Adaptive Planning announced its Spring 2011 Release, a major product release that supports complex, multi-organization planning and reporting requirements, increases options for integrating with other cloud-based systems, enables “white label” distribution by channel partners, and delivers numerous enhancements designed for both end-users and administrators. The new release takes full advantage of the revolutionary software as a service (SaaS) model to introduce breakthrough new capabilities for transforming complex, multi-division planning, reporting and analysis in organizations ranging from midsized companies and nonprofits to the largest corporate enterprises.
In a separate announcement today, the company also introduced two new solutions, Sales Planning & Analysis and Multi-Entity Planning & Analysis, which make it easy for corporate sales teams and complex corporations to take advantage of the powerful new capabilities delivered in the Spring 2011 Release.
With this new product release, Adaptive Planning continues to strengthen its position as the leading provider of on-demand business performance management solutions, with the most customers, users, and partners; fastest growth rate; and highest customer satisfaction.
New features in the Adaptive Planning Spring 2011 Release include:
Multiple Instances
Designed to support the complex planning and reporting requirements of companies that manage autonomous organizations, multiple instances allow companies to set up and link together multiple independent models within a company. With multiple instances, independent organizations can manage their own financial models — with their own administrators, users, charts of accounts, dimensions, assumptions, integrations, versions, and time frames – while seamlessly supporting the consolidation and reporting requirements of higher-level organizations.
The new multiple instance capability simplifies modeling and improves control for headquarters organizations, while preserving the autonomy of independent organizations. As such, multiple instances are a particularly strong fit for global companies, complex enterprises with multiple independent lines of business, companies analyzing and integrating M&A targets, and holding companies or investment management firms that manage a portfolio of operating companies. Multiple instances are also well-suited for independent functional processes – such as sales planning and analysis – and separate planning processes, such as long-range strategic planning.
The new capability allows for an unlimited number of instances, with unlimited levels, to be deployed within a hierarchy. Each instance has its own administrative users, security and access controls. Plans can be linked so that data can flow seamlessly from “child” to “parent” instances, and can also operate independently, without linkages to other instances. Users with appropriate privileges can drill down from one instance into the underlying instances, and can toggle seamlessly between instances.
With multiple instance support, Adaptive Planning provides significant advantages over Excel-based approaches to enterprise-wide planning and reporting. It decreases cycle times by eliminating countless hours of manual consolidation at all levels within the corporation, eliminates errors and improves overall accuracy, and ensures that financial plans always reflect the most up-to-date information.
Hosted Connector
Over time, Adaptive Planning has developed a variety of options for integrating with other enterprise applications, including a suite of Adaptive Planning Connectors for on-premise general ledgers and other systems, native direct integration with NetSuite, web services APIs, and flat file import and export.
The Spring 2011 Release introduces a new Hosted Connector, which is deployed on-demand as part of Adaptive Planning’s hosted service. The Hosted Connector is a cloud-based integration platform that allows companies to quickly and easily integrate Adaptive Planning with other cloud-based systems, such as Salesforce.com , Intacct, FinancialForce.com, OpenAir, Plex Systems, and many others.
BPM solutions benefit from tight integration with systems throughout a company, and Adaptive Planning’s Hosted Connector provides a powerful and easy-to-use new option designed for the increasing number of companies that are turning to the cloud for their key enterprise applications.
Channel Partner Enhancements
The Spring 2011 Release also introduces new capabilities designed to support Adaptive Planning’s partners, which are an important element of the company’s growing business. New partner-oriented capabilities include:
- Configurable User Interface “Skins.” New UI skins allow for Adaptive Planning to be “white labeled” by partners who are reselling or otherwise promoting Adaptive Planning.
- Enhanced NetSuite Integration. The Spring 2011 Release also deepens Adaptive Planning’s best-in-class integration with NetSuite by enabling users to integrate with NetSuite sandbox instances.
Other Product Enhancements
The Spring 2011 Release delivers numerous other enhancements that make Adaptive Planning more powerful and easier to use for end users and administrators.
- End User Enhancements include the ability for users to create an unlimited number of dashboards which can be shared among multiple users; the introduction of read-only data entry sheets, which support a new seat type – Analysis Seats – that can review sheets and utilize reports; the ability for end users to create new dimension values; and enhancements to reporting and emailing from within the application.
- Administrative Enhancements include new features for managing versions, importing structures and dimensions, and creating formulas across multi-dimensional cubes.
“The Spring 2011 Release marks a major milestone for the company,” said Robert Hull, founder, CFO, and Vice President of Client Services for Adaptive Planning. “The new capabilities provide exciting new options for enterprise customers, extend the value we can provide within the ecosystem of cloud-based solutions, and deliver new go-to-market alternatives for our distribution partners. And, by introducing numerous enhancements geared towards administrative and end users alike, we continue to invest in a user experience that has repeatedly earned us #1 rankings in customer satisfaction.”
Availability & Pricing
The Adaptive Planning Spring 2011 Release will be generally available on April 8, 2011. All SaaS clients will be automatically upgraded and have access to the new features and capabilities as part of their existing subscriptions. New instances and the Hosted Connector are priced separately. For additional pricing details, visit http://www.adaptiveplanning.com/products/pricing/.