reporting and ease of getting quickly at data at different levels is great.

The solution can scale.

The initial setup isn't too difficult.

The stability and performance are good.

I definitely preferred Hyperion in the way it was organized compared to this product. I understand this solution is more of a budgeting tool, and so they've put their consolidation tool under that. Due to the fact that it's a space cube, for smaller companies like ours, the way that Hyperion was a relational database worked better for reporting.

Some of the things in this product are just too cumbersome and we don't need them and they make it harder to do certain things, or certain things have to have more specific names or descriptions. You have to put in strange characters that make it look not as sleek.

It would be nice if we had an option when using the ad hoc querying to see a member name and the description. In this solution, you can't pull both, you can only pull one or the other, and sometimes that's confusing. If you want an account, you might want to see the account number and the account name. That's super helpful to those of us in accounting and reporting, however, that's not currently an option. You can only pick one or the other right now. If they could somehow add that, that would be fantastic.

I've used the solution for about two years.

The stability has been great. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. Its performance is good.

The product is scalable.

In some ways, HFM could handle more members within a dimension as it didn't need to copy or consolidate at every intersection point. Only the ones with values. This product, the way it's a cube, limits you and maybe how many members you can have within a dimension. However, in other ways, it's probably more scalable to do more. It just depends on what your purpose is.

I do not directly deal with technical support. I'm not in IT, so I don't directly deal with any of the tech support. Somebody more on the IT side would go through that.

We used to use Oracle Hyperion. I used it for so much longer, and therefore feel that Hyperion is easier to use. It's more intuitive, a little more streamlined. That's specifically reporting. If somebody was using it for planning, it probably was not as strong in that arena.

The initial setup is more complicated than HFM (Hyperion) was. That said, it was fine.

I'm not involved in the licensing aspect. I don't know how much it costs.

We're just a customer and an end-user.

The solution, being a cloud deployment, is always on the latest version.

The best advice would be to sit down and really talk about what the end goal is of what you want it to look like. Sometimes in sales meetings, you're told it can do certain things, and it can in fact do those things, however, not in the way you're envisioning it doing. Therefore, just have a clear picture of how long they're going to take or what that's really going to entail. When you're implementing it, you might need to actually consider a few different approaches than maybe the way you need it to look. It'll do it, just not the way you want it to.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Very large and complexes environments implementation, 10000+ users with 24x7 global operation and multiple EPM tools working in sync.

The improvement for the organization is the same as it is with Hyperion Planning plus the license is a lot more affordable and it has no need for in-house equipment. The only thing to remember is that with one license, you get just one application (with five cubes).

Well, the PBCS is almost the same as Hyperion Planning, with the exception that you don't have access to Essbase and to the relational repository. What you got is access to a web page where you can do your development. For me, as a developer, the most valuable feature is the Smart View Administrator add-in that allows me to load metadata very easy and very fast.

I think the biggest improvement would be to have direct access to other CS products you have; for example, that BICS could access directly the PBCS machine to produce dashboards or, better, ODI loading and extract data/metadata using a KM. This is in the Oracle road map.

More than 12 years.

We have not encountered any stability issues. This is better than on-premises solutions are for this topic.

Until now, I haven't had to increase my initial setup.

Customer Service:

I didn't have to access customer service.

Technical Support:

I didn't have to access technical support.

Neutral

I still use Planning on-premises and this wasn't the case of a switch. It was just a solution from a client that didn't want to have any kind of IT infrastructure in-house.

That is one big advantage of cloud solutions: no initial setup, just start to develop. And the development is almost the same as on-premises. The only difference is the way you load data and metadata.

I was the vendor team that implemented it.

Always talk with an Oracle representative and negotiate a discount. I have already seen 99% discounts and a free licence once.

Sometimes it is cheaper if you get hardware together (helps to negotiate a discount).

Because Oracle products are development frameworks, your final results are as good as the people who implemented them. Make sure that your implementation team is the best it could be, at least for the first implementation. If something is implemented incorrectly at the start, it'll cost you a lot more to fix than to build a new system from scratch. Sometimes it can be so badly designed that it is impossible to fix.

I've been working on implementation for 20 years and I have seen bad implementations everywhere. In fact, I have seen the same tools implemented in the same team by two different people, with one being a success and the other a failure. In the same company, one department says that the tool does not work for them and another says that the tool is the best. The only difference was the implementer. Make sure you get a good team to implement it. The tool has its flaws but most of time (99%), it is the implementer's fault that you have a bad or slow model.

It makes it easy for users to get through and see what they have to do next. There are caveats though, and it’s not all positive. Things happen behind the scenes with the input forms that are riddled with negatives.

They could change the current web forms. You can’t stroll seamless down them because they jump. You can’t control F anymore to find something on a large form as well. I don’t like the way they changed the POV and header too. The drop down options to click are gray, as if you aren’t supposed to touch them, but the top bar that you actually are not supposed to touch is black. The hierarchy of going through a task list and forms also has issues; if you click the little right arrow, it opens, but then the items on the lowest levels still have those arrows. When you click them, nothing happens, because there is nothing beneath them, but the arrows are still there. They are like file cabinets and folders but the cabinet is inside the folder rather than the folder being inside the cabinet. It doesn’t make sense. When you click something in a task, sometimes a different one opens up and expands instead.

I’ve used Planning for four years.

It is more stable than the last product I used.

I don’t like this version, but it might get better. I think our company should have gone with an Excel based tool. I would rate it a five out of ten.

From a standardized input perspective, we’re very happy with it.

We are not that happy with how you get information out of the system. I wish we could delete years out of the Planning cube so that we didn't have to keep growing. Also, we would like to see the ability to build dimensions more dynamically.

It's been operational for 6 years.

Planning takes some hand holding since processes have not been automated. Updating dimensions is more manual, so if we could automate that, it would be great.

Since we can’t delete years out of the Planning cube, the growth is eventually going to create a performance issue.

Support from Oracle depends on who you get on the phone. There is one person that I work with on a regular basis, and she does a wonderful job. If we need an update, she will go ask the development what's going on. If they're not moving, she gives them a push. Typically when we talk to people overseas, though, they just let the issue sit. In my opinion, we should bring support back to the states.

Upgrades and patching are a pain in the butt. There are just too many pieces that have to be implemented in the right sequence.

I would give Planning a seven out of ten. We have used other Planning applications, and this one is the best. However, it’s not quite the level I need.