Solver Reviews

Best CPM and BI software

Comments: it is very easy to integrate with the software. also you can link multiple data sources in bi360 datawarehouse

Pros:

easy integrations with our Microsoft Dynamics Gp software.

Cons:

cloud services got stuck some times but overall its good

Bi360 has been an amazing time saver for our organization!

Comments: Overall, great product. Reporting tool and Planning tool have been invaluable to our organization. Somewhat disappointed in loss of functionality with new version releases.

Pros:

I love the Excel based familiarity with all excel functionality available for reporting tool. The online knowledge base is a tremendous resources as well.

Cons:

We have had a technical difficulty that the Solver team has not been able to resolve. Very disappointing since we have been very happy with the planning module until we started losing line item detail.

Poor BI360 Product and Solver support

Comments: Daily run errors, reports not available due to running and always patches to be uploaded to deal with errors. Services and support due to USA and SA different time zones non existing leaving the user frustrated. I am sorry that we have selected this product as our data reporting product.

Pros:

The dream: The capabilities presented and user capabilities to create and have reporting available.

Cons:

Daily running problems - If report data is not available or only running the product is of no use. Partners for installation clearly define Solver support as problematic to deliver. Now I see that all reviews are specifying this.

Overall, I am impressed with the software. The Composer interface is very intuitive to use.

Comments: Ease of use, scheduling of daily reports, quick daily data refresh, and excellent customer service.

Pros:

I like the ability to create reports in Composer, drop to Excel, and share with other users. I use the Publisher tool to generate close to 100 reports daily for the Accounting Team.

Cons:

The error messaging is not always clear and concise. There are some limitations on naming tabs when running reports with expanding parameters.

Review for Solver BI-360

Pros:

There is a huge learning curve needed to learn this software. However, once you learn how to use it, you will be able to create any kind of reports you want. The potential is limitless.

Cons:

I wish there is a "search" function that allows you to easily search for the the tags that you need.

Implementation consultant and report designer

Comments: Support services are excellent!

Pros:

Flexibility to do any report that you need. Data warehouse is very easy to setup and new fields are available immediately. Fast ramp up time in both implementation and training of new users.

Cons:

Planning in web and planning in Excel can't exist in same workbook. Security in system should to go beyond just the dimension codes. Parameter filtering should be multi-level.

BI360, OUT IN FRONT, HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Pros:

The thing I like most about Solver, the company that supplies BI360, is that I have found it easy to connect with them on every level from support staff to the CEO. They take my reporting challenges seriously, and they are committed to delivering value to me and my end users. The thing I like most about the BI360 product suite is that it provides exactly the right mix of products I need to deliver information to my users in a timely manner, in the format my users need.

Cons:

There are very few things I dislike about this vendor. One minor thing is that they are developing their product suite so rapidly that it is sometimes difficult for me to do the upgrades necessary to keep up! Having said that, I am content to know that what I currently have meets my needs well.

BI360 Has been a great tool for my customers. It has enhance reporting and budgeting and allowed them to add analytics to their reporting

Comments: Overall it is a great product for most people in the SMB market space.

Pros:

I like the expand-ability to allow multi source data so both financial and operational analysis. One of the best tools I have seen for a typical end user as you do not need IT to create reports.

Cons:

Currently some of the date and tree features when in use with excel are difficult to manipulate various reports.

BI360 is easy to use and a powerful tool

Comments: John Rayburn is the best!!!! He set us up initially and trained me to be able to make changes and create new reports.

Pros:

interfaces with our ERP, works well with the SSI integration, easy to use and customer support is excellent

Cons:

sometimes it takes a while to run data extensive reports and forms, when my sales department runs the Final forecast form it takes about 30 minutes to load.

Great Functionality and Time-Saving tool.

Comments: Extremely Informational

Pros:

Solver has the solution our clients use to create effective and helpful reports saving their organizations not only time but money. We hear how over and over the ease of use.

Cons:

Sometimes depending on the number of groupings and data, can have rendering issues; timeout when using multi-tab and even the dashboard piece of the solution set is ok but sufficient for larger or more distributed organizations.

Some growing pains, but overall the best solution to streamline our reporting and budgeting

Comments: We are happy to be attending Focus as it gives us an opportunity to learn more about the Bi360 product and network with other users.

Pros:

Reporting function, flexibility of product, customer support, and the ability to streamline our existing reports and expand upon our "old" reports and create new reports to satisfy our budget and departmental managers.

Cons:

We had a Planning issue where our LID was disappearing from our Data Warehouse. We're not sure what caused this but this resulted in many frustrated customers during our budget input process. Solver has been unable to replicate the issue for us, which is frustrating. We have lost a bit of trust in our planning process.

My opinion of BI360

Comments: BI360 is a good product. I'm very happy to see new and improved features added.

Pros:

I love the publisher and the fact the report is excel based. It's easy to format and give it the look I want. I also love the ability to schedule my reports to run when I want them to run.

Cons:

Something I've noticed that can be time consuming is the switching between design mode and run mode. When designing or modifying a report, switching from design to run to see how the report looks and then switching back to design again can become cumbersome.

Great tool for budgeting and reporting

Comments: Overall it is a great tool to use for reporting and budgeting. We have saved time and man power completing our work.

Pros:

easy to consolidate. User friendly and ease in navigation. Reports customization is a great tool when it comes to reporting

Cons:

Its not easy to troubleshoot problems. We have lost functionality after upgrading. Felt like we took a step back after upgrading. Assignment set up is not as easy as it used to be.

Pricey and difficult to use

Pros:

It integrated well with our ERP system. Once the financial statements we created were finalized, it was easy to run them monthly and save a lot of time producing our monthly financial statements.

Cons:

If you have intercompany transactions, the "live" database isn't able to report more than one company at a time. This means you have to use the static database, which they recommended we only update once per day. On a tight close, sometimes you catch and make changes the same day as you're producing financials and this can be cumbersome. This was extremely unclear to us before we bought this software. Additionally, I am an ADVANCED Excel user. I am the company's go-to for Excel questions. So imagine my surprise when I struggled helplessly for hours trying to figure out the Excel version of the tool! It is by no means intuitive. We actually had to pay to bring in a consultant to train us on how to use it because the company's 3 divisional controllers (myself included) couldn't create a financial statement despite reading on Solver's website and watching tutorials.

BI360 is an essential tool

Pros:

Reports are designed in Excel and users can leverage all Excel functionality. With good ranges and expanding groups, you can design reports that need almost no maintenance.

Cons:

Report speed could be improved. Some accountants have a difficult time learning to write reports. Need trees with integrations that run directly on the accounting system.

BI360 has improved our financial reporting capabilities

Pros:

Being Microsoft Excel-based, you get to leverage all the capabilities, flexibility and power of Excel.

Cons:

There are some opportunities at add functionality that could be added to make the software more powerful, however Solver does a great job of adding enhancement requests, so I'm sure that they will be adding more soon.

Lots of potential but needs dedicated focus to achieve the results (not simple drag and drop)

Pros:

The potential and discovering new things that you can accomplish. The Excel add in is great along with the ability to build our own modules in the DWH.

Cons:

Learning curve is steep and not as intuitive as advertised. The web portal product is lacking at this stage and seems it has taken a very long time to make the switch to Silverlight. Even though 5.0 is coming out, the emphasis is placed on new customers rather than fixing the problem for current customers.

Such a great program that will save you a ton of time

Pros:

I like how easy it is to run revenue and labor reports and how all the data is stored for you. It has saved us so much time on forecasting, budgets and labor reports

Cons:

I dont like how easy it is to delete certain things. It would be nice to have a pop asking if you want to delete the item

Beginning setup issues...more on-track now, but more adjustments necessary

Comments: Need better and more timely responses to where Product Suggestions or Enhancements are in the BI360 software development pipeline. I suggest a similar customer portal as Microsoft Connect.

Pros:

Great flexibility in configuring the initial SSIS package and also in utilizing virutally any MS Excel feature.

Cons:

Extremely challenging to modify SSIS package or ETL once initial configuration is determined. We had a very poor experience in initial scoping and planning before our implementation.

An excellent product that continues to improve with every new release.

Pros:

As a tool, BI360 is incredibly easy to use and quick to implement. We have repeatedly found new uses for the product and it continues to be our go-to solution for data consolidation, reporting and budgeting. As a vendor, we have found Solver to be very responsive, with a genuine commitment to excellence. We like that the warehouse comes with out of the box intelligence around financial reporting. It's not just another cube churning numbers. This allows us to quickly deploy BI360 as a financial consolidation tool.

Cons:

Users can sometimes find it confusing that the solution suite is offered via multiple applications. We understand that this approach will change in future releases.

flexibility, efficiency from integration of data

Pros:

report designer, excel interface of budget templates, flexibility of data classification (dimension attributes)

Cons:

netsuite integration, customizations in net suite don't allow for automated data feed. Speed and perfomance issues rendering budget templates to Excel.

One software, many uses

Pros:

The ease of deployment and training for all users. Love the fact that data warehouse can be used with multiple databases.

Cons:

Cost can be prohibitive with smaller customers, and want to have more product bundling for the customers.

Ease of use

Pros:

Works with Excel Customer Support Ease of use

Cons:

Hours of support are hard to work with when you are on the east coast and support is on the west coast.

BI360 has become my everything

Pros:

excel, easy to manipulate, helpful in more ways then just financial reporting, fun to create and build

Cons:

speed of reports, support to integrate new systems into the warehouse has become a struggle because techs are to busy

Positive Budgeting Experience

Pros:

It is able to adapt to our reasonably complex budgeting process. It is very easy to create new scenarios for future budget periods and has limited overhead required.

Cons:

Staff members with poor excel skills struggle to enter data correctly or think there are issues with the budgets when it is user error (however they have struggled with previous software we have put in place)