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Quartet Standard bulletin board

Mfg # 2304 CDW # 181336 | UNSPSC 56101500

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Cork board with aluminum frame features long-lasting, thick, resilient cork. Ideal for breakrooms and home offices. Dense, nonporous cork holds push pins tightly. Cork board has a dense, fibrous fiberboard backing, primed and sealed to reduce moisture absorption and resist warping. Includes mounting hardware. Mounts vertically or horizontally.

This item was discontinued on July 15, 2022

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Quartet Standard bulletin board is rated 4.57 out of 5 by 30.
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Allows us to customize everything ourselves without any IT background or training. What is most valuable? 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. How has it helped my organization? 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. What needs improvement? The issues that we have with Board are small. For instance, there is no spell check for text that is written. For how long have I used the solution? I have used Board for 4 years. What was my experience with deployment of the solution? No. The biggest part about deployment was getting employees trained on how to use the software. What do I think about the stability of the solution? No, The software is extremely resilient, and problems are only encountered through user error, which are often easy to fix. How is customer service and technical support? 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. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? 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. What about the implementation team? We implemented the software through Neubrain. Their level of expertise was very high, and they knew the Board software very well. What was our ROI? 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. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-05-12T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Eases access to data for report generation, resulting in faster decision making What is our primary use case? We use it across our entire business. We use it for financial data, we use it for inventory data, we use it for sales data, we use it for inventory transaction data. We actually use it across all those platforms. It's performing very well. How has it helped my organization? The benefit is the ease of access to the data to generate reports. That results in faster decision making. What is most valuable? The simplicity of loading data into BOARD. I've used other solutions that take a more technical approach to getting the data in. I think the ease of being able to get the data into BOARD is what makes it nice for people with a semi-IT background. What needs improvement? BOARD 11 looks like it's capturing a lot. I would compare the wishlist to things that are in Power BI. The example today, here at the BOARDVille 2018 conference, of the implementation by the city of Fayetteville: She's actually hosting her BOARD application to the website and allowing all the citizens in her town to use it. That would be nice, to be able to host your site and actually have BOARD be the driver of your site. So you could have anybody in your organization go to www.myorg.com, for example, and then go through what you allow them to go through. So rather than having to go through the application, to be able to go to actually host it to a website. For how long have I used the solution? One to three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We haven't had any real issues with the stability. We've had one issue where they had to come in and fix something that kept needing restarting while we're developing, but we've not had that issue in a while. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? There are no issues with the scalability. We're a medium sized company. I have worked for larger companies and smaller companies. I think it BOARD is pretty fast as far as data loading and processing. We haven't had any scalability issues. How is customer service and technical support? They're amazing, how quickly they respond and how well they partner with you. How was the initial setup? I wasn't involved in the initial implementation. Our IT does the upgrades, they're pretty seamless. If there is an issue, they let me know, but we haven't had any. As far as expanding from the initial implementation, that's what I do and that's been pretty seamless. What other advice do I have? I think the most important criterion when selecting is support. Once you create your relationship and implement, I think it's important to keep that relationship going. I would give the solution an eight out of 10, because I think with BOARD 11 they're getting up to speed with a lot of the usability, the knowing how to use it without being taught how to use, making it more intuitive. But the reason I would say an eight and not a 10 is because - I do have a little bit of coding background - while it's nice that it's a user-interface development, could we speed it up if we could use code to actually develop faster, for people who would like that option? My advice would be, know what you want before you purchase anything. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Keeps track of budgetary expenses during the year What is our primary use case? We use BOARD for financial statements. It is performing great. My managers love it. It is easy for them to look at their budget and review their expenses at budget time so they can know what to budget for the following year, but also to keep track of their expenses during the year and not go over their budgets. How has it helped my organization? It has streamlined the organization. It has benefited us by reducing time. Also, we are able to easily export data. When directors need financial information, we can go in the system and export the data, then send it out so they have it ready and available. If they are not in the office, we can email it to them. In addition, all the managers are now more on top of their expenses and their budget, so it is better streamlined. What is most valuable? It makes it easier for me since a manager can actually look at their budget and account, then understand it. Also, where it used to take me three days at the beginning of the year to create the new financial statement, now it is a matter of minutes because all the data is in the system. What needs improvement? If we could upload other data, e.g., pivot tables which can be done in BOARD already, that we have pre-existing and have that data distribute to more complex spreadsheets, I would like that going forward. For how long have I used the solution? One to three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? No stability issues. Everything has been good. We did have some downtime because there are only two staff members in my division. My managers continuously use it, except we do not have the time to continuously update it. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? No scalability issues. How is customer service and technical support? The person that we worked with, Roberto, understood what we needed and helped us when we had questions. We felt at ease and that we could always go back to him, email or call him. He was always ready and available to help us out. We have not used technical support. Which solutions did we use previously? We were just using spreadsheet. How was the initial setup? The initial setup was very complex for us. I am looking forward to the upgrade for BOARD 11. We have to learn all the back-end of the setup. We do not have the company that comes in with everything already preset. We have to learn it and set it up ourselves. If we dedicate the time to it, we will get it. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We did look at a competitor. What other advice do I have? If you want to streamline your business and reduce hourly time using the creation of spreadsheets or other financial reports that they should go for BOARD because it drastically reduces time. It will also make your financials ready and available for any type of financial planning or reporting. Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: We needed somebody who would understand what we wanted and the output that we needed. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Improves our clients' performance internally through coordination and communication What is our primary use case? 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. How has it helped my organization? 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. What is most valuable? 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. What needs improvement? * 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. What do I think about the stability of the solution? 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. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It is highly scalable. How is customer service and technical support? 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). Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? 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. What other advice do I have? 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: * Product * 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. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner.
Date published: 2018-04-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Easy installation. Requires minimal SQL skills to get it up and running quickly. Valuable Features Ease of use and completeness of the offering. Improvements to My Organization This platform has help our organization streamline our budget process and give us insight into our customers, products & services. Room for Improvement Product is excellent, no areas of improvement that are not currently in the product or on its roadmap. Use of Solution 3 Years Customer Service and Technical Support Customer Service: Very high level of customer service. Technical Support: Excellent Previous Solutions Yes - Paris software POLAP and Business Objects from SAP. Initial Setup Easy installation and minimal SQL skills to get it up and running quickly. Implementation Team In-house Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2015-05-14T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Write-back and visualization features require minimal IT involvement What is our primary use case? 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. How has it helped my organization? Better integrating of operational and financial processes. Driving everything to reduce working capital and inventory. Big things, as opposed to just deficiencies. What is most valuable? The ability to do Write-back and visualization, with minimal IT development orientation. What needs improvement? 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. What do I think about the stability of the solution? 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. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? 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. How was the initial setup? The initial set up is really rapid, quite quick. It's simple, it's IT-driven, typically. What other advice do I have? 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. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Reseller.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Secures user data allowing databases to be flushed and rebuilt daily What is our primary use case? Our business is the management of external client property portfolios. We use BOARD to provide clients with the ability to easily manage and maintain their property holdings. How has it helped my organization? BOARD has allowed us to provide to clients a tool which allows them to see the state of their entire holdings managed by us. With this tool, clients can make decisions based on fact and current information regarding property value, rental income, lease management, etc. What is most valuable? As a developer, the ability to create a data model and have it in testing within a week is fantastic. My favourite feature of BOARD is the ability to write back to the OLAP DB, as well as the Rdb, and secure user data allowing databases to be flushed and rebuilt daily. What needs improvement? It would be nice to see truly transferable processes from model to model, as well as a method of building repetitive processes. Building similar models entirely from scratch could be made quicker with transfer abilities between databases and capsules. For how long have I used the solution? One to three years. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-30T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's a flexibility, fast, and easy to use solution. What is most valuable? It's a flexibility, fast, and easy to use solution. How has it helped my organization? It has helped us manage our workflow. What needs improvement? It needs improvement in the areas of sales, credit, and supply chain. What was my experience with deployment of the solution? We've had no issues with deployment. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We've had no issues with stability. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We've had no issues with scalability. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-07-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Useful for finding areas of inefficiency, but needs support for automatically defining cubes What is our primary use case? We use this solution in several ways, including: * We develop data modeling for customers. * Internally, we use it to monitor and control company performance. * We create demonstrations for potential new customers. * We create dashboards that permit us to find and understand inefficiencies, which can then be improved. How has it helped my organization? Board helps us to better explain KPI performance, thanks to the creation of dashboards. These permit us to show the right information to discover trends and allows us to take action in advance. It is useful for self-analysis regarding company data and helps to find areas where we can improve. What is most valuable? The most valuable feature is the ability to create processes inside it. We can have Business Intelligence integrated with a CPM that permits us to develop structured projects. Also, the capability to manipulate data allows us to create different processes, easier and faster. What needs improvement? The product can be improved by making it possible to know where cubes are used. Also, the auto definition of a better cube structure can facilitate the process of structuring the database. This would avoid some types of errors. For how long have I used the solution? Two years. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-05-21T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Gives us a lot of data modeling flexibility, in addition to solution scalability What is our primary use case? 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. How has it helped my organization? 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. What is most valuable? 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. What needs improvement? 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. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability has been perfect. We have never had any issues from downtime. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We are not nervous about our future with BOARD. We are very confident. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? 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. What about the implementation team? We used consultants to support us with the implementation and to initially set things up properly. They were absolutely supportive and knowledgeable. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We looked at the big players: Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, Vena Solutions, and QlikView. We did not feel any of these solutions were perfect. What other advice do I have? 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. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2018-04-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It has saved time in our budgeting and planning processes, but needs more flexibility around design and formatting What is our primary use case? We use it for a few different things: * Our budget * Sales reporting * Performance tracking for some of our operations' groups. In the last year or two, we have seen a ramp up of usage. Other than some performance issues, we have been having some pretty good success with the product. How has it helped my organization? It has definitely saved us time, especially in our budget and planning processes. A lot of time was previously spent manually manipulating information. Now, the information is there, so they can actually look at it and utilize it for forecasting and planning. What is most valuable? The drill down is good for people who have that high level view, because they can do some analysis based on it. I also think the visuals are good; being able to get away from Excel and automate some things. Thus, people are not spending all their time manipulating manual data, and being able to pull from several data sources. Therefore, we have come up with some nice views. What needs improvement? I would like to see more flexibility in terms of the visuals. Also, some more flexibility around the design and the formatting, because a lot of times the hard sell is to people who have a certain view in mind and we can't necessarily replicate it. In BOARD, even though it is better in terms of the process, they still want to change look and feel, e.g., colors, etc. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is pretty stable. The only issue that we seem to have is with the performance, which with version 11, it looks like they might have addressed it. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The more that we use it in our company, the more other departments are looking to use it. I think it has the ability to keep up with this growth. How is customer service and technical support? My analysts have used the technical support. Sometimes they have felt like they did not receive the answer that they needed, or you have to go and upgrade in order to address a problem. How was the initial setup? It was set up right as I started with the company. What other advice do I have? Make sure you know what you want before you start having someone work on building and designing something. A lot of times in the past (for us), people had what they thought was an idea of what they wanted, we would do all this work, then they would look at it and say, "No, that's not what we want." Then, we would have to start from scratch again. Definitely spend the time upfront to map everything out. Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: * Availability * Good communication * Good technical knowledge, but also being able to speak to non-technical people. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The collaboration features are key for our clients; overall, the solution is scalable What is our primary use case? The primary use case is developing a demand planning/collaboration platform. It's performing well. What is most valuable? The collaboration part. That is the tool that our client is really using. What needs improvement? 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. What do I think about the stability of the solution? 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. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? 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. How is customer service and technical support? 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. What other advice do I have? 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. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Streamlined our processes, and everyone sees the same numbers What is our primary use case? Mainly with our sales forecasting, cost-center budgeting, and financial reporting. We implemented last September, and had some startup issues, but that's normal. Since we ironed those out, it's been working pretty well. We went live with our 2018 sales forecast. We're just starting our first revision of that annual budget. There is a little bit of work to get that going, but that seems to be working well. And we're getting in the various reporting for the different business uses. So, so far, so good. How has it helped my organization? It has sped things up - since we never have enough time to get things done. This has streamlined the process. Before, sales was doing Excel spreadsheets, and then we were putting that in a forecasting system. This, on the other hand, is all direct, and we can report right from it. Then we're loading actuals in, so it's a much more streamlined approach. What is most valuable? Having one version of the truth. And we're tracking each revision, so we can say, "Okay, this is what you said, and now it looks like you're coming down or you're going up. You need to explain why." It's good that everyone sees the same numbers and can see what we're seeing. It makes things a little bit easier. What needs improvement? We, and finance and accounting, use the client more, where everyone else is on the Web version. Going between the two makes it difficult sometimes. But nothing you can't deal with. For how long have I used the solution? Less than one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We've had a few little issues. We adopted the cloud version, we were something of a guinea pig for them. They've had a few issues that they were able to work out. But overall, it's a few bumps here and there, but it seems to be working well now. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Scalability is very good. We went away from our old system, partly because it had been life-cycled. But we always had issues with the size. We tend to budget at a detailed level, SKU-based, with all the customers. And we ran into limitations on what we could do. Where with BOARD, it seems, we have even expanded what we do, and we're not having any issues with response time and the like. It should be able to satisfy our needs for the coming years. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? I was not involved in the IT setup, but setting up what and how we wanted to report, I was involved with that. It was pretty straightforward. Just getting used to the different way the BOARD handles things, as opposed to our previous systems. Nothing that difficult; just getting used to things. What other advice do I have? I would tell colleagues to give this a good look. The setup may be a little bit more time-consuming, and understanding how everything works together. But longer term, it will probably save in the end. I don't have to be looking for other bolt-ons, it covers everything. So I would say that's probably the best advice. You may need more than one other solution, where with this, I think it will cover all your bases. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Helps us produce a cross-functional dataset from disparate sources and produce reports What is our primary use case? The primary use is called "Track Stat". It's our performance management system that we use at the city of Fayetteville. We use that to capture data throughout the city and report our progress to the Citizens' Council and managers. It's performing very well. We're very happy with the ease and the flexibility of the solution. We've had very, very few issues in terms of launching the application, and the issues that we did have were really like access and user errors. Other than that, I can't think of another software solution that we've managed at the city that went as well as BOARD has. How has it helped my organization? For us, the city of Fayetteville has very disparate data sources on different RMS systems, so the benefit for us was to be able to reach out across departments - globally, across our organization: folks like Fire, Police, Inspections, Parks and Rec - and really build a cross-functional dataset that we're able to analyze and then produce reports for the public, online. What is most valuable? From our perspective, what was very valuable is the ability to customize. We didn't see a solution out there that really matched exactly what our functional requirements would be. So we were able to work with New Brain, our integrator, and we were able to build from the ground up what we wanted, and I think that's pretty unique to BOARD. What needs improvement? The one thing that I think we would like to see in terms of improvement of the application is the ability to print. It's fantastic to have all of these graphic visualization of data, but we're not able to very easily just print. I'm not a developer, I'm an end user, but from my perspective, if you can have a little "print" button and then you just click it and it would produce what's on the screen, or anything like that that would be easy to do, that would be very helpful. When we built the Track Stat, we had a focus on getting that out onto the Web and having it available for everyone. But some folks just need the print copy, so that's really been a stumbling block for us, and a pretty serious one at this point. We just need the ability to print. What do I think about the stability of the solution? My impression is that it's excellent. I believe that BOARD does provide a very stable environment. Again, we haven't had any real issues. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I think it is very customizable. For us, it's not a financial and budgeting solution. It's really just based on some performance metrics. We don't have financial forecasting, but if we did we certainly know that we could build that. For us, I feel like that's pretty excellent with BOARD. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? It was pretty straightforward. They set up a meeting schedule. We did a lot of meetings through the website. They set all of that up. It was pretty painless. Which other solutions did I evaluate? Products like Hyperion, Tableau. We went with BOARD because of the cost, the ability to customize, and New Brain being a company that was an integrator and willing to partner with us - it was more about a partnership than it was about anything else. What other advice do I have? I would rate BOARD as an eight out of 10. The things that really could be improved would be a couple of things. I think the print issue is big, and then the ability to have that back support. It feels like BOARD as an organization has grown exponentially and probably isn't in the right space for support and training. Once that application is launched, to be able to say, "Okay. How are you going to support this moving forward?" Because not everybody is prepared to get in there and create Cubes. I'm not a Cube-creator, but I don't want to pay someone large sums of money to get in there and make adjustments, and that kind of thing. And maybe having some out-of-the-box, off-the-shelf things like, "Here's an application and this is what it does," and then you can grab onto those. Do your homework. Talk to other customers, and really do a benefit analysis, like what are you looking for? For us, again, we weren't looking for an ERP system or anything like that. We were looking for very customized, specific solution. Anybody looking for that, they really do need to do their homework. Create a steering committee from your organization to get everybody's perspective. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Now, we have only one version of the truth What is our primary use case? We have brought the solution to be the "one" solution and are using it in all aspects of finance in terms of reporting, forecast budgeting, modeling, and score cards. We are also using it for analyticals and "what-if" scenarios/situations. One of the things that we asked for it to do was provide ease of use and it has accomplished that. Also, it was an easy implementation, and it has been a huge success. How has it helped my organization? The low hanging fruit on the how it is performing now that we have built it into our integrity and trust in our numbers. Where in the past, there have been issues, now we have only one version of the truth. We have been able to provide seamless governance across the whole organization. Why we have done this is for the hard savings, my team is able to scale easily with the business along with the rapid growth that we have been seeing. What is most valuable? It is "one" solution. Keeping it simple: Allowing my team, my users, end users, and me only one application to plug into to get all of their financial data. This is key. What needs improvement? It would be huge in the future if BOARD offered a lot more graphs and presentations, and it was a lot easier to use. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Stability has been fantastic. We have not had any downtime. We are an on-premise user, so we are very dependent on our own systems and we have very reliable systems. I am interested in the future of turning over to the cloud and the challenge of what that performance will be like. Right now, it is a future endeavor that we have. In the industry that I belonged to, the healthcare industry, there are a tremendous amount of safeguards that we have to add, therefore everything is on-premise versus out in the cloud. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We are still a small organization. From my organization, I am very excited about it. That is one of the reasons that I picked BOARD, it would scale. How is customer service and technical support? We have not used technical support, because we are dealing with a third-party vendor. Which solutions did we use previously? 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). How was the initial setup? Initial setup was very straightforward. It was a really good partnership that we had through interviews that we were conducted by BOARD, the third-party vendor, and us. Therefore, we knew where we were all the time. It was pretty seamless. What about the implementation team? BOARD implementation is done with the help of a third-party vendor. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We were looking at other vendors, like Sisense, and all your typical, major competitors. BOARD stood out because it was the company with "one" solution. I liked the way that I felt as a user and administrator of it. There were a lot of clicks, drops, drags, etc. versus writing code. What other advice do I have? I have been totally thrilled with BOARD. Just do it. I think about the way that BOARD is trying to continuously reinvent itself. Adding the community is huge. It gives us a source out of Google to find solutions. We are so used to that in our society. BOARD has actually done that. The customer service is huge, knowing that every time I make a new inquiry that I always feel like I am the number one customer, even though I know I am not. It has been huge; it has been fantastic. There is a tremendous learning curve with it, because you are learning a whole new language at first. Once you understand the basic concepts of what a capsule, mask, and entity are, then it becomes pretty easy. Then, like with anything else, the more you use it, the easier it gets. Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: The all-in-one solution was key thing for us. I did not want have the end users go day-to-day having to use multiple apps to manage one task. I did not want to do that. I wanted to have "one" solution to fit all of our financial means. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2018-04-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We have better reporting and have been able to better track performance, but are currently experiencing some stability issues What is our primary use case? Currently, we use it for our sale forecasting and our supply chain planning. We have been with BOARD for about a year now, and there is still a lot for us to learn. We want to take it to the next level, and use it for our budgeting and predictive analytic capabilities, therefore having a more integrated usage across our organization. How has it helped my organization? We have better reporting and have been able to better track performance. We now have real-time data. Ultimately, it will help us to make better decisions as an organization. What is most valuable? With BOARD, it is having the real-time data. That is a big buy-in for us. Also, it allows people to quickly create dashboards with reports. These are the key features that we like. What needs improvement? Some of the features lacking in the current solution that we are looking for have been highlighted in BOARD 11, such as being able to send our user a mobile app, sending a PDF file but the user can go back to the data source, and some of ability around being managing the back-end data better. These seem to be addressed in BOARD 11, so we are looking forward to the rollout. For how long have I used the solution? Less than one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We have had some challenges with newer version of the rollout. We are looking forward BOARD 11 with its more refined functions. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It has great potential. Right now, we started with just one or two departments, but as we are able to demonstrate the success of what we do, we will be able to get more buy-in from more people. How is customer service and technical support? We work closely with our BOARD technical team. I am happy with the level of service that we receive from BOARD. Which solutions did we use previously? We have SQL reporting, but we mostly use Excel for reporting. That is why we choose BOARD to help transform our reporting. What about the implementation team? We definitely had some success with our implementation, but there were some good learning experiences on how we could allocate our resources and how we roll it out to our organization. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? In terms of the pricing, it was reasonable. BOARD is not the lowest in the market, but it was reasonable for us. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We looked at different options. We have a long list of vendors and options that we narrowed down to BOARD. BOARD allows us to customize our front-end based on our needs versus other systems where you just have to adapt your processes to their system. What other advice do I have? It is important to have a clear strategy in the beginning of what you want to achieve. Make sure that you allocate the resources, then work with BOARD to ensure you have a successful launch. Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: * It has to be a reliable platform from a technical perspective. * It has to have good network support, customer service, and also have a reasonable price within our budget. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2018-04-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Easy to implement, easy to maintain, easy to develop internal report or procedure. Valuable Features * Integrated environment, guaranteeing us the ease of use and flexibility needed to create applications or procedures on our owns. * Ability to perform multidimensional analyses. * Integration and normalization data from different sources. Improvements to My Organization Each user is able to obtain all the information needed in autonomy. Use of Solution 8 years Customer Service and Technical Support We needed technical support and customer service few times, and had good results. Previous Solutions We used several excel files, linked each other. Instability and errors happened every day. Initial Setup Initial setup is easy to do and to understand, there is no need to have great IT knowledge. Implementation Team We implemented the BI tool through a vendor team 8 years ago, and their level of expertise was high. We are currently implementing Board Financial Consolidation package with Board consultants with optimum results in terms of time and comprehension of the product. Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing Pricing and licensing are not standard, but it can be tailored according to company needs. Other Solutions Considered Board was suggested by our ERP consultants and we are convinced after the demo. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-06-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Information is easily accessible and clear What is our primary use case? I have been using BOARD for the last four years to create financial reports, create budget scenarios, perform budget cycle, run consolidations, create dashboards and visualizations. BOARD provides in-depth insight to enable users in their decision-making process. Taking data and making it easily readable/ready-to-use. How has it helped my organization? * BOARD helps by providing access to all sources and data. * Changes can be made easily by the users themselves. * The reports are easy to play around with. * Management can customise the filters as per their requirement. What is most valuable? * Easy to install * User-friendly * Data presentation is great * Many features and tools to choose from * Information is easily accessible and clear. What needs improvement? * More visualization could be brought in * More customization of data in regards to specific user requirements. For how long have I used the solution? Three to five years. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-12-05T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Integration with SAP has helped with process optimization, with all data and reports in one place What is our primary use case? We use it for retail budgeting and assortment planning. Our company is mainly focusing on fashion retail. And we are also now focusing on vendor forecasting to provide predictive analyses. We are a Board partner in India. One of our clients is Bestseller, a fashion retailer. We are doing projects for them on retail budgeting and planning. We recently completed their assortment planning project and we have had good feedback. How has it helped my organization? The integration with SAP has helped with process optimization. Before, users were using Excel for planning. First they had to go to SAP, extract the data, and plan everything in Excel. Then, for reporting, they were using another tool where they would have to select the reports and send them to senior managers. But now, SAP is integrated with Board, so they get the data in Board, they do the planning in Board, and all the reports are in Board. There is no need to send reports via email to senior managers. And once the reports are approved, everything goes through automatically. It has made things easy for them. It has cut many steps from their activities. Using Board has reduced costs for our clients because they would have to get an SAP license for each of their users. There is only one license for the Board SAP integration. So users can just use the Board license and cut down on licenses for SAP. And because they were using an additional reporting tool, that has also been cut down. They have even been able to cut down on Office, because there is no more Excel. Everything is in Board. What is most valuable? The most valuable features are the reporting and the charts. The reporting functionality is handy for aggregation, when it comes to planning. That ability is fascinating and our users are very happy with it. The charts and the reporting allow our users to see all the data and to see how things are going this year or in the COVID situation. They're seeing everything. Instead of having to check data line by line, they're seeing it in a graph and they're seeing it in charts. The reports are very useful here when it comes to aggregation. They want to see things at the regional or store level, or on the complete city level. The forecasting is happening and the reports are sent to senior levels, like the CEO and managers. It's one solution, so that users don't have to go to other software to see any of their data. All the data is in one system, making it a one-stop system and solution for end-to-end planning. There is no need for a multiple software solution. The data, reports, and planning are there in Board, so there is no need to go to SAP or any other third-party ERP system. That's because Board is integrated with all the ERP solutions. Users are able to keep on using Board, making the planning seamless, with no need to go here and there. What needs improvement? We're using version 10.6 and small things are improved in 10.7 and even more in Board 11. Board 11 is much better. There is room for improvement when it comes to how users see the data. Most clients are comfortable with MS Office and Excel. Something like 70 percent of Board, when it comes to data entry, is like Excel, where they can use Tab or formulas, etc. But if they want to freeze data—imagine the data contains 20 columns or 30 columns—they need to scroll. The freezing option is there, but it is not in the control of users. It is in the control of our technical team. We need to configure it and freeze it, but the end-user can't freeze the data view to a particular column. That option is there in Excel, where they can freeze things and scroll and see what the values are. So most users are asking for the option to be able to freeze things. Also, some of our users are still using an MS Office add-in for Excel for certain calculations, and when they export from Board, some of the values, some of the totals and column names, are not coming through into Excel. In addition, when it comes to speed and memory, we recommend our users use an 8 GB RAM machine. When loading certain large quantities of data, it is taking 4 to 5 GB of memory. We're still analyzing this but we have raised a ticket to find out why it's taking up so much memory. Finally, it should be very friendly. The UI should be more attractive. For how long have I used the solution? I have been working with Board for the past year. It has been very good learning Board as a powerful BI tool. Our team has made good progress. We recently finished the Board certification, so all of our team got the Practitioner certificate. We are looking toward the consultant certificate, which we are scheduled for in the next month. What do I think about the stability of the solution? As I mentioned elsewhere, sometimes users are finding that the memory use is high. Stability-wise, there are no issues. We do get some error messages in the client, messages that we have raised tickets about with their support team. They are just a warning, they are not corrupting, but they give end-users the wrong impression. We have started correcting those. Apart from that, there are no stability or performance issues. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It's scalable because anything can be built with Board when you build it from scratch. We have a very small team. We have around 15 licenses. Around five to six people are developing complete solutions for our customers. On the customer side, we have 150 licenses in the Board production environment. How are customer service and technical support? Board's technical support is very good. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? Our clients started with Board. They didn't replace any solution, other than Excel. How was the initial setup? The initial setup is very simple, whether it's the installation of Board, license management, user installation, Windows installations, or if you want a cloud installation. Even the cloud administration console and the web server installation and the MS Office add-on installation are very simple. There are no problems involved with installation of Board. For one server it did not take more than two to three hours and it was only me involved in the setup. For deployment I use the Board Transporter tool. We have three environments: development, QA, and production. We're following Agile methodology. We first deploy it in our IT environment, then QA, then production. Transporter makes things very simple. However, I'm not sure that the Transporter tool will work on Windows clients. For Windows clients the Transporter 10.6 version was very problematic. Then we installed a web server. When our client was installed we then logged in to the client and there was the Transporter package and we started using that. What other advice do I have? Go with the latest version. Even my customers should have done so. If you're a new customer going with Board, go with the latest cloud version, always. The latest version is always best and it will solve most of the issues. If our customers are happy, we are happy. If Board is making things simpler for our users, we'll be getting more licenses and we can suggest that users use more features of Board. It is making life and their work simpler. That is very good and that is the main objective for us. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? On-premises Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor. The reviewer's company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from A complete platform with prebuilt applications, good scalability and value for money, and a toolkit for no-code development environment What is our primary use case? It can be used for business intelligence, predictive planning, financial consolidation, integrated planning, budgeting and forecasting, strategy execution, and management. It can be deployed on the cloud or on-prem. What is most valuable? It is very easy to use. It has got what they call a toolkit, which is a no-code development environment. You can develop a whole solution with it because it is a complete platform. There is a lot of online material that can be used as a reference. You can help yourself while developing a solution. There are some prebuilt applications in the platform environment. You can very easily customize and integrate these applications. It also has flexible scaling of machine resources, which is really great. What needs improvement? It can have more functionality for narrative reporting. They should also improve their training courses, which are currently very lightweight. When you get into more complex things, it is quite difficult to figure out what you're supposed to do, and you have to look at a lot of videos before you actually understand, which is a bit frustrating. Their training can be more comprehensive. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using this solution for one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Its scalability is good. Because of the agreement that they've got with Microsoft Azure, they monitor the performance and scale automatically. If more processing power is required, they just add it. You don't have to worry about that, and you also don't have to pay extra. In terms of usage, we started with four or five people. We currently have about 30 users, and we will use it for more areas of the business. How are customer service and technical support? Their support was good. They got back to us and helped us immediately. I can't complain. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We have used Power BI and Cognos. How was the initial setup? We use it in the cloud, so we didn't have to install anything. It took two days to get our environment provisions up and running. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? It is not the cheapest product on earth, but you get so much. It provides good value for money. What other advice do I have? I would rate Board a nine out of ten. In general, it is a surprisingly good tool. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2021-05-10T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Allowed me to integrate both a line-item budget and a strategic budget What is our primary use case? We use it for budget development and revenue forecasting, and it's performing quite well right now. There have been some minor hiccups, not with the BOARD platform itself, but it's just the learning, getting familiar with the product, and the end-user accepting the application. In a government organization, there has been some struggle to get people to use the tool, versus what they've used before. I don't think it's the learning curve, because the way New Brain designed the application for us, it's fairly user friendly. I think it's more of a hesitancy to stop inputting things on Excel spreadsheets and then inputting things into the BOARD software itself. We're only about a year and a half into it, and what I'm finding is that they kept both. They've kept their Excel sheets. So they are doing double entry. They're were doing entry into Excel as well as entry into the BOARD system, because they didn't quite trust the application yet. Now that we're in year two, the second budget season with the system, they've stopped using some of those Excel spreadsheets. They're relying more on the BOARD application itself. How has it helped my organization? The way that we designed the personal service forecasting module - about 80% of our operating budget is personal-service related in government. The way that it allows us to take all the variables in, and do a lot of "what if" scenario planning on it, I think is the greatest benefit. What is most valuable? For me, because I do a lot of the administration of the system, it's just how easy it was to set up and how easy it is to maintain. What needs improvement? Being only about a year and a half into using the tool, I don't think I know enough of what's still possible. I'm excited to learn about the e-learning tool and the community that's just starting out. If I was to look at it, from my point of view, there's a lot of report writing that we have to do in the government sector, so maybe explaining how we integrate with, for example, a publishing software, would be helpful. For how long have I used the solution? One to three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It wasn't because of BOARD, it was more because we have integrated it with our ERP system, and we have made changes in our ERP system without filtering those through to our BOARD software. So it wasn't BOARD, it was really a self-inflicted kind situation. The platform has worked wonderfully for us. There haven't been any issues that I've seen with the platform. In fact, we're looking at - maybe in the next year, or next two years - integrating more into it, really expanding what we're currently using it for, which is just budgets; to look at it and see what else we can do with it. It's very customizable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I think there's a lot more that we could be doing. Right now it's just really budgets that we're using it for. I'm really interested in learning how we can use BEAM for our revenue forecasting, or revenue predictive analytics; how we use that in a government setting. The tools that we have now are really just Excel. How is customer service and technical support? Excellent. We've only done it through their online technical support, but we have had where we couldn't just solve it through an email, and they have been really very good about setting up time for us to make service calls with them. I love their technical support. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? We worked with New Brain. New Brain made it really easy for us to learn the tool. They spent a lot of time with us just talking through the business. Working in the Finance department, we had to integrate - since the Finance department is decentralized, the capital budgets were done in a different department. New Brain really helped me work with the capital folks to identify their business process. They didn't even know all of their business process. So it was really nice that New Brain was able to help with all of those conversations, and help us even streamline our business processes within capital. With New Brain, it was all about their experience with other local municipalities, and working with governments in fund accounting. Fund accounting is quite different from private business accounting. That's what drew us to New Brain, not only the BOARD application, but also their background in working with government. What other advice do I have? Technical support is definitely a 10 out of 10. The system solution is about a nine out of 10, and the only reason why I would give it a nine and not a 10, is that it still takes IT folks to really support it. It's not totally able to be supported within Finance. Given the amount of resources that a government has, we have a very small IT staff, and the departments are more relied upon to do their own IT. That's the only reason why I would give it a nine. I like this solution because it's so versatile, you can really model it after your specific business practices. It's not the case that you might have to change your business practices to fit into it. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from The aesthetics of it are nice. I would like an eLearning platform as we are not using the tool to its fullest potential. What is our primary use case? Our primary use for BOARD was initially to report income statements and other P&Ls to our executive team, which was our phase one of implementing BOARD. Our phase two would be uploading from external data, then analyzing the external data with the internal data. It has been going great, but there is still a lot to learn (a lot of training) that we can get from BOARD because our company is pretty small. We do not have a team dedicated to BOARD because it is a full time job if you are deciding to develop it from the ground up. We would need to allocate more time into something like that. Right now, we are not using the product to its fullest potential. How has it helped my organization? I do not think it has that great of an impact on our company yet. We have not yet been able to dedicate the time and training towards it. For me, it is useful! We are a finance team, though not in finance, but it is working out well for our team. What is most valuable? The aesthetics of it are really nice. That is what attracted us to BOARD: the ease and functionality of it. Once you start using it, you can't go back to the old Excel. What needs improvement? I would like an eLearning platform for BOARD. I heard it was in development, and it is on the way. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It is pretty stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? The product should fit our needs in several years. How is customer service and technical support? The support from the BOARD team and their consultants is great. Whenever I use technical support, they are good. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? I was not involved in the initial setup. Which other solutions did I evaluate? BOARD was the only company that came onsite to do a demo. Their demonstration blew us away. The dashboard looked amazing. What other advice do I have? Before you implement. look at what you want to achieve before you start working on building a database, then starting an implementation. Make decisions on what you want to do for your company. Looking at BOARD 11, it looks impressive. I like the new design, user interface, and everything is on the cloud. What do you appreciate most in a vendor? * All the different, little plugins that they have for Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint. It makes it very easy to use. * The cloud and desktop client are very easy to use. * At first, the product was not very intuitive, but now if you get it, it is customizable. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2018-04-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Flexible, versatile, efficient functionality with a small footprint in the file servers What is our primary use case? Budgeting. It's performing very well. How has it helped my organization? The ease of designing. The ease of making it happen on a daily basis. What I mean by that is catching up daily. You just schedule the report and off it goes. What is most valuable? It has a lot of valuable features. Primary is its flexibility and versatility and, obviously, functionality goes along with that. Plus, it does that at a small footprint in the file servers, and does it very efficiently. For how long have I used the solution? Three to five years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? It's outstanding, because I don't know of any issues that we've had. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? It will scale to whatever you need. You just need to find somebody to build the SQL statement and you're all set. How is customer service and technical support? We have used technical support but not in the last couple or three years. We've had them come in and do training. The training group is very knowledgeable, and we're very happy with them. As far as the phone call support, like I said, we haven't used them in a few years, but it was very effective, as I recall. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? The concept of how it works was a little bit hard for me to take, because I'm an old IT-er. Once I got past that, the complexity disappeared. Configuring the functionality of a report, for instance, you can get very simple or you can get very complicated. The point is, it can be whatever you need it to be. There is a learning curve as there is with any product, no matter what the vendor tells you. But I would not say it's anything out of the ordinary, especially if you have newer folks working on it. What I mean by that is people that are new to the industry, younger folks. Like I said, us older folks have a difficult time grabbing onto that concept. But once that happened, it was easy. Which other solutions did I evaluate? There were several. There were a couple that were in the cloud, and we didn't like the cloud aspect of them. That was four or five years ago. What other advice do I have? My purpose is telling them what they need and writing the initial SQL and building the capsule. Once I do that, I'm done, and then they just go off. I'm not a day-to-day user. In terms of advice to a colleague who is looking at a similar solution, I don't know what their actual needs are, but my advice would be to go forward with this product. Don't be afraid to get some initial training, because they didn't want to supply that for us initially. My advice would be to get the initial training. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Provides drill down and Split & Splat features. What is most valuable? * Drill down * Split & Splat How has it helped my organization? * Budget & forecast process What needs improvement? * Supply chain For how long have I used the solution? I have used it for six years. What was my experience with deployment of the solution? We have not encountered any deployment issues. What do I think about the stability of the solution? We have not encountered any stability issues. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We have not encountered any scalability issues. How is customer service and technical support? Customer Service: Customer service is 10/10. Technical Support: Technical support is 10/10. Which solutions did we use previously? We previously used Excel and OLAP cubes. We switched because BOARD is easier to use. How was the initial setup? Initial setup was complex because my company has its own fiscal calendar that was difficult to set up. What about the implementation team? A vendor team implemented it. I rate it 8/10. What was our ROI? The ROI is great. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? * Great costbenefit ratio Which other solutions did I evaluate? Before choosing this product, we also evaluated IBM Cognos and QliqView. What other advice do I have? I hope to improve BOARD in all business areas. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-05-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Centralizes our data, gives us version control and the ability to report dynamically What is our primary use case? 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. How has it helped my organization? The benefits are * getting the data in one spot * the ability to report dynamically * version control. What is most valuable? 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. What needs improvement? 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. For how long have I used the solution? Less than one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? So far so good. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? 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. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? 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. Which other solutions did I evaluate? 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. What other advice do I have? 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. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We have a more structured data view with more accurate, timely data What is our primary use case? Our primary use case is corporate reporting. We are implementing it in phases. We did finance, then we did what we call our direct consumer group. Now, we are working on our production case goods (inventory). For the most part, it is performing okay. I am having some performance problems with the data. We are going back to all the transactions by day. Therefore, we might need to have a little help from our consultants with this at some point. We have not yet spoken with technical support about this issue as it is a brand new problem. How has it helped my organization? Our data is now more structured. Between our data warehouse and BOARD, which are both brand new, we now have a more structured data view with more accurate, timely data. We can also build reports super fast. What is most valuable? You can build reports pretty quickly. We do not use BOARD as our main data store. We have a data warehouse that BOARD consumes data from. Therefore, our data's fairly organized before it comes into BOARD. All of the dimensions and fact tables are all lined up already in the data warehouse. Thus, it is an easy task to get the data into BOARD. What needs improvement? If we build a ton of procedural stuff, it is not good at alerting us to what may have failed, like logging and job steps. It is our understanding from the jobs we continue to run, even though one step might have failed, that functionality is not what we would like to see. We would like to see it stop and report that there was an issue, and that we need to resolve it from that point moving forward. In general, we would like to see better logging in the procedural world as we currently find it deficient in procedural areas. For how long have I used the solution? Less than one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? I have not seen any stability issues. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We have not tried to scale it much as we do not have that many users. At the moment, we have around 10 maximum. However, this could change. How is customer service and technical support? It is hard because we are not speaking on the phone. We are going back and forth with emails, and I think it is getting lost in transition on a couple of the issues that I have had because it is an email chain versus a phone call or a chat. Emails are hard for technical stuff. However, I have not used the technical support that much, because we are still engaged with the consultants, not yet switching completely to the technical support. We have weekly calls with the consultants. They are a type of technical support. Which solutions did we use previously? It was before my time at the company. How was the initial setup? I was not involved in the initial setup. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We evaluated Tableau, Power BI, and BOARD, then chose BOARD. What other advice do I have? Try to use all the out-of-the-box functionality. Try to use BOARD for what it is good at doing and do not tread outside its capabilities, because then you start running into issues, such as writing procedures. When possible, do not write procedures. Procedures are necessary, but we are backing away from writing them. We are trying to use BOARD out-of-the-box. Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: The consultants have always been helpful. They make sure that we are successful. I appreciate that. Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It's provided us a good presentation of consolidated data to customers and senior management. Valuable Features: * Software is easy to install and backup is simple. * Support from BOARD is fantastic; always returning with solutions for both server and application questions. * There is permission control where data access can be set to different groups of users. * Accounting periods can be locked after each import which prevents accidental overwriting of past data. Improvements to My Organization: We lack a good presentation of consolidated data to customers and senior management and BOARD's slick graphics solved that. It allows various graphical presentation using the same set of data and the drill-down of details can be done from the reports directly. Room for Improvement: Data import error messages can be improved to provide more information on why a record failed to get imported. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2015-12-17T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from It has a good set of visual elements that you can use and can explain quite well What is our primary use case? We have two primary use cases: * Visualizations and dashboards. * Budgeting, planning, and forecasting. Relative to other products that I have worked with, it works quite well. Obviously, there is a little bit of organization that is required. However, overall, it runs quite well. How has it helped my organization? It allows them to look at their data differently. In the past, they were limited to spreadsheets. Coupled with this tool, they can catch their data to understand where they are at a lot quicker, then see what is going on. What is most valuable? The visualizations. It has a good set of visual elements that you can use and can explain quite well. What needs improvement? We are in the partner channel. I would like to see better relationships with the partners. For example, I have discussed it with the support team that when it comes to supporting the product, if a request comes in from a partner, we should be able to bypass Level 1 support. They should move to Level 2. They should assume that we have already done some of the initial legwork that Level 1 might have already done. We might know the exact cause, the exact root cause of the problem, and/or we need to figure out how we can fix it. One of the things that I would like to see is the ability to have a rule directly referenced on the cubes. What do I think about the stability of the solution? The stability is pretty good. We have used other systems, and it is on par with the big competitors out there. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We have not had a chance to scale it up too much. We have had some test cases where we used some existing data to scale it up, but we really have not tested the limits of what it can do. I do not think there will be an issue in the years down the road with what they already have. How is customer service and technical support? BOARD technical support is knowledgeable and helpful. How was the initial setup? The product is much easier to use, because it is geared towards more of a user-friendly force with the implementation. The user substance view is a lot quicker. They see it, and you can quickly show something that they understand if their data is available. The implementation is probably quicker. With other products, because of the complexity, users might not like them so much. What about the implementation team? We implement BOARD at different clients. We need to understand what their situation is, then we can figure out how best to help them with this tool. What other advice do I have? Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: A commitment to the product as well as the willingness to help support the product. Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from We use it for data analysis and planning, trending of data via charts What is our primary use case? I use BOARD mainly for the analysis of data for planning. Our business is mainly to do with tissue donors. We do a lot trending via charts and data to see what kind of information we get and how we are doing. I also work with sales and different kinds of modes of sales, which helps us identify the ways we're doing direct orders, regular consignments. I cater to different departments like planning and the complaints department. Then I also take care of the users who use the Capsules on a daily basis. I also handle tickets for people if they have any issues with BOARD. I translated a lot of Excel files, charts and trending for bimonthly calculations, into BOARD. How has it helped my organization? They had calculations from baseline for average, standard deviations, just like what you would do in Excel. We have 75 or 86 buckets based on the tissue. There are something like 20 product lines. So if you do the math, we are talking about some 800 graphs and layouts which they generally print every month. So it has been very flexible. We identified a print option for the screen, so when we hit print, and I have eight layouts corresponding to eight graphs, they print like a shot. The data doesn't have to just be there, it has to look prettier too. So I'm able to add little fancy italics. It makes the whole experience for the users better, there's something to look at. They prefer looking at it, and they start asking questions, which helps me develop further. If they want more, I can enhance it and give it to them. What is most valuable? I like the procedures mainly, how the data flow corresponds and how a cube is based on different dimensions, and how the entity reacts to it. We have a cube which can be broken down into different levels, and the way they want to slice it and dice it, that's the user's requirement. So we do that fairly well. What needs improvement? The procedures, they have a long list... There are existing gaps which I was asked to overtake and minimize and make it more efficient. Whatever procedure was created has 90 lines of writeup. If I could just export it to Excel and read it, and open different pages, see different pages of procedures at the same time, in different windows - so that I don't have to close it again, go back in - it would save a lot of time, and it would make it a little easier for everybody. For how long have I used the solution? One to three years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Initially we did have issues with the BOARD crashing, but at that time I was fairly new. I will say that the services were meant to start after a few hours but that's the time where it briefly pauses and if anybody, by chance, was even trying to get into BOARD, it would lock them up. But that was fine. It was not really a stability issue. Our users did make a little bit of commotion, but eventually I explained it to them, and it was fine. Now it is pretty stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? I haven't reached my goal yet. I like to give the best. I'm sure there's more at the end. There is more to do always. Although I will say that right now the users are very happy with whatever they have, but I'm sure that technology definitely has more to offer them. I'm sure BOARD will keep on improving in functionality, which will help us also to provide a better experience to the users. So I wouldn't say I have reached any end point yet. How is customer service and technical support? I've been using BOARD for around three years. And I think I'm very comfortable with it. The help desk has been very, very, good, supportive with their emails. Any question I ask they give me some steps, and it is like a jump-start for me to brainstorm the thing, rather than making a phone call. It gives me my personal time to analyze what they have written, and gets me to resolve it, and help the users on the other side. So, many people are happy with what I have done. What other advice do I have? When it comes to selecting a vendor, what's important is a big community, support systems. I feel communication is very important, whether it's an email or something else. Within a couple of hours, if somebody responds, that is helpful, if they can provide a quick solution. It pacifies the people on the other side, because we are dealing with a lot of users at one time. I think BOARD is a very good tool. I have worked with different BI tools like Tableau and Cognos. I think BOARD is not a very heavy software. It's a very light software compared to others; it doesn't just crash sometimes. And given the cost and effectiveness, everything which comes into play for the organization, I think BOARD fits the bill. It is definitely good. Depending on your data, and what kind of business you are doing, I think investing in BOARD is a good, viable solution, because it's very user-friendly, and once you get the hang of it you can do wonders. I've been able to accomplish that next thing, I figured it out without notes. If I had received a tutorial I don't know what I would have done. I would encourage people to get into it. I find that Tableau is good software too, but it can be confusing. It's nice software, but I would say BOARD is much more user friendly. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Without programming, you can develop a workflow and multiple solutions What is our primary use case? 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. How has it helped my organization? 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. What is most valuable? It's very powerful. BOARD is a good platform. Without actually programming, you can develop a workflow and solutions for a lot of things. What needs improvement? Again, it's very powerful, but there is also a big learning curve. It should be a little more intuitive. For how long have I used the solution? Less than one year. What do I think about the stability of the solution? 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. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? We're starting with two projects; we expect many more new projects that we're going to partner on with BOARD. Which solutions did we use previously? 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. How was the initial setup? 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. What other advice do I have? I would tell a colleague the same thing we're experiencing. BOARD is very powerful, flexible, but it takes an initial learning curve. Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.Consultant.
Date published: 2018-04-22T00:00:00-04:00

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