Looking for a Forecast system…Is Quantrix good?

3.06K viewsForum
0

Hi,
I am new to Quantrix and would like to know if its good to be a forecasting/budgeting system. I have prepared a list of features that I need from a system like that as listed below. Can someone help me to figure out if Quantrix is a good fit or not.
Features:

  1. Reporting:
  1. Flexible Reporting: If I have 2 cubes that share some dimensions, will they be created in the same Database? And is it possible to report from both Cubes together in a single report, without creating a third roll-up cube? In SAP it used to be a hassle, not anymore after HANA.
  2. Connectivity: Can the system be connected to Power BI or BOBJ on prem.
  1. ETL:
  2. Loading Actuals/Drivers to the Cubes: When we are done creating our data models, do we have the capability to load the Actuals and any drivers into the model that might not be coming from user input but are present in our SQL database?
  3. Users Control Bringing of Actuals: Do we have ability to give users control for bringing the actuals and locking the past month for anymore inputs?
  4. Transformations: ETL – Can system handle necessary transformations for moving data from RDBMS structures to Cube?
  1. Planning:
  2. Custom Functions and Calculations: Does the system has capability to create functions with custom code, that can be used to generate planning records, using drivers and other inputs?

So, let’s say if we have forecast saved for a year by months, and escalation rates are saved for five future years, can we built a function that will take these inputs and escalate current year to future years and save the records? Also, once the function is built I would like it to be placed on users Excel file so they can run it on demand. They would only maintain first year and escalations and hit this button to get the 5 years forecast.

This is a simple example, but we can use functions to remove a lot manual work. So please let me know.

So once built can it be run without even loading the data into the Excel? Can I have a book or web page that only have all the functions/buttons that users can come and run? And can one button be configured to run multiple of these functions?

I am imagining a system where users will enter all the required inputs and then they will come to a web-page or another Excel where they will run a bunch of functions that will generate bunch of records for them and complete the forecasting process. Makes sense?

  1. Comments: Can a planning user enter comments for a record?
  2. Planning on a Characteristic instead of Key Figure: Is it possible to allow changes to the dimension or characteristic instead of Key Figure:

So let’s say if I want user to select if a line is Tax Exempt or not, I want them to select from 3-4 values: Exempt (Y), Not Exempt (Blank or N) or Partially Exempt (P). Is the system capable to do this?

Account
Amount
Tax Exempt

810011
$400
Y

  1. Locking: Does the system allow locking of data? For example if I want to lock months that are in past, so that no one can enter anything on these months. Or as per point 1 above, if the records are calculated, I would not want users to be interacting with those calculated results, so they must be locked. They could enter some offsets but on a slightly different characteristic.
tahern@quantrix.com Answered question August 4, 2020
1

Sang connected with me by phone and email.  I have posted my answers below in BOLD.  The numbering of the questions is off for some reason.  Other folks in the Quantrix community, please correct or append to them if necessary.
Features:

  1. Reporting:
  2. Flexible Reporting: Flexible Reporting: If I have 2 cubes that share some dimensions, will they be created in the same Database? And is it possible to report from both Cubes together in a single report, without creating a third roll-up cube? In SAP it used to be a hassle, not anymore after HANA.  If by “cube” you mean what us Quantrixites would call a “model,” my initial reaction is to just have one cube/model.  I think we need to have more discussion about the business/technical reason for having separate cubes/models with shared dimensions.  But if you did want to “mash” 2 cubes/models together in one report, yes you can do that.
  3. Connectivity: Can the system be connected to Power BI or BOBJ on prem.   Yes to both.  There are even some fancy things that can be done with DataPush to deposit Qtx output into a target reporting database that feeds either BI tool.
  1. ETL:
  2. Loading Actuals/Drivers to the Cubes: When we are done creating our data models, do we have the capability to load the Actuals and any drivers into the model that might not be coming from user input but are present in our SQL database?  Yes, Quantrix has a flexible “Data Import” component to load data from SQL (via JDBC driver), CSV, and Text files amongst others.
  3. Users Control Bringing of Actuals: Do we have ability to give users control for bringing the actuals and locking the past month for anymore inputs?   Yes, you can allow users to update from the source data “on command” and also lock past time periods.
  4. Transformations: ETL – Can system handle necessary transformations for moving data from RDBMS structures to Cube’s structure?  Quantrix has limited ETL capability, so we should review the requirements to see if a true ETL tool would be best for your use case.
  5. Extraction (additional question from the email): Can data be extracted from within the cube to a SQL table instead of a view to a SQL table? I do not want to have 10-20 views per cube needing scheduled extraction to SQL.   Not sure.  I will ask our tech folks or solicit help on the Forum.
  1. Planning:
  2. Custom Functions and Calculations: Does the system has capability to create functions with custom code, that can be used to generate planning records, using drivers and other inputs?

So, let’s say if we have forecast saved for a year by months, and escalation rates are saved for five future years, can we built a function that will take these inputs and escalate current year to future years and save the records? Also, once the function is built I would like it to be placed on users Excel file so they can run it on demand. They would only maintain first year and escalations and hit this button to get the 5 years forecast.

This is a simple example, but we can use functions to remove a lot manual work. So please let me know.

So once built can it be run without even loading the data into the Excel? Can I have a book or web page that only have all the functions/buttons that users can come and run? And can one button be configured to run multiple of these functions?

I am imagining a system where users will enter all the required inputs and then they will come to a web-page or another Excel where they will run a bunch of functions that will generate bunch of records for them and complete the forecasting process. Makes sense?  You can create functions in Quantrix, but there are a lot of moving parts to this question.  I will solicit some help on this question.

  1. Comments: Can a planning user enter comments for a record?  Yes
  1. Planning on a Characteristic instead of Key Figure: Is it possible to allow changes to the dimension or characteristic instead of Key Figure:

So let’s say if I want user to select if a line is Tax Exempt or not, I want them to select from 3-4 values: Exempt (Y), Not Exempt (Blank or N) or Partially Exempt (P). Is the system capable to do this?  I think we call this using “attributes” in combination with a “constrained input,” but again I will defer to higher authorities here.

Account
Amount
Tax Exempt

810011
$400
Y

  1. Locking: Does the system allow locking of data? For example if I want to lock months that are in past, so that no one can enter anything on these months. Or as per point 1 above, if the records are calculated, I would not want users to be interacting with those calculated results, so they must be locked. They could enter some offsets but on a slightly different characteristic.  Yes, Quantrix does.  I can answer this one with certainty!
tahern@quantrix.com Answered question August 4, 2020
0

Oh, and regarding your original question in the header:
       Looking for a Forecast system…Is Quantrix good?
It is wicked awesome!  ;^)

tahern@quantrix.com Edited answer August 4, 2020