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In October 2020, a new user experience (UX) was unveiled for IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW), which we wrote about here. In this article we will share QueBIT’s release recommendations for new PAW. 

Data is the fuel of all analytics, whether you want to provide accurate timely information to decision-makers on the front lines, provide a comprehensive customer dashboard to your executives, do a predictive demand forecast or simply complete your annual budget.

You’ve been seeing people push AI and Machine Learning (ML) at you for years. Just about every magazine, research report, and unsolicited email you received in 2020 had an AI or ML angle. Maybe your organization has even talked about how ML can help solve your problems. But chances are, you haven’t implemented it. Most companies haven’t. But why is that? And why should you take the leap now?

With the October 2020 release of IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) 2.0.57, IBM is boldly starting a brand-new chapter for Planning Analytics (TM1) leveraging their open source Carbon design system for products and digital experiences. Going forward, all IBM software products will share the Carbon look and feel.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technologies are offering new levels of automation and intelligence in the Office of Finance. These technologies are underpinning many digital transformation efforts in finance and accounting. For RPA, which is all about eliminating tedious repetitive manual tasks, most growth has come from shared services centers implementing RPA solutions to support transaction processing, such as:

The Office of Finance is increasingly moving away from traditional, score-keeping focused frameworks like CPM and embracing cross-functional planning that is collaborative and strategic.

About 20 years ago my mentor and former boss, Richard Creeth, was introduced to a new company called OutlookSoft that had developed a corporate performance management (CPM) product called Everest on top of Microsoft SQL Server and Analysis Services. Richard was well-known back then as an industry analyst and co-author of the OLAP Report and up-and-coming vendors were eager to court his good opinion. Richard was also the principal of a boutique consulting firm that specialized in financial reporting, consolidations and planning which QueBIT acquired in 2008.

Once upon a time Oracle’s Hyperion EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) solution, built on the Essbase platform, was the market leader for everything “FP&A” (Financial Planning & Analysis) from the annual budget to the rolling forecast, profitability analysis and everything in-between.

Workday Adaptive Planning OfficeConnect makes it easy to develop packets of professional financial reports that need to meet strict layout and display requirements. Using OfficeConnect we’re able to take advantage of all that Microsoft Excel has to offer with layout, design, charting and calculations without giving up the single source of the truth that the Workday Adaptive Planning system provides. However, this only meets a portion of business requirement when it comes to enabling the business to deliver the organized data in a timely and consistent manner. For those who are actively planning and forecasting, a real-time connected web portal such as Workday Adaptive Planning is the right place to be. For those who consume portions of this data on a semi-regular basis, such as the traveling salesperson or branch manager, the requirement is often an email, likely containing a file or printout. The goal is simple: to provide a professional and personalized report to an end user on a scheduled basis without any manual labor, user interaction, or training of a system that is not necessary for that person to do their job.  ReportWORQ was built for this purpose.