Adaptive Insights Reviews

Adaptive has so many features that make it superior to using spreadsheets and other planning software packages.

1. The biggest feature is the source of truth for all of our budget and forecast versions.
2. The second feature is reporting. Since it stores both forecasts and actuals, it can be used as the source to generate answers to almost any business related questions.
3. The third feature that makes Adaptive great is it's all in the Cloud, so you can access and update anytime from anywhere.

Budgets and forecasts used to be done in spreadsheets. This causes version control issues as well as broken links when files are moved. Also, if you want to change your reporting structure in spreadsheets it is all done manually. By moving to Adaptive, all of these issues are resolved and actuals, budgets, and forecasts are all merged seamlessly into one planning system.

Adaptive has come a long way each year and continues to improve. Users continue to become more advanced and are looking for more advanced solutions. Adaptive does a good job keeping up with these ever changing improvements.

I have used this solution for over five years and at two different companies.

Deployment of Adaptive software relies on the quality of the implementation. Sometimes, it is done by Adaptive staff and other times by consultants or internal employees. As long as the implementation is not rushed and set up for fluidity it can last for years. When large changes are made to a company the Adaptive models sometimes needs to be revised or rebuilt. Our company has had a lot of changes since its initial deployment and our models have been revised several times. Adaptive was able to handle all of these changes.

Never.

Never.

Very good. The only issue we've had with customer service is it used to be through NetSuite (that is where we purchased it). NetSuite was often difficult to get answers from (needed to fill out lots of forms and wait). Our service is now back at Adaptive and is much better.

There are lots of webinars, training sessions, and an annual conference which are great for learning technical skills to master Adaptive. If you run into a problem you can't solve, sometimes Adaptive can solve it, and sometimes an external consultant needs to step in (for bigger issues). The software itself has never needed technical support. The only support that is needed is usually how to program Adaptive to do what you want.

Previously used spreadsheets. Switched to provide a much better, complex, and easier to manage planning and reporting solution.

It is both straightforward and complex. Setting up personnel, revenue, and capital models can be complex, but the solution overall is very straightforward.

We used a vendor team. They were very competent and gave us solutions that we wouldn't have come up with on our own.

It has to be in the 1000s of percent.

Everything is negotiable, but this solution is low cost compared to others.

I was not involved in the other evaluations.

This solution transformed the way both of my companies did reporting. We can now do in a few hours what used to take days or weeks.

We utilize planning on a daily basis, therefore we find it to be the most valuable product for our organization. We also use the integration feature to import actuals from our accounting system.

We have gone from an organization that looked backwards at financials and had a one-time annual budget to an organization that looks forward, has rolling forecasts, long-term planning, metrics, and push button reporting.

We tried Discovery and OfficeConnect at one point and found them too cumbersome, at the time. There have been improvements to both and we may try them again.

Four years.

We had some initial implementation issues and did a re-implementation. However, I feel most company's implementations go much more smoothly now.

It is much harder to "break" than Excel for financial reporting purposes. It also has great version control. So, no issues with stability.

Being a non-profit and education-based organization, we had to modify our instances quite a bit to fit what we needed. It took a lot of time and effort, but in the end, was so worth it.

Customer service is great. Adaptive does a great job communicating with their customers and helping, when needed.

Most cases from technical support have been resolved quickly.

Just Excel for financial reporting. We switched because it is clunky, breakable, and our versioning was problematic.

Ours was pretty complex, because our organization has a non-traditional accounting structure.

We initially implemented through Adaptive, then used a vendor team. They were amazing.

It creates new versions, so we can run different scenarios.

It creates a source of truth.

Excel functionality.

One year.

I wasn't there.

No.

No.

I haven't had to use them.

I haven't had to use them.

Essbase and Smart View.

I wasn't there.

I would imagine really good. It has helped us to automate a lot of our processes.

I wasn't a part of the discussion.

I love this software.

Winning points:

1. Instant consolidation of multiple BUs
2. User access control
3. Changes to corporate structure, account codes are updated in all versions including prior years, hence "one-version of truth" as claimed.
4. Integrated reporting with MS Office

By using Adaptive Planning (AP), we can quickly get the big picture after multiple changes to different departments and account codes.

Still room for improvement:

1. Discovery (the data visualization module): Needs to catch up with BI leaders, such as MS and Tableau. E.g., sorting by amounts in column charts and page slicers to control all visuals.
2. Planning: two areas.

• Need to have the function of importing formulas, which has been encouraged for more than five years by the author, but still lacking.
• Modeled sheet has some limitations. It is not version specific, meaning upgrading formulas for the new year budgeting will leave unintended retroactive impact on prior years' budgets. Same with dimensions. I would love to have them be version specific rather than keeping changing.

Over five years.

Nothing substantial.

It's 99% stable. Occasionally lagging, e.g., during creating a cloned level.

No.

Best customer service seen. Responsive within 24 hours, mostly within two hours. Issues usually fixed within one to two days. Staff very courteous and helpful.

High level. If the issue is outside their domain, it will be escalated to the engineers to fix.

Were using Excel before the switch, as it was nearly impossible to consolidate over 100 Excel files, each for one business unit. It took over two hours to consolidate, versus one minute in Adaptive.

Most module are straightforward. Others are complex due to the nature of our business, such as multi-dimensional cube sheets. Modeled sheets, with their limitations as cited above, needs special treatment.

Both. We have in-house staff implementing AP, with the mentoring from a vendor specialist, who was very knowledgeable and helpful.

Not sure dollar-wise. But Adaptive saves us huge hours in budgeting. e.g., for each roll-up, it saves us two hours at least, and we usually have more than 20 roll-ups.

Licensing seems to be worth the cost considering the efficiency Adaptive brings.

Yes. Among others, we evaluated the planning module of Insight Reporting, but decided to adopt Adaptive.

Seek best advise and plan early rather than later during the initial phase of implementation. It would be costly to make significant changes at a later phase.

• Personnel planning
• Driver-based planning
• Drag and drop reporting

More accurate, reliable, and timely forecasting.

• Automatic sync of new dimensions/levels from accounting software to Adaptive.
• Ability to customize privacy of salary data within a level.

Three years.

No.

No.

No.

A nine out of 10,

A nine out of 10,

Just used Excel/Google sheets. We needed a financial planning software so we could eliminate spreadsheet errors and be more dynamic in our planning.

It's complex; thinking about the business models and capabilities in Adaptive.

We used Adaptive for our implementation.

It is positive.

If you are a nonprofit, you will receive a discount.

Not applicable.

Planning, reporting, and the ability to pull in transactional information for reporting.

There are less errors, due to incorrect formulas and manual data entry between multiple Excel spreadsheets. The system has allowed us to take more than 90 spreadsheets and combine them into one system which automatically calculates based on assumptions, dimensions, etc.

There could be more options for reporting information.

Three years.

None.

None.

None.

We do have issues getting information on our customer success turnover. Along with a very slow start to a services contract to make improvements to our system.

Excellent.

We previously used Excel spreadsheets.

For the most part, it was straightforward. It was complex, in the way of understanding the setup and formulas associated with the assumptions, etc.

The system was implemented by one of Adaptive's implementation partners.

No. Adaptive was the only option given to us during our search.

Learn as much about the programming at the beginning of the implementation.

Cloud-based.

Automated reporting.

Better user interface (UI).

Three years.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

An eight out of 10

An eight out of 10

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

• Budgeting
• Reporting

1. Reduced Planning & Budgeting time - It takes hardly a couple of days to complete my entire budgeting exercise
2. Uploading actual data and generating monthly reports with comparison of actual v budgets in no time
   

Pricing can be made better affordable to SMEs. Every year price increase is an issue.

Five years

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Excellent.

Excellent.

We did not use any other solution.

Was straightforward.

Through a vendor team - Meagan of Ireland. Their expertise was very good.

Savings on manpower due to reduced budgeting & reporting time.

You can implement this product if you are looking for a Corporate Performance Management & Business Intelligence Tool that requires a minimal time for planning, budgeting & reporting.