IBM Cognos 8 Planning

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Full Scorecard and Report Integration
IBM Cognos 8 Planning is a cornerstone of the Cognos performance management platform, which offers market leading solutions for management and financial reporting, analysis, scorecards and dashboards, event detection, and notification.

Designed for companies with even the most complex business models, IBM Cognos 8 Planning is a fully integrated, stateof- the-art, highly scalable solution for planning, budgeting and forecasting. IBM Cognos 8 Planning integrates operational and financial planning in real time for immediate visibility into resource requirements and future business performance. Its distributed administration capabilities enable localized responsibility for plan processes across functions, geographies, and business units in a single, unified, secure planning environment.

IBM Cognos 8 Planning provides unprecedented power and flexibility to create, compare, and evaluate business scenarios, conditions, drivers, rates, and assumptions. It enables you to build consistent, interconnected business models for organizations of any size. With IBM Cognos 8 Planning, you can access current actual data to assess fiscal performance, and proceed from "what-is" to evaluate the "what-if" scenarios critical to forecasting future performance. And IBM Cognos 8 Planning helps you build enterprise-wide budgets and forecasts faster and more efficiently. The result? True predictability and accountability across the enterprise.

POWERFUL BUSINESS MODELING AND CALCULATION

Customized for Your Business

Rather than forcing you into a solution that may not fit your business model, IBM Cognos 8 Planning easily adapts to suit your organization and business environment. You can create your own business rules and structures in the IBM Cognos 8 Planning architecture, then modify your model as the organization evolves. IBM Cognos 8 Planning easily accommodates changes such as added locations, new or discontinued product lines, and restructured cost centers. As your business grows, IBM Cognos 8 Planning grows with it. Its powerful modeling capabilities give you flexibility to devise, compare, and assess alternative business scenarios, conditions, cases, and assumptions. And since IBM Cognos 8 Planning is designed for finance professionals, you won’t need IT to alter your model for you.

• Rapid development. IBM Cognos 8 Planning lets you build a model in days—not months. And you can import data definitions from sources like ERP or general ledger systems to further accelerate the process.
• Sophisticated modeling. Cross-functional planning processes rely on complex logic and dependencies. The modeling capabilities in IBM Cognos 8 Planning quickly deliver sophisticated linked models that accurately reflect your business in all its complexity and detail.
• Flexibility. No other enterprise planning solution provides the modeling flexibility of IBM Cognos 8 Planning. You can change underlying business logic and principles quickly and easily, and see the impact in real time.
• Finance friendliness. IBM Cognos 8 Planning doesn’t require you to master arcane programming languages or scripting. Control of the application remains with financial planning professionals—not IT, as required by other solutions.

SPEND LESS TIME ON PROCESS, MORE ON ANALYSIS

The proprietary high-speed, bi-directional calculation engine in IBM Cognos 8 Planning lets you evaluate models and test assumptions in minutes to support truly informed business decisions. IBM Cognos 8 Planning eliminates unproductive spreadsheet activities like tracking down numbers, fixing broken links, and debugging macros. Instead, IBM Cognos 8 Planning offers sophisticated features like break-back, multidimensional slicing-and-dicing, and drill-down to help you explore data fully and efficiently. IBM Cognos 8 Planning enables real-time information flows for flexible rolling forecasts and greater visibility into future operating performance.

• Break-back. This unique capability automatically spreads high-level, top-down targets across any profile—like previous-period actuals or projected seasonality—across multiple dimensions such as products, customers, territories, or time periods without needing to define special business rules.
• Multi-dimensional analysis. IBM Cognos 8 Planning makes it easy to compare and manipulate data across myriad dimensions, perspectives, or versions. For example, you can compare targets among teams and individuals with current and historical actuals and with external benchmarks to quickly establish their viability and consistency.
• Unified view. IBM Cognos 8 Planning provides a unified view of your plan with key metrics and essential underlying information. With "one version of the truth," you can spend your time making business decisions, rather than debating data definitions and accuracy.

HIGH-PARTICIPATION ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

A More Intelligent way to Collect Information

With IBM Cognos 8 Planning, organizations can easily engage thousands in the planning process, collecting data from managers and staff across divisions and across geographies. Users work simultaneously, yet retain rapid server response, because IBM Cognos 8 Planning is optimized for end-user performance. The client requests data from the server only as needed and saves only data that has changed. Complex calculations are performed at the client, giving users instantaneous response and sparing the server unnecessary traffic during periods of high use.

For added flexibility, IBM Cognos 8 Planning offers an Add-in For Excel, a familiar, convenient alternative to its well known browser interface. The browser offers line managers and staff simple, controlled participation in planning, budgeting, and forecasting with minimal disruption, enabling them to focus on what they do best— running their area of the business. And the Add-in for Excel offers finance personnel and others with more sophisticated needs the flexibility to integrate greatly detailed personal or "shadow" systems with enterprise plans, budgets, and forecasts.

To use IBM Cognos 8 Planning, end-users simply launch Excel or a browser for immediate access to a complete, secure set of linked, role-specific planning templates. Users can quickly tab through them, enter data where required, and evaluate calculated results and summaries prior to submission.

• Bridge the finance-to business language gap. IBM Cognos 8 Planning users enter operational data—either numerical or text values—in "their own business language," rather than unfamiliar financial terms. A user might enter the number of units sold, purchased, or needed. Information is translated by predefined formulas into financial data such as gross revenue, net income, or earnings per share. The result is more accurate information.
• Personalized, flexible data-entry. IBM Cognos 8 Planning templates are both easy to deploy and easy to use. Users only enter data that is relevant to their functional areas. Templates are easily customized by reorienting columns and rows and displaying or hiding empty or zero-filled fields.
• Minimal training. Because IBM Cognos 8 Planning is intuitive and offers either a Web- or Excel-based interface, little or no training is required to take advantage of its robust functionality.

STREAMLINED WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT

After entering required information, IBM Cognos 8 Planning users either save their work to return to later or submit it for review. At any point, designated reviewers can quickly monitor workflow status—not started, in progress, or ready for review—with intuitive, color-coded icons. Reviewers can send e-mail to groups based on hierarchy or workflow status, enabling quick, easy communication. After work is submitted, a customizable interface displays the details of individual submissions, an overview of all submissions, or a combination of both. Aggregate totals are shown to help pinpoint areas that need revision. Reviewers can request modifications; and if last-minute revisions are needed, totals may be adjusted without compromising accuracy.

• Track participation—easily. IBM Cognos 8 Planning automatically monitors the entire planning process and gives you the status of every participant, so your planning cycle proceeds at the speed of the fastest plan contributor, not the slowest. It also promotes helpful dialogue among participants, streamlining cycles even further.
• Mobile Planning. IBM Cognos 8 Planning lets you plan where and when you want to, without a network connection. It knows when users check out plans to work offline and automatically synchronizes plans and forecasts when users check back in.
• Real-time aggregation. IBM Cognos 8 Planning instantly aggregates updates to plans and results, and lets you see the impact of new forecasts and plan contributions in real time, with no overnight batch processing and no user lock-outs.

DISTRIBUTED ADMINISTRATION EMPOWERS THE ENTIRE ENTERPRISE

Localized Planning Ownership

IBM Cognos 8 Planning puts capability and control in the hands of financial or operational plan administrators who support an enterprise-wide planning process. A major component in planning and forecasting is speed. The ability to turn around a plan cycle—from the executive, to the front line planner, and back to the executive—is critical in maintaining accuracy and accountability. So why build into the planning process a 24-hour turnaround of key activities like adding users, moving data, or creating reports? If you operate in a global environment, why should Tokyo have to wait for New York to kick off a process? Distributed administration and localized ownership of the planning process eliminate material delay. Of course, the overall plan administrator still retains control.

• Online Administration. IBM Cognos 8 Planning lets you change data structures, user access rights, model parameters, and much more—without taking the system offline. You have the 24x7 availability that is a “non-negotiable” for global enterprises.
• Distributed Administration. IBM Cognos 8 Planning empowers multiple administrators across the organization or across the globe to control their part of the plan to ensure timely and accurate plan creation. No 24-hour turnaround for basic processing requirements.
• Right-sized Planning. IBM Cognos 8 Planning allows models to be large or small, linked or stand-alone. Size and scale are determined by the planner, not the technology. The ability to link and convert operational plans to financial plans is built in.

FLEXIBLE CROSS-ENTERPRISE SECURITY

IBM Cognos 8 Planning manages security with complete flexibility. Advanced pre-defined selection options ensure that users see only those templates—or portions of templates—that they require. Viewing options can be set for entire business units, workgroups, even individuals. Detailed instructions— including customized headlines and drop-down boxes with optional Web-page links—can be tailored for each template, so relevant information and expectations are always communicated.

Single sign-on user authentication allows administrators to control and share security across all IBM Cognos solutions with a single set of common users, user class definitions, and appropriate control of single-user ability to view and modify data. A single log-on can enable user access to all applications. Access to planning information is integrated with the Cognos security model—providing optimal data access to valid users.

PLAN TO PERFORM

Because IBM Cognos 8 Planning enhances and extends the strategic value of current investments in ERP and operational systems from SAP, Oracle, or Siebel, companies can optimize existing investment while enjoying all the benefits of a proven planning solution—high frequency, high participation, automated workflow and approval, maximal control, and a single, up-to-the-minute view of the enterprise. IBM Cognos 8 Planning delivers broad functionality and ease of use.

• Enterprise Management and Control
  IBM Cognos 8 Planning brings process and data integrity to critical, but often cumbersome, business processes. It enables highly scalable and flexible planning, including managed workflow and collaboration, data management, version control, and modeling flexibility to support a wide range of integrated enterprise planning applications.
• Broad Planning Functionality
  Users can perform “what-if” analyses by directly entering commands into cells, rows, and columns. Additional planning capabilities—such as annotations and IBM Cognos 8 Planning’s unique break-back, which enable users to easily perform top-down planning—extend its flexibility and broad range of native features and functions.
• Linking Personal Spreadsheets with Enterprise Plans
  IBM Cognos 8 Planning lets spreadsheet users link personal models and desktop detail directly to the enterprise plan. The plan is synchronized as spreadsheet information changes, linking sophisticated models, reducing risk, and easing migration to an enterprisewide standard for planning and forecasting.
• Full Scorecard and Report Integration
  IBM Cognos 8 Planning is a cornerstone of the Cognos performance management platform, which offers market leading solutions for management and financial reporting, analysis, scorecards and dashboards, event detection, and notification.

IBM Cognos 8 Planning TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Client Workstation

• Microsoft Windows XP, 2000 SP4
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2+ or later
• Minimum 256 MB RAM
• Microsoft Excel 2000 or later

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