Adaptive Insights Reviews

The typical use cases are implementing budgeting and planning and financial reporting and forecasting for clients. So, in their typical use cases, they either have an ERP like NetSuite or even Workday or Intact, and they want to bring in and integrate their actual data into Adaptive and then do all of their forecasting, planning, and budgeting in Adaptive. So it's pretty much used more as a budgeting and planning and reporting tool.

For the organization I used to work at, it streamlined the process of creating budgets. It's very simple to create a new version and do some more modeling based on your need for planning things like headcount, other expenses, and revenue, everything is configurable within Workday. 

So that made it easy. Reporting was pretty easy to set up as well. It streamlined the amount of time it took to do the budget as well as kind of making it simple to implement a rolling forecast process. So, it really was more just a productivity increase and time shortening for the budgeting and forecasting process.

For me, scalability is a valuable feature. So Adaptive scales well. For example, you can have ten users, you could have a thousand, and create as many models within the tool as you want without any degradation or performance issues. So, that's one of the biggest benefits of Adaptive.

The integrations could be simpler. It takes quite a bit of internal and IT know-how to set up.

So, there could be room for just improving the integrations, making it easier to integrate outside systems within the tool.

I have been using this solution for 12 years. I use the version that was released in 2023. They do two releases a year for Workday. So, I work with the latest version 2023 R2, which is the version everybody's on.

I would give it a nine out of ten for stability. There can be downtime. They do maintenance on weekends when the tool is down, but there can be some downtime.

I give it a nine out of ten for scalability. The only issues you might run into are Fortune 500 companies probably would struggle to implement a tool like Adaptive that may not work with a hundred thousand types of records. But it's very good for most large organizations.

The customer service and support are pretty good. We can send in tickets, and they're usually pretty responsive. They usually have very good know-how to really help with whatever issue we have.

Positive

I had used something called Microsoft Forecaster which is no longer in license, not in production. So, I was in the license a while ago, and so that was my prior experience. Because it was the end of life. And, also, the Microsoft product was it was very clunky and cumbersome to try and create new versions. So it took a long time to do that.

So, that's why we switched to Adaptive.

To completely deploy it, you need a partner. It's not overly complex, but the formulas you need to write to do calculations require some expertise in order to configure those.

I see an ROI. The functionality that we have gives a return because we can make quicker and better decisions from a planning standpoint. 

So, we can get a return even within the first year, assuming that we're using the tool the right way.

12 years ago, it was very affordable. Workday has definitely increased its price since it acquired Adaptive a few years ago. So, it's affordable.

But there are other more affordable solutions that have maybe eaten into the market share a little bit.

We looked at a company that is called Planful. It was host analytics, and then the other one was Prophix.

I would advise to look at all of the features within Adaptive. Make sure that you need all of the features that are available, but make sure you take advantage of all the features that Adaptive has. And so part of that would be maybe looking and contacting an implementation partner because the partners will be able to definitely steer clients in the right direction.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. The only drawback is that if very large clients, if you want to model to all the way down to every employee and you've got, a couple hundred thousand or so employees, it then becomes a very difficult implementation, but that's very few companies that are like that.  

I work for management consulting and also my own label, and I work with organizations to implement it. 

I have, at one point in the past when I was an end user of the tool before I went into the consulting space to work on the delivery side and installation side of the software.

There's a tool called Office Connect that leverages what I call the benefits of both worlds, where we can use the query reporting engine and the modeling engine that's in Adaptive Insights and leverage it into, like, an Excel spreadsheet. That's pretty popular with a lot of our client partners. 

Also, the ability to build models to do revenue models or expense or personal planning, and bottoms-up planning. Really, having a tool for a single source of truth. So when you have a lot of typical when we think of the process where a lot of planners are involved, separate spreadsheets. And if you have a lot of people involved, then you have that. Usually, it can be a nightmare. Trying to, right, aggregate that together. So, the aggregation option of the tool is really a big plus.

In the software, there's always opportunities, and there continues to be usually, every twice a year, there's two big releases, and they've just done one now. But separately, some of the areas of opportunities for Adaptive Planning to be able to do a little bit more on performance. The high-level performance of data volume allocations is probably an area that could be improved upon. 

I have been using Adaptive Insights for ten years now. I use the latest version. 

It's very stable. Its software did go down for some performance issue, but it was rectified within an hour or so, so it's quite stable.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. It's a Workday product; they could do a little bit better to integrate a pure-play integration with Workday, which really doesn't do that. We still have to build out the integration. So, the integration between the Workday fins and HCM is adaptive to scale on that. There needs to be some continued improvement. But since the integration or acquisition of Workday of Adaptive Planning, the product has grown by leaps and bounds, and certainly, scalability improvement is the one area that has gone better.

There are around 170 end users using this solution. 

The support capabilities that streamline have gotten better, thanks to what's called Workday Community. It provides a great tool for voicing your issues before resorting to opening a support case. Many times, you can find answers to your questions there. However, in instances where I've had to, usually during a deployment, it's been about four or five times that I'll click through some support cases. Once the product goes live, such occurrences may happen occasionally, but it's not too frequent.

Workday wants you to verify that you've opened up or you've sent your question your support question. You post the support data community first. 

Neutral

I used Oracle Hyperion. It was too complex, and too costly, to have to maintain it. Adaptive planning was truly a tool that the finance team could own and operate, which is pretty historic. So, that is why we switched to this solution.

The complexity of the initial setup depends. This means a lot of it is finances, is never the same for every organization. So, if it's more typical use cases, generally, the setup is a cloud-based tool. It is fairly straightforward. That's the whole idea behind it once your implementation partner helps you to configure, but you want to be doing that knowledge to KT throughout the way because, eventually, in the end, the finance function usually owns the software. So, it is with an asterisk because it does depend. Like, if you're, it depends. A large-scale enterprise company, and you're gonna bring a lot of heavy complexity. So, if it's within the typical parameters.

The deployment is typically between 12 to 18 weeks. That's for the more typical. If it's a larger enterprise, some, some I've worked on, and it's standard over a year. But generally, no more than a year.

Pricing is in line with other cloud-based EPM tools. It is a subscription-based model based upon the number of users and site type if it's an admin or end-user type thing. Compared to some of its competitors, like OneStream, Adaptive is very competitively priced.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. What keeps Adaptive strong that others and some other APM tools lack is the fact that it's sort of connected to Workday. So that's very popular for people when they buy Workday, which is an amazing product on its own for fins and HCM. It is important for many organizations like to have the full suite of tools, not necessarily a best-of-breed approach. So that keeps it pretty strong in popularity.

I would advise you to crawl-walk-run because it's a very modular type of product. So once you get your key foundational elements together, meaning understanding of what you choose to plan on, then you can really create your financial data model structure, meaning you can build out your call centers and your DOL accounts and your work tags. And get that right solid. Be very clear on how you plan if you plan at the division or at the cost center. 

Have clarity around key reports first. And do a very solid requirements gathering for the plan, lay that all out, and then don't start building right away. You'll load your foundational elements. Again, your call center structure, your accounts, and load some data. 

But then do prototypes, meaning build out small models, get a sense of how it works, and pressure test at first. Then, it's just jumping right in and doing things because it gets a little harder to unpack things if you've invested time developing something without thinking through how the entire planning model will look and the reporting model. 

I've done this for quite a long period of time. I've actually had my own consultancy focused on, what a lot of the pitfalls I've seen in. While it's a great tool. There are two components of it. It's the software, but it's probably just as important as how you implement it. How do you manage the project? How do you ensure that an organization can be able to own the project once you step away? That's probably just as important, too.

We use the solution for financial planning and analysis. It allows us to create budgets and forecasts.

The important feature is integration with source data. It connects to various ERP systems, including Workday, Intact, and others. It can also import actuals and compare them to PlanPoint quite easily.

Adaptive Insights could improve the data designer interface to make integrations easier to set up.

I have been using Adaptive Insights as a consultant since 2015.

The product is stable. It is dependable in terms of availability.

The solution’s scalability is good. Organizations from medium-sized enterprises to huge ones, with 30,000 to 60,000 employees, are on Adaptive and using it. I rate the solution’s scalability an eight or a nine out of ten.

The customer support team is fast and technical. They closed their tickets fast. We have a follow-up call with a support person for an escalated issue later today. We started the process less than 48 hours ago, and it's already moving well through the system. They're excellent.

Adaptive Insights offers ease of maintenance and focuses on finance. It has relatively low implementation costs compared to other competing tools. It integrates and connects with Workday, if you have chosen Workday as a near-peer ACM solution.

Adaptive Insights is relatively easy to implement and maintain compared to other competitive products. It usually requires specialized consulting support to set up, but it is straightforward. Once set up, Adaptive Insights is a tool that finance departments can use with relatively little help from their IT departments.

Adaptive Insights' pricing is relative to its peer competitors. It's certainly competitive compared to a spreadsheet template that you build in Excel. It can be expensive if you need to have 100-500 budget holders giving input and building financial plans. However, in that case, it becomes an extremely good bargain. Compared to its competitors, it offers an excellent value.

I recommend the solution. Enterprise can give you more specific advice. The ability to manage headcount planning between Workday and Adaptive is excellent, if you have needs in that area. There's no better solution on the market. If you want your financial planning analysis department to be able to self-manage the tool they're using, Workday would be an excellent choice. Those things might apply to a greater or lesser extent, depending on your specific needs. Adaptive Insights offers a good value, it integrates with a large number of ERP products, is flexible and powerful, and is easy for finance people to use. The reporting functionality is also really robust. There are lots of good reasons to recommend it. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Adaptive Insights allows us to create templates across different areas of the business. It helps develop a more unified work format throughout the company. All the team members can follow similar templates with the right details.

The product's most valuable feature is the ability to collect data from Workday quickly. It facilitates efficient financial analysis.

The product's configuration process could be faster. At present, it works very slow. More guidance or information could be available on how to configure it effectively. Additionally, the financial base needs improvement to be able to utilize OfficeConnect.

We have been using Adaptive Insights for four years.

I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the product's scalability an eight out of ten.

The technical support team is very knowledgeable.

Positive

Our company went for Adaptive Insights as it is a fully integrated system. It is also an older technology.

Adaptive Insights is easy to deploy. However, it is challenging to configure and requires testing before deployment. The complexity depends on the business requirements.

The product generates a return on investment for us in the first quarter.

I rate Adaptive Insights an eight out of ten. I advise others to make sure they opt for configuring delivery assurance. It is very beneficial.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its dashboard. 

Adaptive Insights has a limit of 1,00,000 rows for HTML reports. It should be improved because we will have multiple dimensions that need to be populated to enhance the image. 

I have been working with my solution for four years. 

I rate Adaptive Insights' stability a ten out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a nine out of ten. 

Partners have a community page, and we post our queries if answers are not found in the community. Other partners will help us with the questions. 

Adaptive Insights has a straightforward deployment. Deployment for small companies takes one to two months to complete, while medium-sized organizations can take around three to six months. The deployment for large companies can take up to one year to complete and gets done in phases. 

Adaptive Insights' pricing is reasonable. 

I rate Adaptive Insights a nine out of ten. The solution is very user-friendly; you can learn to use it from YouTube videos. It is very easy and doesn't require heavy training. The reporting feature is also very user-friendly. It is a nice tool and is in the growth phase. Adaptive Insights has added a lot of enhancement, and clients are interested in it.

Provides ability for business users to directly manage their plans, data, and budgets.

• Increases collaboration and communication among the businesses.
• Engages departments to understand and follow their costs.

Flexibility with lighter, quicker planning. It is a great opportunity to plan at a detailed level, but sometimes you need to look at high-level options.

Eight months.

Not applicable, as I was not part of the deployment.

Customer service has been great. People have been quick to respond and the provided webinars have been helpful.

Quickly responds, and all issues have been resolved.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

OfficeConnect features greatly help with planning and reporting.

Has customers create dashboards, which leads to improvements on trade analysis.

Needing to focus on upgrades for all industries, including CPG.

For four and a half years.

No, it was seamless.

Never.

No.

Excellent, always available and hardly needed.

Excellent.

I did not previously use a different solution.

It was not my decision, but I am happy with the outcome.

Forecasting changes that instantly flow through all financial statements.

We have had Adaptive for several years, but it is super helpful when we have a short turnaround time to deliver our income statement if we were to make crazy, strategic decisions.

Their customer support team is slow to respond and not extremely confident.

Two and a half years.

Not applicable.

Never.

Nope. The larger/more complex data sets can take longer to load than others, but never longer than approximately 30 seconds on the big ones.

A five out of 10.

A three out of 10.

Not applicable.

In-house.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Adaptive is super user-friendly and helps our changes to the forecast immediately flow through the P&L, so we know exactly where we stand financially at any given moment.

The reporting tools are what I gain the most benefit from. Reports are allowed to be edited for aesthetic purposes, which is lacking in a lot of other dashboard tools. The "processes" portion of Adaptive is also pretty nifty, allowing for you to set up a task list for others so they can put in their forecasts on-time.

• Standardized monthly reporting
• Quick and easy for ad hoc requests
• Interfaces with other data warehouses

The planning functionalities are the weakest part of Adaptive Insights. Everything that is automatic is done by formulas and there is only so much logic which you can build within these formulas. The upload feature exists, but isn't terribly useful.

Personally, seven months.

I wasn't around for the initial phases.

We had an issue where our reports weren't refreshing because our daily data pull was stuck in limbo. We called customer support and they were able to fix it within a couple hours.

None.

Great, we have our own personal contact that we reach out to if we have questions.

Great, no issues so far.

No.

I wasn't around for the initial deployment.

Not applicable.

Ensure that you have the proper pricing plan in place. I believe ours is per user, so whenever we add an account for anyone (no matter how often they use it), we incur a cost.

Not sure.

• The integration with our payroll system to complete staff modeling during our budget and forecast processes.
• The ease of creating reports and modifying sheets.

Our organization is able to use Adaptive to complete a major majority of our monthly management and quarterly Board reports. By refreshing reports and pages automatically, it creates the monthly report package with little to no manual staff work. This process was very manual with our old system. Adaptive gives our users the flexibility to budget at either the Natural Account or line item level.

Being able to drill down when using OfficeConnect.

One year.

No.

No.

No.

A nine out of 10.

A nine out of 10.

We left our previous solution, because annual support was expensive and the product had developed many glitches and performance issues.

Initial setup was straigthforward.

We had a vendor implementation and I would rate them an eight.

Two years.

Prior to purchasing licenses, make sure you understand which users will only need planning and which users will need both planning and OfficeConnect.

Yes. Solomon, Hyperion, and Great Plains.