Hi,
I'm in charge of Long Term Modelling of our org's budget + forecasting and monthly reporting. FE is currently the foundation for all this. Problem is, our process is a huge XL kludge. People here created a database-like structure using XL files all over the place glued together with macros and lookup tables. Very hard to maintain, audit, and troubleshoot. Inflexible.
Wondering what other people out there use on top of FE to solve this problem (i.e. forecast/budget/model)
I'm thinking:
1. Build an Access database (but who wants to maintain such Frankenstein monsters ? been there done that) that would somehow feed off of FE tables... prolly need one of them more expensive service licenses to get back door access...
2. Get a datawarehouse solution that would feed off of FE and hopefully upload into FE. This would get us faster querying/reporting. (Is this TIE?.. I just didn't like the fact that TIE looked like a warehouse with Microsoft reporting suite on top of it...) I was thinking of Hyperion.
3. Web based solutions?
Adaptive Planning - Budgeting Forecasting Applications and Financial Reporting Analysis looks pretty slick but maybe i'm being suckered by flash animations.
I'm going to try to upload a couple visio diegrams that illustrate the current process vs. proposed.
In the meantime, anybody's insight/opinion/experience is much appreciated!
Thanks,
Glen