Catalyst, by EBM Software vs. Workday Adaptive Planning

Catalyst works well, when it works and is very well suited for an ABA environment. But the app development process and the continual list of bug fixes that are never-ending makes this product very hard to recommend.

Incentivized

In a previous company, I was hired based on my experience with Workday Adaptive Planning. After being hired and reviewing the company, I quickly determined they were not large of enough of a company to need the program. Instead, we made better Excel budget templates, utilized OneDrive and created a better experience without the cost. Left the job after 9 months because I worked my way out of the position. My next role I looked for bigger companies and had better success with implementation.

Incentivized

• The GUI is easy to navigate on the iPad mini, which we use for charting.
• The options are simple so there is very little room for mistakes.
• Charting is easy and the setup allows for necessary fields that must be completed so charting stays uniform.

Incentivized

• Version Management. Adaptive lets us manage many versions/scenarios all in one platform with the robust ability to compare them to each other.
• Processing Performance. With the Elastic Hypercube technology that was implemented a few years back, we can watch changes flow through a complex web of formulas and arrive at an answer within seconds.
• Audit Trail. Our administrators love the ability to see and report on who made what changes when, which leads to real accountability within the organization.

Incentivized

• The browser closes unexpectedly at times when refreshing the page and you get logged out
• The incorrect vendor is chosen by Catalyst a few times
• The Catalyst file is occasionally not placed on time in the folder

Incentivized

• Web reports and sheets are not great for in-depth reporting, and require the use of the OfficeConnect for Excel plugin and, therefore, the use of Excel for extensive reporting capabilities.
• It has limited formula functionality in some instances, requiring again the use of OfficeConnect for Excel for extensive calculations.
• I would like to see new planning sheet types or upgrades to existing sheet types; functionality has been the same for over 10 years.

Incentivized

For one we're in way too deep to not move forward with Adaptive. We're integrated with Workday, we do a ton of reporting with Adaptive, and it's working very well for planning and forecasting. No reason to look back or change course.

Well.... when it works... it's good. When it doesn't it is very frustrating for our staff.

Incentivized

Workday Adaptive Planning has detailed online help with both articles and videos that are comprehensive. It has a lot of similarities to Excel, which most finance people are already familiar with, plus the user interface is intuitive and easy to pick up. The online support team is quick to respond and very knowledgeable.

There haven't been any lately. The only one issue I can think of is when there was an update in Adaptive that altered our reports. Before I realized there was an issue, Adaptive reached out to let me know, so that it could be fixed.

All aspects of Adaptive Insights perform well. One area that I wish was quicker was integration. When importing data from Intacct our accounting ERP platform, it can sometimes take 4 hours for the import to process. The earlier imports are done, the quicker they complete. My estimate for a quick upload is about two hours.

The support for Catalyst is great and they are usually within the 48 hour response time. There could be a little quicker upload time for invoices that are submitted. They usually show up until the next day on the system and sometimes gives us a stress on time. Overall, the support is quite good

Incentivized

Whenever we have had any questions, issues, or concerns, the support has been quick and thorough. [This] allow[s] us to be able to fully resolve any issues, or be connected with the right group quickly to attain the result we were after; be it from simple formatting to adding new detailed reporting.

Incentivized

This was extremely helpful so that they could walk you through the model and teach you more about the complexity of various areas. It is most helpful when it is specific to your organization's model. The larger in-person trainings were helpful but they tended to be more generic and entry level. The trainings that are more tailored to your specific needs are the most helpful.

Incentivized

They often times tended to be way too generic or entry level. They would also become sales pitches to upgrade or get new Adaptive Planning products. The questions in the training would be very niche and specific to other organizations. They were rarely helpful to the group at large.

Incentivized

Trust the expertise of very strong 3rd party implementers. Having deployed Adaptive at a separate company before, I thought I knew it all (hubris, I know). Fortunately, I began to (very quickly) trust the judgment of our Carlson implementation team, and they provided invaluable insights and best-in-class processes that have benefitted me and my team greatly.

Incentivized

[Catalyst, by EBM Software] is a very easy system to use and is very user friendly. It gives you different ways of researching an invoice and not just one. Catalyst also helps to allow us to research an invoice within seconds and eliminates a lengthy and confusing process. It is a great software for first time users to learn quickly and efficiently.

Incentivized

For best-in-class capabilities, you'll very likely need to split the various HR and financial systems into separate systems rather than using a consolidated platform like Workday. However, a consolidated platform provides benefits by being a single location for employees and a single system for IT developers to work with. This would need to be compared to employee efficiencies gained by working with better systems.

Incentivized

We went from 2 users to 70+ users over a 2 year period of time. The application scaled wonderfully. 65 of those users were non-finance users so they were able to quickly learn the software and prepare budgets quickly and efficiently. That is the power of Adaptive and its ability to scale

• Helps to keep our vendors happy
• Helps to keep our systems updated
• Helps to manage our expenses

Incentivized

• it is easier to take critical business decisions in the organization and respond to stakeholder early
• migration of resources like cloud, servers or operating system or migrations does not lead to impact on platform
• helps calculates complex metrics requires for financial and resource planning

Incentivized