Anaplan Reviews: 4.6/5 — Highly Rated

Its consistency and dependability. Reports cannot be corrupted by a user like an excel workbook can. The frameworks of reports are maintained and a data refresh populates them with the latest information.

There are some limitations that requires demanding work arounds. An example of a limitation is the inability to combine line item subsets to enable the synchronization feature.

Most projects I service are FP&A planning projects. The biggest benefit is having a centralized location for users to plug in their information through their custom planning methodology and consolidating it with others for real time results.

Easy to implement. It takes short time to implement complex functions with Anaplan. For me developing Anaplan is easier and faster than developing excel. With Anaplan Connect, developing an interface is also possible.

>It's easy to implement Anaplan, but it's easy only for trained Anaplan developers. It doesn't mean in-house production is easy. If you are an Anaplan customer and want to maintain in your company after Anaplan partner had developed, you need to take enough time to complete Anaplan training. >Anaplan is a cloud solution. Please do not expect the same response speed with Excel. So that, it's not a good idea to use Anaplan only to input data.

Our customer had planed proper production volume by themselves. We created logic to calculate the production plan and implemented it with Anaplan. Now, what our customer needs to do to plan production volume is only wait for the interface from SAP and log in to Anaplan. Every month, they see all necessary data for production automatically. With Anaplan, I can implement complex logic like this in a short time. If we had implemented this logic with excel, the excel file would have been too complex to understand and often froze.

1. Transforms user requirements into systems easily. 2. Enables DRIVER-BASED, week-on-week forecasting 4. Real-time report powered by cloud platform 5. Can handle data security with selective access and dynamic cell access. 6. Can provide what-if scenario which is the most desired functionality of business leaders 7. Improves data integration using Data Hub (also an Anaplan model). 8. Flexible options for forecasting: Runrate, defined formula, Budget values, Year-on-year (YOY) , Balance of year (BOY) 9. Top down and Ground up forecasting

As the platform is being exposed to diverse businesses, there are lots of suggestions about functionalities. The community provides an update to its roadmap, and the Platform keeps on evolving.

1) Inconsistency of reports. Having different versions of the spreadsheet is one of the pain points of the business users. (Addressed by Anaplan as we can have ONE SINGLE TRUTH of data) 2) Bulk of data. Business users frequently experience crashed applications because the spreadsheet can no longer handle the data load. (Anaplan can handle big data) 3) They cannot let go of the forecast versions because they need different drivers and scenarios to get the best forecast. (Anaplan can store all scenarios, and business users can submit the final forecast)

the flexibility of Anaplan means it can be used for so many different use cases across industries and businesses

Some of the Application Lifecycle management features for pages and dashboards aren't as complete as it is for the model building experience yet but this has improved recently.

Manual working and huge time savings by implementing Anaplan allows user to focus on value-added activities not churning data

Anaplan is not an out of the box solution that forces companies to fit their business process into a predefined mold, it allows businesses to build up models and planning processes that fit their needs and can continue to evolve as their business grows and changes. It is difficult to imagine a modeling scenario you can't build in Anaplan. The tool allows for a lot of flexibility in the type of planning a customer wants to do, and can truly be owned/managed by end users instead of by IT. This allows for much quicker turnaround on adjustments to a model.

Since Anaplan is not a pre-built solution, it does require more up-front investment in time and resources to get set up. It requires participation from multiple groups across the organization to put together a well-thought out model and more importantly to maintain and update the model on a regular cadence to keep up with a growing company. This can allow for things that shouldn't exist in Anaplan to be put into Anaplan (such as data storage). I also think ANaplan's front end and reporting capabilities could vastly improve the appeal of the platform, this could help reduce a customer's need for separate reporting/dashboarding in another tool like Tableau and further streamline processes by having robust reporting directly in Anaplan.

Anaplan very quickly solves a lot of issues around internal communication and transfer of information because it is cloud based. Instead of having multiple versions of documents, a "living" version of business plans sits in Anaplan where anyone from the organization can access to review and make changes. This in itself reduces a lot of the time spent on planning. Through implementing Anaplan solutions at multiple clients, across several industries and use cases, I have consistently found that having a dedicated model admin that knows how to build and adjust the model on the client side is most effective, it allows the client to view and approach using Anaplan as an App that requires regular updates and releases of updates to end users, rather than a one-time set up.

Easy scalability, 100% customization, Single software for all business applications

can have better ux and require advanced Machine learning & Artificial intelligence modeling scenarios for assisting businesses with decision making

Most of the customers could generalize the business planning process across geo's, thus bringing in standardization. Driver-based planning resulting in a reduction of planning time. what-if analysis for better decision making

Anaplan Models can be customized based on the use case. Rather than having a fixed model.

Need more tools for developers. especially on New UX.

We are solving financial planning with Zero-based Budgeting, Inter-Company Reporting, KPI tracking for varius use cases. We have even deployed Anaplan for leave tracking & User access management & cross charging.

It's the best tool so far for Analysis and Planning in almost any domain possible. As it's a blank slate, businesses can design it as per their needs, the domains they are into and the existing process that they are following. Also, Anaplan is coming with new features now and then to progressively improvise the tool to the best of customer's needs.

That it does not have a function for "today's date".

I am driving organizations in their transformational journey from purely manual or excel based to automation by understanding the business trends and analysis readily available in Anaplan.

The flexibility of the platform allows for excellent scalability and possibilities for solutions.

It is a clean slate platform that allows for ultimate flexibility but also means nothing comes "out of the box." Everything is custom and takes time to design and build.

I have been a part of solutions in Anaplan regarding Sales Performance Enablement, Technology Costing, and Management Reporting. Using Anaplan, we have gotten greater clarity and insights into the data allowing Management to make more informed decisions and automation of reports saving endless hours of excel hell.

Ability to customize to my exact needs..

Limited email/notification automation...

I have used Anaplan for a wide variety of use cases, spanning P&L Forecasting, workforce expense planning, consolidations, and several other topics.

Anaplan has been a great help to me and to my partners in daily/monthly collaboration .

No formula or function yet for current time (equivalent to NOW() of MS Excel. Yet, this doesn't discount the major benefits.

A lot! I had implemented it to various processes in Finance.

Exceptionally flexible, quick and agile implementation. If done right, the platform has the potential to truly change how planning is done.

Anaplan does not support internal sales activities enough

Numerous use cases. We have brought more visibility and intelligence into our process.

Fast Calculation engine, Multi-dimensionality and User experience

Everything works as per expectations in Anaplan

End-to-End Supply Chain Optimizations.

Anaplan is the only cloud-based vendor that offers "true" connected planning. Anaplan can solve nearly any use case. Typical use cases are HR, Capex, OPEX, Revenue Planning, Operations planning, Consolidations...These use cases are connected together like Microsoft Excel connects Workbooks for "real time" results. Users can see the results of What-if calculations instantaneously. Calculations are written in simple "Excel" like syntax. No coding is required. In addition, Anaplan is a true multi-tenant cloud provider providing upgrades monthly so that all users are always on the latest version.

My only complaint with Anaplan is the requirement to design around sparsity in order to deliver models that perform well. However, Anaplan has addressed this and is soon delivery a new calculation model that addresses this issue. The company is always innovating.

EPM tools should be evaluated using the CRAMP Model ( Consolidations, Reporting, Analytics, Modeling, & Planning). Anaplan receives 5 stars in each of the areas and allows connected planning across the entire Enterprise ( HR, Operations, Finance, Supply Chain, Manufacturing...)

The goal of Anaplan is connected planning, which it achieves through a realistic user experience. When you think about how business units work together, it is through structuring universal data for the different audiences. This problem is where Anaplan thrives because the goal is to consolidate data in one HUB but then translate that data to the audiences, saving everyone the burden of bridging their numbers, ultimately allowing teams to use that time moving forward.

The current interface of Anaplan is improving as the company continues to invest in improving its product. The most significant challenge is keeping up with these enhancements. They may streamline a process I've already solved, but making those changes often requires improving my knowledge and making a change quickly.

I work on the gambit of solutions with Anaplan, partnering with clients in S&OP for supply chain, T&Q for SPM, or P&L in Finance. The clients are small businesses and publically traded companies, which showcases the versatility of the product. The most significant pain point I hear clients express is recouping their time because current solutions are less efficient than Anaplan. Cloud-based technology is the future, especially as we move into a hybrid work environment. Anaplan solves this need.

- Business owned - after successful implementation with business partner, the business can maintain and enhance the solution without Consultants or IT Teams - Extensibility - native connectors with different softwares - Collaboration - all departments of your company on one platform - Almost no downtime, no technical maintenance and upgrades needed, cloud-based solution - Constant improvements to the platform - new features are being released every month - Easy to learn, advanced Excel users can learn Anaplan very quickly, especially given the free online learning platform - Scalability - it can support huge organizations in very complex processes

- Pricing, Anaplan is quite an expensive solution. Nevertheless, we think it is worth it. - UX could still be improved. However, the Product Team is always trying to respond to the Users needs

- Time savings - Efficiency gains - Single source of truth across the organization - Collaboration between the departments - Possibility to connect data between different use cases

Anaplan is a cloud-based application that can connect multiple cells and workspaces across different business use-cases and give a concise view of the KPIs. Real-time security is enabled with instant changing of roles, and access is possible in Anaplan. Excel cannot restrict individual cell access. Anaplan has the flexibility to plan across many dimensions, which excel does not have.

The PowerPoint add-in feature is a little obsolete and unnecessary with the launch of the new UX.

Anaplan helps with different types of planning. I have been involved in Financial Planning and Analysis for four years now. I am assisting clients in moving from Excel sheets to Anaplan planning UX. Anaplan can have scheduled data integrations from external data sources such as Informatica Cloud, SnapLogic, Mulesoft, Dell Boomi, Docusign, Workiva, and Tableau. It has dynamic time scale implementation. Master Data structure – works on having one data hub with a single source of truth, build once and push multiple times approach.Pushing hierarchical changes across multiple worksheets is tough and error-prone Easy for business users to adapt and easy to maintain. Anaplan has checks and balances in place to flag errors and correct inputs.

Collaborative Planning tool with powerful In-memory engine User-friendly Interface Custom Integration Intelligent and Predictive Planning Platform

Lack of native Scheduling capabilities, depend on Third party system

Providing better decision support to our clients for Finance related decisions. Business impacts will be visualized immediately to make better decisions Quick decision on the go - with a unified visually impactful UX

The flexibility. As a partner I would say there are very few things I would tell a customer you can't do. The question is always "do we have the time to accomplish everything you want?" The answer is probably not so let's focus on the mission critical items that get the most bang for your buck.

The new UX looks better, but doesn't function as well as the old UX. The fact that the cards are locked to a size makes it difficult to scale the same dashboard for people who see only a few items versus people who see thousands of items.

Solving Sales Performance Management (SPM) use cases. The greatest benefit is connected planning. Instead of companies using 100s of Excel spreadsheets that get passed around and altered, the logic is set and everyone can see what they are supposed to see and only edit what they are supposed to edit.

One of the best Anaplan features is the flexibility and agility to meet changing business needs.

Management reporting has come a long way, but may is not as flexible and versatile as reporting / data visualization specific softwares (i.e. Tableau). Anaplan is not good for data transformation.

Decreasing the length of time for budget/forecast cycles, significantly reduced consolidations time.

The flexibility and the power of the engine. The fact that Anaplan actually can solve pains that others can´t

The reporting part is still in need of enhancement! It is to difficult when you want to use LIS and varitations with both numbers and %

FP&A, Supply chain and Connected planning. The main long-term benefit comes with multiple use cases. At the same time a simple use case can solve great issues for any business. You can start off with simple collect and aggregate data to complex planning across multiple disciplines.

1. Stability (cloud-based) and robustness in nature from a financial view. 2. Integrates with multiple technologies and is better with decision-making. 3. Inbuilt UI/UX and dashboarding options with APIs (external visualization tools like Tableau not needed) 4. Various functional features helpful for carrying out financial reports. 5. Handles a huge amount of data with a handful of customizations.

1. Limited storage could create a problem for handling multiple models. 2. Expensive, it could be more cost-effective. 3. Does include a few glitches with the interface. 4. An error in calculation could take up to 6-7 minutes worth of time to restore back to the original state.

1. Supply chain models with an end-to-end analytical framework. 2. Solution development and analytical reasoning. 3. UI/UX design for visualization. 4. Report and built financial use cases.

The underlying modeling platform is very powerful but also fairly easy for a new user to pick up. This means that it can be used for a wide variety of use cases across an organisation, in a joined up way. For example, a very operational planning model looking at supply chain planning can be built and integrated with a more financial plan.

As with any SaaS tool, the challenge is in integrating with other source systems. That said Anaplan have just released CloudWorks to do just that. Whilst it's at an early stage, that really shows some promise.

We have a team that needs to respond 24/7 to incidents and we have a challenge ensuring that the rostering is done just right. We've used the Anaplan platform to implement a solution that uses statistical forecasting to look for trends and seasonality in our historical incident data and predict future demand. It then allows us to bring in rostering information and see where there will be a gap between demand and capacity. Finally, it allows us to model out changes to the roster so we can bridge that gap.

Anaplan's real time updates and capabilities to show reporting quickly and easily at different levels across the business Multiple people can make updates and leverage at the same time - no more version control risk

Consolidations capabilities could be improved

FP&A at the operating level, consolidating to the office of the CFO. Treasury and tax planning. Headcount planning. Ability to do all of this in the same tool, driving answers quickly

Anaplan is very good at handling complex calculations and modeling logic applied to vast amounts of data. So Anaplan can solve problems that clients have where excel just cannot handle the levels of calculations required. I have modeled many things in Anaplan, from supply chains to call centres, to investment funds and also the obvious things like P&L's, Balance Sheet, and cashflow. You build everything from scratch so you can model pretty much anything Another great use of Anaplan is where you want to guide the user to follow a process. You can add in whatever data validations/controls, process gates, signoff/approval stages you need. And provide the user with real-time analysis of how their inputs have impacted their plan and any KPI's connected to it The best attribute that helps Anaplan's long term success with clients is how the models can be adapted to move with the business, so as the business and its environment changes, the model can adapt and stay relevent. Which stops users reverting back to Excel

The focus of new features over the past few years has been very much on making the end users experience better. So model builders have been left behind somewhat, mainly from the point of view of writing and interrogating formulas, so there is scope to make our lives easier and modelling even faster. However there is an update expected soon which is promised to make the modelers lives a lot easier, so watch this space

Integrated P&L > Balance Sheet > Cashflow This significantly sped up the quarterly forecasting process for my client, and I also built lots of checks for account mappings to identify any holes in the mappings which could cause a variance to the balance sheet or any of the inbuild balance checks. As the model was vast so the model admins had to really stay on top of new accounts or mappings coming in IFRS Modelling Contract Revenue Anaplan was able to perform the calcs at a much more detailed level than excel, which was already at its limits and provides lots of analysis for the business. Although the primary purpose was for statutory reporting on the clients' contracts over the contract life Private Equity Fund modeling Looking backward at investor level to calculate provisions, and looking forward for the rest of the fund's life at a deal level. To determine the expected returns on investment. The main benefit for the client is providing a solid platform to bring together their actuals plus the ability to overlay what-ifs for the outlook and compare multiple scenarios against each other. The inputs being at a level high enough for fund managers to relate to, but the underlying logic is very detailed to the extent of making decisions on when to call from or distribute to investors in a more life like way Supply vs Demand modelling In a range of industries, including energy, telecoms, and consumer goods. The principle is fairly similar for all of these industries, matching supply and demand, identifying variances. As with previous applictaions the main benefits were related to performing the calculations at a more detailed level than Excel can handle, and providing operations with multiple scenarios to try out mutiple ways to resolve supply or demand issues

The simplicity and speed of modeling to meet a wide variety of use cases. Users quickly become autonomous on the platform. New features are released every month. The community paltform can help you find answers when you are stuck on a design point. A learning center with a lot of e-learning courses to help you gain skills on the plateform easily. The user interface has been completely revised for a much better experience.

Volumetric issues that may arise when you have to cross several dimensions with a lot fo items if you have a small workspace. Reporting features are still too limited even if you can use native connectors to plug into BI Solutions (Tableau, Power BI ...)

Finance (FP&A, Cash flow, Capex/Opex planning, Payroll ...) Sales (Quota, Incentives, Territory planning ...) Supply Chain (S&OP, Demand Planning ...)

Anaplan is real time and dynamic. It also allows businesses to be flexible in their changes and customize to their needs. While traditional planning solutions used to take months in advance to enhance, Anaplan is relatively easy to adapt. Additionally while other solutions focus on one use case, this allows us to enable the truly connected planning environment. Cross functions are able to collaborate in ways we have not seen in the past.

While Anaplan is great and flexible, sometimes space limitations and design considerations have to be taken into account that can limit a users flexibility in intersections when working with detailed data. Also while the new UX is helping address some of the cosmetic features of Anaplan, there still is much improvement for filtering and ad hoc reporting for it to truly be a one stop shop.

We are solving complex issues in making quick decisions on key metrics across supply chain and Finance. Additionally, we are harmonizing disparate business processes within a function, and using Anaplan as a catalyst to help streamline. We have seen teams spending less time on data aggregation and harmonization, and focus on business decisions. Additionally teams are now able to work cross functionally to make a wholistic approaches and not siloed

The flexibility and scalability makes the tool powerful

The new UX is clunky and not easy to build with

All of our processes are in excel and need to be streamlined

The easiness to modeling business processes and the flexibility of the tool to be used in various areas and business processes. The sectors in which I have used Anaplan are: Consumer Goods and Services, Beverage, Manufacturing, Utilities, Finance and Insurance, Telecommunication Services, Aeros pace & Defense, Electronic & Electrical Equipment, Pharmaceutical, Retail, Wholesale, Automotive Supplier , Online Booking.

UX still to be improved (graphs, customizations and dynamicity).

Anaplan has helped solving and improving many business cases especially in the areas of Financial Planning and Commercial Planning: Intelligent Connected Planning, Working capital analysis, Revenue Performance Management, Gross to Net, What If Analysis, Material Planning, Approval Workflow, Suppliers Allocation, Cost and Saving Model, Financial Planning Budgeting & Forecasting, P&L Planning , Finished Good Spend variance analysis, Commerical Planning, Management Reporting, Balance Sheet, Sales Budget, RFQ, New Product Introduction , COGS Planning.

Anaplan helps businesses transform their financial systems and processes by providing a database, engine and user interface on one platform. As the data store on the cloud , it offers the power combination of one version of truth (data) and real-time result. It also empowers company to have a connected planning with one source of data across all models and enabling each to access data from the others. It also has a friendly and sleek dashboards which only contains relevant data.

As for all the systems out there, there is always a big room for improvement and as for Anaplan we are looking forward to various enhancements on functionalities already on the road. Most of the enhancements are from their current visionaries, hands-on builders, and experienced end users.

The one that I would like to highlight that Anaplan solves is the one of the biggest pain points of accountants or finance people, the large number of versions they have in their financial worksheets. With Anaplan, this different version of one financial worksheet is eliminated. It provides one set of your data (list) and one engine means one formula for all items (module).