Budgeting Solutions Ltd

IBM Planning Analytics with Watson & IBM Cognos Analytics

IBM Planning Analytics is a collaborative, enterprise-scalable budgeting, planning, analytics, forecasting, modelling and reporting solution helping organisations move away from Excel. IBM Cognos Analytics offers business intelligence self-service reporting capabilities sourcing data directly from Planning Analytics or other data sources.

Features

Budgeting, Forecasting, Planning & Reporting
Create what-if scenario modelling through sandboxes
Top down, bottom up and driver based planning easily supported
Enterprise Reporting
Powerful Excel Add-In included
Watson AI Forecasting Out of the Box
Embedded Multi-Dimensional Workflow
In-built Accelerators available covering Balance Sheet & Cash Flow, Consolidation
Create highly engaging dashboards and visualisations
Strong data governance - in-built security and audit trail included

Benefits

Facilitates best practices; driver-based planning and rolling forecasts
Enables finance and business users to create budgets and forecasts
Real-time analysis of plans, budgets and forecasts
Provides role-based security to support multiple users
Report Distribution & Scheduling
Out of box AI Predicative Forecasting
Allows all geographies and departments to participate in FP&A process
Enterprise Business Intelligence & Reporting
Supports add-ins for MS Excel, MS Powerpoint & PDF's
Supports natural language searching and multidimensional expressions

£58.15 to £187.00 a unit a month

Education pricing available
Free trial available

Service documents

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at james.salmon@budgetingsolutions.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

Contact

Budgeting Solutions Ltd James Salmon
Telephone: 0115 958 0405
Email: james.salmon@budgetingsolutions.co.uk

Service scope

Software add-on or extension: Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
What software services is the service an extension to: Cognos Analytics and Decision Optimisation on Cloud
Cloud deployment model: Public cloud

Private cloud

Hybrid cloud
Service constraints: Yes, there is planned maintenance window every third Saturday of the month.
System requirements: Specific software licences

Internet connection, web browser and Microsoft Excel (optional)

Secure gateway client for accessing on premise data sources (optional)

Remote Desktop connection for Administrators/Modellers (optional)

User support

Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
Support response times: Not different at weekends.
User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
Phone support: Yes
Phone support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support: Web chat
Web chat support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AAA
Web chat accessibility testing: Full UAT testing has taken place
Onsite support: Onsite support
Support levels: We provide application support to a number of clients. This goes beyond just technical support and is a customised offering whereby we manage the application that has been built. This can include running weekly or monthly updates, maintaining the application structures, making incremental changes to the model such as changing how the calculations work to general application maintenance.

Typically this is set up as an expected number of hours or days support per month, to be called off either on an ad hoc basis or at pre determined times. This could range from a day per month, to be used either on an as required basis or on specific tasks, through to a completely outsourced application management program to ensure all weekly, monthly and associated forecast processes are available - the equivalent of a full or part time role. The time spent can either on the client site, remote, or a mixture of both.

An ad hoc day per month will be priced at or below our standard daily rate, our managed application support programs are usually more price effective than using contract resource.

Standard Technical Support - Included in Software Purchase
Application Support - £1,100
Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started: Onsite training, on-line training and user documentation.
Service documentation: Yes
Documentation formats: HTML

PDF
End-of-contract data extraction: We would make the necessary arrangements with the relevant IT teams to set up the data migration.
End-of-contract process: The buyer and supplier would have a meeting to discuss whether the buyer would like to continue with the service. If they continue then nothing changes, if they wish to move then we would set up a data migration process.

Using the service

Web browser interface: Yes
Supported browsers: Internet Explorer 11

Microsoft Edge

Firefox

Chrome

Safari
Application to install: No
Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
Differences between the mobile and desktop service: None - the solution automatically resizes and turns buttons into swipes etc.
Service interface: No
User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AAA
API: Yes
What users can and can't do using the API: To set up and update an API the users would talk to Budgeting Solutions who would assist in setup.
API documentation: Yes
API documentation formats: Open API (also known as Swagger)

HTML
API sandbox or test environment: Yes
Customisation available: Yes
Description of customisation: We have a number of plug and play applications but we can also build models to whatever the customers specification might be. System Administrators and Users (with the right permissions) can make the necessary amendments.

Scaling

Independence of resources: The cloud instance is capable of handling thousands of users and very large data sets. IBM set aside enough cloud memory on a case by case basis.

Analytics

Service usage metrics: Yes
Metrics types: How many users are accessing the system, where are they going, how long are they spending on particular pages, what changes they are making. Full auditability if required.
Reporting types: Real-time dashboards

Regular reports

Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type: Reseller providing extra features and support
Organisation whose services are being resold: IBM

Staff security

Staff security clearance: Conforms to BS7858:2019
Government security clearance: Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom

European Economic Area (EEA)

Other locations
User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
Datacentre security standards: Managed by a third party
Penetration testing frequency: At least every 6 months
Penetration testing approach: In-house
Protecting data at rest: Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0

Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402

Physical access control, complying with another standard

Encryption of all physical media
Data sanitisation process: Yes
Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation

Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach: In-house destruction process

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach: Data can be exported/imported using FTP and/or Secure Gateway.
Data export formats: CSV

Other
Other data export formats: Microsoft Excel (xls and xlsx)

Flat Files (Via FTPeS) and ODBC 3.5 (via Secure Gateway)
Data import formats: CSV

Other
Other data import formats: ODBC connection

Flat Files (via FTPeS)

CSV, Excel - drag file directly into the solution

Cognos Integration Server

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: Private network or public sector network

TLS (version 1.2 or above)

IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Bonded fibre optic connections

Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability: The service level agreement is that IBM aim to provide availability at over 99.75%, for failing to achieve this a reduction is made to the monthly subscription charge. If the availability is between 99.0% and 99.75% the reduction is 2%, the availability is between 95.0 and 98.99% then the reduction is 5% and if the availability is less than 95.9% the reduction is 10%.
Approach to resilience: Available on request
Outage reporting: Email alerts.
Via the Planning Analytics website.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed: Yes
User authentication: 2-factor authentication

Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: IBM Planning Analytics is entirely flexible in terms of security. Therefore certain interfaces can be locked for certain user types etc.
Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
Management access authentication: 2-factor authentication

Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)

Dedicated link (for example VPN)

Username or password

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
How long user audit data is stored for: User-defined
Access to supplier activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for: User-defined
How long system logs are stored for: User-defined

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: BVCH SAS UK Branch
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 30/11/2015
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: N/A
ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
CSA STAR certification: Yes
CSA STAR accreditation date: Available on request
CSA STAR certification level: Level 5: CSA STAR Continuous Monitoring
What the CSA STAR doesn’t cover: N/a
PCI certification: No
Cyber essentials: Yes
Cyber essentials plus: Yes
Other security certifications: Yes
Any other security certifications: SOC 1, 2 & 3 Certified

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
Security governance certified: Yes
Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
Information security policies and processes: Available on request

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Configuration and change management approach: IBM carry out extensive system testing
Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Vulnerability management approach: Available on request.
Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Protective monitoring approach: Available on request.
Incident management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Incident management approach: There is a pre-defined procedure for incident management.
Available on request.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice: Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks: No

Pricing

Price: £58.15 to £187.00 a unit a month
Discount for educational organisations: Yes
Free trial available: Yes
Description of free trial: Condensed version of IBM Planning Analytics. Full functionality is available in trial version the only limitation is on the amount of data that can be uploaded.

Service documents

Request an accessible format

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IBM Planning Analytics with Watson & IBM Cognos Analytics

Features

Benefits

Pricing

Service documents

Framework

Service ID

Contact

Service scope

User support

Onboarding and offboarding

Using the service

Scaling

Analytics

Resellers

Staff security

Asset protection

Data importing and exporting

Data-in-transit protection

Availability and resilience

Identity and authentication

Audit information for users

Standards and certifications

Security governance

Operational security

Secure development

Public sector networks

Social Value

Pricing

Service documents