Planful vs. SAP Analytics Cloud

Reporting and Spotlight have changed the game for us. Spotlight has brought dynamic reporting to our team and the rest of the office as well. With dynamic planning, we've spent more time doing analysis instead of running and creating the reports. Recently, we've spent less time analyzing and more time formatting, and Spotlight has brought the analysis back to FP&A.

Incentivized

SAP Ecosystem Integration:For businesses already using other SAP solutions such as SAP BW or SAP HANA, SAP Analytics Cloud is a natural fit. It integrates well with the broader SAP ecosystem, providing a cohesive analytics experience for users familiar with SAP technologies.Predictive Analytics Use Cases:Companies seeking to incorporate predictive analytics into their decision-making processes can leverage SAP Analytics Cloud. Its built-in predictive features enable users to create models and gain insights into future trends based on historical data.

Incentivized

• Creating forecasts for the month, quarter, and year
• Creating new variables by using variables pre-defined and that are new in the system
• Having a very simple setup in the reports section - not straying away from the old Excel model which most people are used to. I can speak for a lot of people when I say that tools that look new can easily be frightening! 😅

Incentivized

• It makes it easier yo analyse order and related records easily.
• We can easily maintain and track the performance of employees in organisation.
• Can easily track various aspects for the growth of an organisation thus allowing real time analysis and tracking of organisation's growth and performance.

Incentivized

• Dashboarding could be more flexible and easier to use.
• Dynamic Reporting has room for flexibility with nesting, dimension names showing up instead of “All,” and overall flexibility.
• Make Analyze view in Spotlight more intuitive.
• A high-level onboarding guide to understanding the different components of Planful, data flows, and tips & tricks.

Incentivized

• Possibility of more advanced scripting for data transformation without analytics designer
• Provision to consider rate types from TCURR in SAC and should be able to write FX conversion logic considering rate types
• Read data directly from BW by reading aDSOs backend tables

Our new Comptroller understands the value of Planful, and we plan to utilize it further in the organization to enhance external reporting. Strangely enough, Planful had not previously been embraced by the former CFO, who argued that we were running two sets of books (of course, we were not). Fortunately, the before mentioned reconciliation of EBITDA to Net Income demonstrated that to the banks.

Incentivized

There’s no doubt I will renew SAP Analytics Cloud. It is the most vital tool in our organization that makes it seamless to make rapid business decisions by collecting, modeling and visualizing data in real-time.

The tool is extremely adaptable, and it enables very quick querying to give us opportunity to gain live insights into the business. Given its adaptability, we are also able to create scenario analyses very quickly in rapidly changing environments. The formatting also enables us to provide this information in a very consumable manner.

Incentivized

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate 8 SAP Analytics Cloud's overall usability as a 7. SAC has a clean, modern user interface with drag-and-drop features. It is an integrated platform that combines reporting, planning, and predictive analytics in one tool. It has Real-time connectivity with SAP data sources like S/4HANA.


Self-service analytics capabilities allow non-technical users to build simple dashboards.

I only give a 9 rating rather than a 10 rating because it seems that every day around 2pm we see a slowdown in the use of Planful. I have requested our internal IT department verify that it is not an internal issue and have been assured it is the tool. We have not yet reached out to Planful to do extensive research to solve this issue.

I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud an 8 out of 10 for scalability. It offers a flexible, cloud-based architecture that supports expansion across departments and geographies. The platform adapts well to growing data volumes and user needs, making it a strong choice for organizations looking to scale analytics capabilities efficiently.

Incentivized

Again, the system is very reliable and, for the most part, runs very quick and smooth. When running larger queries, it does take some time, and during budgeting season our users experienced slower loading times, but nothing that raises concerns outside of normal network issues. Occasionally, as with any software we use, it will crash and you have to restart, but that does not happen very often.

I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud’s performance an 8 out of 10. Pages generally load quickly, and reports run within a reasonable time frame, even with complex datasets. Integration with other systems is smooth and doesn’t noticeably affect performance. Overall, it’s a responsive and efficient tool for business analytics. But

Incentivized

Sometimes we get great help when using Planful's support team and other times we don't. In particular, there is one person that often responds to our support tickets who is less than helpful, hence the reason for the 5 out of 10 rating. As a result, most of the time we reach out to our Planful consulting group as they provide faster and better support

Since the implementation stage, the support team has been very helpful and assisting. Even in the later stages, the tech team had quite a rapid response. In general, SAP has provided us with great customer support, let it be for a specific product of SAP or for integration of different modules.

Incentivized

We got little training on the tool after implementation. Did a lot of "trial by fire" learning about Planful. I don't think RSM really provided us all the details we needed to understand the tool and to know what we needed to train on. I don't know we knew enough about the tool to even ask the right questions and then they left and we used Planful support a lot.

Incentivized

Good videos and reference material available in SAP Portal.

Incentivized

This training is much more robust now than it was when we first implemented our Planful environment. Many times we can do a little research in the "help" portal and do not even need to reach out to support. They are continuously improving the training and information available to users.

Incentivized

it's ok

Incentivized

Most of the issues in the implementation were self inflicted, the team at Top Down was great and did a good job managing hours and teaching our team how to best handle the system. The implementation went longer than expected as they always do but the GL and erp link was up and running quickly so we could build reporting

Incentivized

SAC is a simple solution ad it works fine when connecting it to other SAP tools. On the other hand, connecting it to third party solutions brings difficulties when there's no previous design and the objetives are not clear. It is really important to integrate Business users from the start to provide with valuable business insights

Incentivized

Personally I have only used essbase in my work. Planful has a much easier platform to use both to put together results and to load data compared to the financial reporting platforms that I have used. Planful also has better dedicated tools to create reports and build in a dedicated software that is built to report on rather than building from scratch in an excel environment

Incentivized

SAP Analytics Cloud and Power BI are both tools that help businesses understand their data, but they have some differences. SAC, made by SAP, works well if your company already uses other SAP products. It's in the cloud, easy to use, and has features for analyzing data, getting insights, and planning for the future. Power BI, made by Microsoft, can be used in the cloud or on your own computers. It fits well with Microsoft tools, is easy to use, and can do advanced data analysis. SAC has built-in planning tools, while Power BI needs extra tools for detailed planning

Incentivized

From our experience, Planful is only used in 2 overhead departments in our organization. We easily added another overhead department, but they decided against using Planful for their workforce and financial planning. Removing them from our environment was extremely easy.

Incentivized

I would rate SAP Analytics Cloud an 8 out of 10 for scalability. It offers a flexible, cloud-based architecture that supports expansion across departments and geographies. The platform adapts well to growing data volumes and user needs, making it a strong choice for organizations looking to scale analytics capabilities efficiently.

Incentivized

• Has allowed users to view a real-time P&L in a way they weren't able to do with Qlik.
• Budget to Actual analysis has become much more streamlined and actionable
• Long-range plan process has been significantly streamlined and a lot of time has been cut out of the process.

Incentivized

• Optimized our budgeting and forecasting processes. The platform facilitates real-time collaboration among our teams, allowing for more accurate and agile financial planning. This has led to improved precision in budget allocation, ensuring that resources are strategically deployed to support the most promising startups within our portfolio.
• SAC's intuitive dashboards and visualizations provide a consolidated view of key performance indicators, startup health metrics, and portfolio analytics. This heightened data visibility enables our teams to make informed decisions promptly, identify emerging trends, and proactively address challenges.
• Routine tasks, such as performance tracking and reporting, are automated, allowing our teams to focus on more strategic initiatives. This has resulted in time savings and increased productivity across various operational processes.

Incentivized