Board Reviews

The primary use case is developing a demand planning/collaboration platform. It's performing well.

The collaboration part. That is the tool that our client is really using.

I would like to see a better Web client, where the controls work the same way as in the Windows client. I do think that the focus is now on the Web, so it should be improved upon.

I think the stability can be improved upon, but overall it is stable.

We've seen downtime from our side, that we did not design it the way that it was going to be used. But I also see that we have had to take away features because it was not supported in the way that we wanted it. We're using it in the client versus Web; in the client it works and in the Web it doesn't. So we had to pull certain controls off the screen.

I think it's very scalable. We hardly see the impact on the tool, the CPU, the memory, when the users are connecting through it, through the Web. The Windows client is a different story. It's not scalable at all, so we decided to go with the Web.

There is room for improvement. In the beginning there was a struggle reaching the right person, especially in the same time zone. That has been resolved. I think it's getting better over the months, but it can still be improved upon.

The company that I work for is based in Italy, so all the support was coming through Italy. Now, the support now is U.S.-based, which is better for us.

When selecting a vendor, in general, the most important factors are their

• being responsive
• being truthful.

If I have an issue, I don't care if they say, "We cannot fix it," or, "We'll fix it in a later version." Communicate that.

My advice would be, you should seriously consider this solution.

We started using BOARD as part of a solution. We're developing using BOARD to go into implementation for our customers.

In terms of performance, it's still pretty new to us. It's good. We know BOARD is very powerful, but there is a big learning curve that we still have to get through.

There are definitely a lot of benefits we're still discovering. We have our own software but our reporting functionality and different workflows are not as flexible and mature as what BOARD can do. That's why we have it.

It's very powerful. BOARD is a good platform. Without actually programming, you can develop a workflow and solutions for a lot of things.

Again, it's very powerful, but there is also a big learning curve. It should be a little more intuitive.

In development we have issues for which we have had to open tickets. It's part of the learning process. We don't know where exactly it's going wrong. It's not quite intuitive sometimes.

We're starting with two projects; we expect many more new projects that we're going to partner on with BOARD.

We were doing more home-grown development. Our collaboration piece, again, is not as powerful, as flexible, nor can it expand in the future, as much as BOARD can.

BOARD is a very good solution to compared to other reporting/BI tools out there. Also, because we are based in Boston and BOARD's headquarters is in Boston, I think helped make it an easy choice. And within our company, on the European side - it's an Italian company - they already have a relationship with BOARD.

When selecting a vendor the most important criteria are the 

• software features
• support
• education they provide to help the internal resources get up to speed.

Personally, I think the setup and the concept is intuitive, but once when you get into detail, try to get to a solution, that's where the challenge is.

I would tell a colleague the same thing we're experiencing. BOARD is very powerful, flexible, but it takes an initial learning curve.

Our primary use case is for forecasting and budgeting. We budget capital expenditures, the full P&L financial statement. We have our top-level VPs enter their driver rules and then Finance goes on the back-end and calculates the gross margin impact of that. We capture operational expenses down to the vendor level. We also do all of management reporting.

The performance has been great so far.

The benefits are 

• getting the data in one spot
• the ability to report dynamically
• version control.

I think it's flexible. I chose this solution because, even though it wasn't out-of-the-box, you can customize it, and the long-term growth potential of the software is where I see the value.

More export to Excel functionality. Right now, we're having to build within the cloud-based platform, as well as build within the Excel add-in, because the export to Excel is somewhat ugly. So we're doing both simultaneously.

So far so good.

I think it's very scalable. Again, that's why we chose it, because I think there are endless possibilities to do more. Right now, we're just using it for FP&A-type functions. But the BI functionality, which is the core business, I think is tremendous.

We were just using Excel, there were version control issues, mistakes on copy/paste. We needed a dynamic solution that would be accurate.

Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor are 

• customer service and level of support
• the ability for a non-IT person to maintain the system 
• long-term growth in functionality - I don't want something that's going to be out-dated three years from now.

The setup was so-so (somewhere between straightforward and complex). I think if you are IT-savvy, I think you can get it good enough. It's definitely meant for an end-user to be able to be a power user in the system.

The final decision came down between Borg and Tagetik. We chose it because BOARD was a sandbox, instead of out-of-the-box. Tagetik is great, it's ready to go, but three years from now, that's all it is, that's all it's ever going to be, just financial reporting. I was looking for something that can change over time.

I think that from talking with other customers here at the BOARDVille 2018 user conference, your consultant, if you're using a BOARD consultant, I think that that person is very important. Also, just allow ample time, because it is a sandbox, the startup time is going to be more considerable than out-of-the-box solutions.

We implement the solution. We have about 50 customers, mainly around budgeting, planning, or supply-chain orientated.

In terms of its performance, our customers are very happy.

Better integrating of operational and financial processes. Driving everything to reduce working capital and inventory. Big things, as opposed to just deficiencies.

The ability to do Write-back and visualization, with minimal IT development orientation.

I'd like to see a more passive report user for enterprise report writers who aren't particularly technical, so you could really get it out there to literally every employee, or every customer.

It's good. I feel it's stable in our client base, and I'm quite confident that the new version will increase the scalability.

I think it is scalable. We have small customers, we have large customers. And it seems to go with the growth of the process and the data. We haven't really tested it for large volumes of big data yet. That's what we're exploiting with the new version when it comes.

The initial set up is really rapid, quite quick. It's simple, it's IT-driven, typically.

It's got that combination of everything. I'm a business person predominantly, so I don't like having technical solutions. And it's something even I - and I'm not a consultant - can  deploy. I like that about it.

I'd still recommend that you need an experienced practitioner to take you through a well-designed solution. It's not about the technology, I think it's about the experience that people bring to designing a solution: building the data architecture, integration; leveraging their smarts. At least the first time, work with a partner.

We are a supply chain software provider. We have been using BOARD to create a collaborative platform for users to modify and make edits. This is the primary use case, along with our clients. Also, the flexibility has been great and the performance has been optimal. 

Our organization doesn't use a dynamic feed, but our clients have improved a lot in terms of coordination and communication. This has improved their internal performance. 

The reporting part has been very valuable as the capabilities of the tool do not have to change graphs, change how grids are displayed, and can create reports on the fly. These are things that our customers tend to like. 

It is snappy, and it is quick. 

• We are looking for ways to distinguish zeros versus nulls in BOARD. 
• We are looking at ways to improve how we deal with security in BOARD and other similar things. 

The stability has been fine. We have an additional challenge because we have to integrate it not only with where we are pulling the data, but with our own technology, as if we are implementing three systems. This has been challenging, but we are slowly improving on it. Hopefully, future implementations will be quick. This downtime is mainly due to our learning curve.

It is highly scalable.

BOARD has been very supportive, though we still have to find a way to extract as much knowledge from them as possible.

I personally do not develop in BOARD. We have been investing in our own resources, therefore we have a couple of people who can develop in BOARD (to provide support).

We have an internal solution. However, we think it is sub-optimal. This is why we work with the BOARD. We have other partners with some similar cookies, but not exactly.

We switched to BOARD because we felt the need to have flexibility, and BOARD had the performance that others did not. 

Implementation is rather complex.

BOARD has a lot of flexibility, but it is sort of a development tool. It is not an out-of-the-box kit where you can just feed it in. It needs to be constructed, and it needs an expert to learn it.

We have been very happy with what we have seen. We are pretty new to this. We have done three implementations so far. BOARD has been performing well and is very efficient, though we have to improve the implementation time on our end.

I would personally advise looking into BOARD (depending on your needs).

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

1. Product
2. Relationship with our clients/partners.

If we do not have a sustainable working relationship, then we can't move forward, even if the product is outstanding.

Our primary use case for BOARD is sales analysis, as well as financial planning, analysis, and budgeting. We are also highly leveraging the CPM portion, as well as the BI tools that BOARD provides.

So far, it is performing extremely well. We are very happy with the new updates and new releases. We have had very good support.

The benefits of the solution are a lot of flexibility from a data modeling standpoint. The product can add specific line items into our budget, for example, or if we want to make changes to the data model, we have that flexibility. Therefore, flexibility and scalability are some of the strongest qualities that BOARD has.

The most valuable feature of BOARD is that it is comprised of a full bundle package solution, while being a BI and CPM tool. Meanwhile, some of its competitors are either/or, but not both.

One thing that I personally would like to see is additional visualization tools for visuals. A lot of its competitors are releasing different iterations of their BI visual tools. 

Stability has been perfect. We have never had any issues from downtime.

We are not nervous about our future with BOARD. We are very confident.

We were using a different solution and needed to increase automation, and we needed to stray away from Excel spreadsheets and the combination of different tools and mechanisms.

Our most important criteria when selecting a vendor are 

• Partnership
• Cost
• Scalability
• Implementation.

I am actively involved in the setup. We have set up our sales portion. We are about two weeks out from having a full release for our financials.

It is a complex tool and very sophisticated. We get a lot of use out of it. Thus, we expect complexity with flexibility.

We used consultants to support us with the implementation and to initially set things up properly. They were absolutely supportive and knowledgeable.

We looked at the big players: Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, Vena Solutions, and QlikView. We did not feel any of these solutions were perfect.

I would say the best is yet to come. Based on all the new, upcoming releases, features, and eLearning. If you are looking to make a decision, you should defer from making a decision right now, because the best is yet to come.

We use BOARD to show scorecards for each business unit. As part of the finance team, we can control the numbers showing on each dashboard and update selected business unit KPIs as our strategies change from year-to-year.

We also use it for tracking services hours as a consultancy.

We also implement the product for clients, primarily solutions for finance, around financial reporting, making it easier to close the books every period, annual reporting, also board and narrative reporting.

It's performing very well.

All staff can now see their relevant scorecards online. This helps them see exactly how we are trending towards our goals, from which their bonus compensation is calculated.

The solution gives us consistency and reliability of data. As users of the tool, it's very easy to input our time, it's very clear who's working on what, when. It lines up our billing and invoices. So, it's very clear who needs to get billed 

Also, for implementers, it's a very visual tool. So rather than having it on a whiteboard, during design conversations, which are very abstract, we can be mocking things up using the tool and the clients can see it built before their eyes.

It is easy to make quick updates. As the business changes, we can maintain the tool without programming help from IT.

Simplicity. The big thing for us is, when we do an implementation, we want them to own it when it's done, so they don't have to come back to us to make small changes going forward. It's a tool that really can be owned by the office of Finance, whereas with other tools you always need to go back to IT or the consultancy and ask for help.

It would be nice to have more connectors for other data sources. BOARD is a great tool to become the single source of the truth. Making it easier to connect data sources for niche software tools will make it easier to keep everything in one place.

I would like to see all features and functionality available over the Web. 

I would also like to see tight integration with the learning management initiatives that they have, with respect to the e-learning portal, the community, so that when folks are using the tool they can feel the various support and pieces they have at their disposal. That's lacking right now.

No issues. The only issues we ran into were related to communication mistakes that we made. As long as we follow our change control process, the system is rock solid.

No issues. The tool seems to have a lot of ways to handle scaling.

It's certainly an enterprise product. It's got a lot of clustering capability and options, depending on the environment. It's a very scalable solution.

Like any solution, it needs to be monitored for sizing over the lifetime of the solution. You can imagine it will become used by more and more departments, by more and more users, for more and more purposes. So, managing it and being proactive to understand user growth, data growth, sizing of the environment, accordingly is an important task.

With the combination of 24/7 global support and their community, there was great customer service, tech support, and community support.

I filled out a form, I got an email back within a few hours. More complex things were solved by a phone call.

Previously, we used Clarity. We switched because Clarity was at the end of its life, and there was no active development to improve the tool. The feedback that we were getting from some of our clients is, they weren't impressed by what's on the market. It was just kind of lackluster. 

Before we were a partner with BOARD, we did a market review - a technical and business review - of all the products that were on the market at the time, two years ago. BOARD was the one we choose for both technical and business-model reasons. We've been very happy with the ease of use and scalability.

Important criteria when selecting a vendor would be: who is using their solution right now, how successful have they been, how large are the installations, and what is the roadmap down the road for improvements for the solution.

The setup was a bit complex, but BOARD helps with all that.

It is also important to start with small phases. Do not try to do everything at once.

We worked with a vendor team. Their help was a key to our success.

Instead of taking two people a week each month to perform our internal KPI reporting, the same two people can have it done in a day.

Find a partner who will take responsibility for the implementation, and be available for support. This is important. 

We evaluated these tools:

• IBM Planning Analytics
• Oracle Essbase
• Adaptive Planning
• Budget Maestro

We chose BOARD because of the ease of use. For us that reduces our risk as implementers. We can focus on the business requirements and then translating that to the technical side is easier.

It is refreshing to use a tool that makes things easier, and works as expected.

Reach out to a sales person and watch a demo, because only when you see someone working with it will you appreciate the simplicity.

The feature that I have found most valuable is the concept that drives Board. That concept is that Board is entirely customizable. If we have a new process, or a new reporting function that we want to achieve, we can make it happen in Board. We are able to do it ourselves, and that is without any IT background or training.

This product has saved us countless hours in developing our budget each year. What used to require a number of employees working overtime each week consistently, has been cut down to one person working 10 hours of overtime once a year.

Our Budget is also more accurate, reliable, and is updated every morning with actuals from our accounting software.

 Board has also helped us with developing an initiative tracking system.

The issues that we have with Board are small. For instance, there is no spell check for text that is written.

I have used Board for 4 years.

No. The biggest part about deployment was getting employees trained on how to use the software. 

No, The software is extremely resilient, and problems are only encountered through user error, which are often easy to fix.

Customer Service and Technical Support have been great.We haven't had issues very often, but when we have, the fixes have been quick and easy.

We did all of our budget work in Excel before using Board. We switched because our Excel files would often be corrupted from one year to the next. This is not a problem with Board. Our algorithms always stay in place and we don't have to worry about corruption.

The setup is as straightforward or complex as you make it. You dictate what you want the software to do for you, and then the software is customized to your needs.

We implemented the software through Neubrain. Their level of expertise was very high, and they knew the Board software very well.

We are a municipal government, so we don't have ROI in the traditional sense, but we were able to save a lot of money in overtime costs, and personnel due to the ease of using Board.