I have used IBM Planning Analytics previously. IBM engine is more powerful, but the user experience is better in Board. And the stability or the flexibility is good in both.

We have used Power BI and Cognos.

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.

Excel. We switched because of the need to have accurate and consistent data that was secured. Once it's been approved in BOARD, it's stable, it's there. There was also the need to be able to add attributes for all of our data, who is the owner and that kind of thing, and have it different for everyone. And the need to be able to get into that solution cross-functionally at the same time. That obviously is not possible in Excel. And 5,000 Excel spreadsheets are not fun for anyone.

The most important criterion when selecting a vendor is the ease of implementation, that is really important. You can build all you want to, but it has to be something that's easy for an end-user to understand. I think that really helped us in our success, in that the product that we put out to our end-users across the city was pretty easy for them to understand, they didn't have to go to school or have significant training to understand it.

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.

We previously used Anaplan.

There are a lot of reasons that our customer switched to Board. Their previous solution, in terms of functionality, was really limited. It just scanned the data from the ERP system and showed the data in a table. In Board, we can create a lot of reports and do free analysis by changing the layout of the table. We can also send a graph or table to other people or download them. Board has more functions that the customer uses, compared to what they had before.

Our clients started with Board. They didn't replace any solution, other than Excel.

BOARD goes by the motto of "Be Simple". I have used other platforms in the past: IBM and some Oracle products. The are very complex, data-ridden. BOARD is very non-IT friendly, which I am excited about. 

I came from an IBM situation, then I moved to a company that did not have anything. I knew I did not want to go to the complexity of a system that was too big for us. BOARD was at the right size and right time for us. It is also something that we can grow into (scales). 

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.

It gets real difficult to use a lot of Excel spreadsheets, especially when you have 10 or 15 or more people using different spreadsheets, trying to get them all together. Not only that, but are their formulas correct? Don't get me wrong, Excel is a wonderful product, but this eliminates all that. 

Once you have somebody look at it and test the product, you only have to do it once, and then, you don't have to worry about a spreadsheet coming in from someplace else that isn't right.

When selecting or working with a vendor the most important criteria are

• performance
• functionality
• price goes along with that too.

We have SQL reporting, but we mostly use Excel for reporting. That is why we choose BOARD to help transform our reporting.

The budget system that we were using prior to investing in BOARD was written back in the early 90s, and it had a hard-coded date in there that it would not let us to do any forecasting beyond the year 2017. So we were forced into looking at another application. I spent about a year looking at applications. 

I chose BOARD because of the way that I was able to change it over time and integrate, not only a line-item budget, but also a strategic budget. I was able to bring in all those other pieces into it, and it wasn't just strictly an accounting stream. I am able to do more of the predictive analytics and the forecasting, and move the city into that direction instead of just the numbers.

It was before my time at the company.

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. 

We were using Datum, I think Cognos bought them, or IBM. It reached its lifecycle, and they were reviewing, I think it was their TM1 system. We did a whole RFP, and had several vendors, from Oracle and BOARD and the TM1 system. We did a whole analysis and BOARD came out the winner.

We chose it for the usability. It was a lot easier to see the process and have the users involved. It was more collaborative, they felt it's their ownership as opposed to our trying to push that. So at least now they have the tools to make that easier for them. 

Again, it's our first go-around, so we're still working out the kinks. And there are complaints, but with anything new, that's always the case. Salespeople like to complain.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor are financial stability and a company that is looking toward the future and taking advantage of the new technologies. Our old solution, they life-cycled and they weren't really supporting that system and they had moved on. BOARD continues to grow and develop, and understands the needs of dynamic organizations, and seems to adopt their product to that. So it seemed like a good fit.

We were just using spreadsheet.

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.

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.

Yes - Paris software POLAP and Business Objects from SAP.

Before BOARD, we were just using Excel.

We switched to BOARD because our goal is customer probability. I think its our executive manager's solution to consolidate all the data from different data points from all the different departments like marketing, operations, finance, and sales, then gather them all in one place and effectively distribute the information without developing a new solution.

We previously used Excel and OLAP cubes. We switched because BOARD is easier to use.

We used several excel files, linked each other. Instability and errors happened every day.