Workday Adaptive Planning Pros and Cons

Being able to trust the data. Having a web-based solution for all of our budgeting/forecasting needs that eliminates the multiple versions of Excel documents being sent around. Allows for immediate update of data that executives can review and react to. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Formulas and calculations can be tricky to manage. You need one or two administrators that have a strong knowledge of these as well as triggers. Finding a clear learning path of the product, that does not result in additional charges. Taking an accelerated class on formulas and having to pay for it or pay a consultant is not a solution when we already pay for the product. Dashboards are not user friendly, each tile needs to be manually updated with dates. There are no features to select dates for an entire dashboard tab. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Workdy Adaptive Planning is very easy to use. We have been able to quickly adopt and implement the solution, provide the flexibility for multple scenario modelling and unify our global reporting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The lack of file structure through the menu bar makes navigating the models a little difficult. All sheets appear in the same menu bar regardless of what model they belong to. It would be asier and cleaner to be able to group these sheets into a menu option based on their specific model. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Ease of use. From a technical and functional standpoint. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Integrations. Power of One integration should be part of the Extend offering. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

One of its standout aspects is its flexibility. It allows organizations to create customized financial models and forecasts that can adapt to their unique needs. Its user-friendly interface and powerful integration capabilities also make it easier for teams to collaborate and make data-driven decisions. The ability to perform real-time analysis and scenario planning is another strong point, helping businesses stay agile and responsive to changing conditions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Finding comprehensive training and information for Workday Adaptive Planning can be challenging for several reasons. Despite Workday offering official training resources, these may not always meet every user’s specific needs or cover advanced features in depth. Documentation can vary in detail, and users might find that certain troubleshooting information or role-specific training is either limited or scattered across multiple sources. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like the easability of creating different versions based on different market scenarios for our AOP. The reports are extremely helpful when comparing actuals versus different versions of the AOP. One of my favorite features is the ability to sync with Office Connect in Excel, which is where I complete most of my BvA reports and allows for real-time updates. The import features allow us to easily upload our financial data and use for more dynamic reporting purposes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It does time out quickly when unused for a brief amount of time. This can cause slight frustration when having to log back in and re-navigate to the place and filter selection that I was on. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy to use is one of the best thing about Workday adaptive planning.It's design is so good that it helps in quickly building forecasts and reports and adaptive regardless of team size. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The setup and customisation is time consuming and complex mostly for people with unique needs.Handling large data set felt challenging. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

One of the best things about Workday Adaptive Planning is its flexibility and adaptability. It allows organizations to easily adjust their plans and forecasts in real-time to adapt to changing business conditions, which is crucial for staying agile and competitive. You can create various what if scenarios and dashboard to understand how the KPIs can be used and changed according to the requirements. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Workday Adaptive Planning can be complex to set up and configure initially, requiring thorough training and expertise. Additionally, some users may find the interface to be less intuitive compared to other planning tools. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

One of the biggest upsides to Worday Adaptive Planning is how diverse it is and how you can really build it out to fit what your specific company needs are. For example, setting up a personnel rolling roster, or vendor spend sheets. It is nice having one place to really house it all while getting out of the manual spreadsheets. This system is used daily for many various tasks in our organization, it would be a big task to house all this manually again! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The least helpful part of Workday Adaptive Planning would have to be the help system. I find it is a very complicated system or portal where only certain people are able to really get into it and do the trainings and forums. I would like to see a more user friendly system there. The implementation could have gone a bit better as well, we were shifted mid implementation and it seemed to really effect the flow of it all. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Ease of storing data from multiple in-house systems into one central place to keep together as well as blending multiple time frames and versions/budgets Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

OfficeConnect (excel interface) is a bit quirky sometimes in regards to behaving nicely with other instances of excel open. It can seem a bit rough to operate within at first, however, once you learn its workings it is much more flexible than the cloud matrix report option. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Adaptive is much more versatile than most planning software, and in most ways better than Excel for planning and analytics. It is great and bringing together data from multiple sources, especially if on the Workday platform, and really allows your team to collaborate in real time without any issues unlike trying to work in Excel workbooks at the same time or needing an adminstrator to enter data for you. Power users can even update models and reports themselves and share with others. The flexibility of designing your own models is also great in allowing you to plan however granular you need and have different methods of planning for different business units but bring it all together consolidated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The reporting is the least useful feature. Yes, OfficeConnect gives you all the power of Excel and PowerPoint and is great if you can utilize it, but for now it only works on Windows when many businesses have shifted to Apple or Google platforms. Also OfficeConnect is not fast or easy to use like the web reports and web dashboards which are great for quick adhoc reports but not great for presentation level reports. This creates a huge disconnect in the quickness of analytics, if you want to run and show in depth analytics you'll need OfficeConnect due to the limited functionality and limited formula capabilites of Adaptive web reports which requires someone to build and maintain and refresh the OfficeConnect reports which is slow and not easily shared with other users.

Also the planning functionality of the 3 sheet types have not been updated in years. Some new features or sheet types would be greatly appreciated. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.