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About Datarails
Datarails is the Financial Planning and Analysis solution for Excel users.
Great customer support, they do a lot of the work so I can just feed data and get the information I need in the format I want.
Building a report from scratch is difficult as the data mapper is too technical & hard to comprehend.
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Filter reviews (85)
Datarails is a great time saver
Comments: I love datarails. The implementation team was fantastic and I haven't found anything lacking. We even asked for some functionality to be added to our implementation team, and a few months later they rolled it out as a feature for all users to enjoy.
Pros:
Datarails integrates into our accounting system and we upload our operational data via Excel so we can see our whole workspace in 1 place - the best part is the ad-hoc reporting ability in native Excel.
Cons:
The dynamic ranges we use are massive and can bog down Excel so we had to upgrade our computers......pretty sure this is an Excel issue vs a Data Rails issue though.
Experience with DataRails
Comments: The overall experience with DataRails has been positive, but the company seems more interested with automating as much as possible rather than in teaching and empowering customers to become super users of the software.
Pros:
Once set up, DataRails is an effective tool to manage our regular as well as ad hoc financial reporting. It has saved time in constructing standard reports, thus freeing up time for deeper analysis.
Cons:
The process of setting up the environment can be tedious and confusing. Troubleshooting errors can be time consuming, particularly if your inputs are larger files (Any change to the Data Mapper needs to process to all files within a File Box) or if you have multiple inputs with different mappers (When input files are not uniform in structure, attempting to construct uniform mappers across inputs can be maddening). There is no readily available resource that can thoroughly or effectively explain the flow of data or how to construct a Data Mapper to specific needs.
VIN Product Assessment
Comments: The customer support and response is excellent
Pros:
Easy to navigate and set-up the dashboards
Cons:
It doesn't work well with Quickbook Desktop. It requires a lot of manual processes. It does not automatically integrate with the QB desktop version. It's too cumbersome.
Alternatives Considered: Microsoft Power BI
Reasons for Switching to Datarails: It was recommended by some of the accounting professionals at the AICPA conference
New FP&A user at a public company
Comments: I really like it, I would recommend it to a friend in and instance if they work in FP&A.
Pros:
The ability to immediately see real time KPis update automatically from integrations from CRM and Sage Intacct is incredibly valuable and saves a lot of time.
Cons:
The set up and learning process is lengthy and quite complicated. I don't know how to solve it but just know it takes time.
Alternatives Considered: Cube, Prophix and Vena
Reasons for Switching to Datarails: We ultimately chose data rails due to the customization aspect and ability to use excel as a key part of the data.
Fantastic and Flexible Reporting Software
Comments: Our setup and integration was extremely easy and fast. I was the dedicated builder and PM for the implementation for a 200+ store retails company and we were able to sync, validate and build out of data in just under 7 weeks. We've only had a few system hiccups along the way that Datarails has fixed or addressed with reasonably speed. We've been very happy with the decision to work with Datarails and foresee that that feeling will remain for a long time to come.
Pros:
Datarails' direct integration with Excel has allowed our team to pick up using the system very quickly. It gives us the flexibility of Excel without having to worry about massive data tables or SQL pulls to get the data to represent in a proper manner. Datarails is constantly improving and they continue to work with their customers to advance their software and address needs. The sky is the limit for cuts of data that Datarails can provide, and with nearly constant improvement over our now two years of use, our satisfaction with the software grows with each passing month.
Cons:
It's strength with Excel is also it's weakness. Reports are only as good as the logic that is layered into Excel, so it necessitates numerous data checks to ensure that our numbers are accurate. Fortunately, Datarails makes those overall checks simple. I really want to love the Dashboards and Storybook functions, but the overall functionality of their graphing does need some improvement. Their dashboard have a really amazing variance analysis tool, but it needs updating and resources to be fully fleshed out and used as intended.
Alternatives Considered: Workday Adaptive Planning and Anaplan
Reasons for Choosing Datarails: Management Reporter (not listed) simply did not have the tools to produce the reports that we needed. Datarails has actually filled a number of holes within our accounting software, as the lookup tables have allowed to create dimensions that would be VERY difficult to manage within the ERP itself. It has taken our financial reporting from the Dark Ages and very much been a proven resource for both internal and external reporting.
Switched From: Microsoft Excel
Reasons for Switching to Datarails: Datarails is far more flexible and its ability to seamlessly integrate with a very old ERP system is unmatched. We also felt that the bells and whistles of the other systems were very expensive and more flashy than practically useful.
Datarails has become an integral part of our management reporting framework
Comments: The Datarails product and support team have been very good to work with. The product has automated several very manual processes that save us time and deliver actionable information more quickly.
Pros:
Seamless integration with key business applications; strong reporting and dashboarding capabilities; integrates well with Excel to allow for next-level data manipulation and analysis.
Cons:
Early in the implementation we discovered a limitation on the volume of data we could effectively pull into and analyze with Datarails. The implementation team helped us reconfigure some workflows, limit the data we needed to expose to Datarails, and we got to a good, workable solution.
Alternatives Considered: Logi Symphony and Vena
Reasons for Switching to Datarails: Datarails' interface was more intuitive. Datarails was open to signing a business associates' agreement that allowed us to access our key operational data, which is protected health information.
DR Review
Pros:
Being able to pull disaggregated data together has been a big plus. But what I am really finding value in is the dashboarding and storyboard capabilities.
Cons:
There are a few hiccups w/ the capabilities of the charts within the dashboards but we are working w/ the product team to fix those.
Alternatives Considered: CUBE
Reasons for Switching to Datarails: The main reasons I chose Datarails was for the visualizations, drill down capability and their reports looked very similar to what I was already creating manually in excel.
Datarails is THE easiest Data reporting software
Comments: From implementation, to connecting with our existing ERP, it's been a piece of cake to use. Learning more of the complex formulas and data comparison's now and really if you have a tiny bit of formula usage background, like even just excel formula's, then it isn't hard to use at all. And that's for the complex, multi-table data combining type of reporting.
Pros:
We've utilized other softwares for our clients, NSAW, Quickbooks, Custom Spreadsheets - nothing has been easier to implement and use AND then share with colleagues than Datarails
Cons:
Honestly, it's been about 4 months and I haven't had a bad experience with Datarails yet.
Growing Together
Pros:
DataRails is amazing at increasing the speed of analysis. It has helped us gain a very quick overview of our business and all the branches.
Cons:
As someone who needs to teach this to others, it is hard to teach to someone who does not have some background with technology. Even people with some background in excel have a tough time with all of the functionality offered.
Alternatives Considered: Planful and Vena
Reasons for Switching to Datarails: Backing by private equity while also hearing good reviews through colleagues
Review of the Web Dashboards
Pros:
I like how I can create infographics in Excel and then I can upload that to the web dashboard
Cons:
Although it is nice to have web dashboards and be able to see that on the website, I would like a mobile feature so that my users can easily access the dashboards on their phone. Right now the formatting looks weird if you go online on your phone and check. It also is very laggy when loading in Excel dashboards on the web dashboard.
Holding Company in the Real Estate Industry
Comments: Overall, DataRails has been great for our business. We are moving from using manual spreadsheets for financial reporting into automating this process in order to save time and look forward for trends, instead of always looking back in time at our data. It has been smooth and will be an easy transition for us. Above all else, [SENSITIVE CONTENT] has been super helpful. [SENSITIVE CONTENT] is simply the best. In addition, the Dashboard views are something that will be a great value add as we continue to introduce our portfolio companies to this software, as we are trying to sophisticate some of these businesses and force our business leaders to be continually on top of their financials, business, operations, and more.
Pros:
My favorite part about this software is how easy it is to understand the logic that is going on behind the scenes. We are a holding company of 18 different operating companies using DataRails to automate our financial reporting process, as well as house all of our financial data in one system. Knowing how it works behind the scenes in critical and using the backend mapping is easy in order to make changes, fix errors, etc.... It makes it pretty easy to understand for the average user.
Cons:
There is always room for improvement, like with anything. I think the biggest challenge for our company is not having all our accounting systems integrated into the system due to some industry specific accounting softwares not being able to integrate into DR. I think one thing that would be great would be more training videos or education in order to not rely on the customer success manager as much, just to improve efficiency and time.
Datarails Response
3 years ago
Thanks Joseph for the amazing review. We couldn't be happier to work with you and the team. We look forward to improving the global scorecard, the various performance reports and dashboarding capabilities.
Amazing system with amazing support
Comments: DataRails has allowed us to monitor the performance of our business in ways we simply could not before. We have also been able to simplify a number of our reporting processes. These two things have allowed us to share information with a wider pool of stakeholders within our company and monitor the performance of our business much more closely.
Pros:
DataRails provides us with version control, data transformation, and visualization tools that we did not have before. We have streamlined many of our reporting processes, and we also use DataRails to feed a number of Excel and PowerPoint-based reports. DataRails support is very responsive.
Cons:
Some features don't work as expected, and it can be hard to tell if it because of a bug or user error.
DataRails - an efficient and simple tool with potential for improvement
Pros:
I like the following items about datarails 1) its simplicity in terms of report creation and implementation 2) it is a great collaborative tool
Cons:
Areas of improvement include: 1) The dashbaord functionality is very limited compared to tools such as Tableau. I would like to see more features in terms of the types of graphs and customizability 2) API connections should be alot easier to implement. We have been struggling to get a live connection to DataRails from our ERP for some time now
Datarails Review
Pros:
I enjoyed the flexibility to integrate excel files into the dashboards that were not DR widgets or formulas
Cons:
I think there are some rough around edge features that could be tweaked for quality of life, but nothing that is breaking anything. Mainly centered around more options in the widgets and dashboards
Datarails review
Comments: Excellent onboarding experience, customer service is amazing.
Pros:
The ability to create a template in excel and then hand off the weekly creation to a lower cost resource.
Cons:
We enjoyed the implementation process a great day. It was frustrating at some times, but mostly because we all had a learning curve (including our implementation specialist) with what we wanted to accomplish as a business and how to accomplish that.
Gives me the flexibility to make updates more frequently
Comments: Great customer support starting during the demonstration phase and going throughout implementation and use. I choose DataRails because it gave me enough flexibility to present whatever data I wanted in the format I wanted. The customer support also helped to make it easy to upload data and start creating my dashboard.
Pros:
Great customer support, they do a lot of the work so I can just feed data and get the information I need in the format I want.
Cons:
Sometimes the software is cumbersome. Support always helps with any issues I have but I wish it was user friendly enough that I could do more without assistance. I am still learning and do more every month on my own.
Alternatives Considered: Jirav
Reasons for Switching to Datarails: report flexibility
Datarails Response
3 years ago
Thank you Bradley for the positive review! As you mentioned, using DataRails is how finance teams supercharge their Excel spreadsheets. Our great support team was thrilled to get such positive feedback on their amazing customer service.
Great product, highly recommend!
Comments: Overall it's been a really good experience for me and I find the product really beneficial to the work that I do.
Pros:
What I like most about Datarails is the ease of creating daily, weekly and monthly reports.
Cons:
The implementation and learning curve was difficult having never seen a system like this before.
Great Software for Reporting!
Comments: Working with [sensitive content hidden] throughout the implementation process has been great. Whoever gets him during the implementation will not be disappointed.
Pros:
Once you learn how to use the system, you won't look at reporting the same way. The reports take time to build out the first time, but can then be refreshed within seconds to have data available. No more creating pivot tables over and over.
Cons:
The system takes some time to get used to and understand the powerful features available. There are a lot of how to links to teach yourself how to use the system.
A great tool for financial planning
Comments:
Wow. Such a great tool to bring logic from Excel to the web. I love it.
It's also nice having tables from different files accessible from their cloud to other files - very useful when working with financial models that are composed from several files.
Pros:
Easy Publish To Web makes is easy to make complex excel files accessible for C-level executives. Realtime sync with SharePoint Scenario analysis over the web with custom Inputs
Cons:
Mapping tables for later use could be more friendly Have the add-in in Excel online so other users don't need to install the add-in.
Datarails Response
3 years ago
Thank you Eran. We love working with such an advanced and knowledgeable user who comes up with creative ideas during our calls. We look forward to continuously provide benefits to your organization's financial reporting activities and to turn your Excel into a lean, mean FP&A machine.
Excelent product
Comments:
Datarails helped us to make better decisions.
Our experience is excellent.
Pros:
The product is very easy to use. The implementation process was very good, first understanding the company needs, and then using the relevant tools of the product. Very good implementation and support team.
Cons:
Some features were missing but already developed recently.
Good, but training could be better
Pros:
The Excel implementation is great, but the ability to get efficient is labored.
Cons:
The inability to know what type of user you are and what access you have. You may be trying to accomplish a task and looking for an option that you may not even have access to. Also, the confusion of File Boxes and Data Mapping and integrations and configurations is all jumbled. More concise direction would be appreciated.
DataRails Review
Comments: Its been pretty good. It was easy to get up and running. Running monthly reports is easy.
Pros:
Its ease of use and how quickly we were able to get up and running
Cons:
Don't get to use as much as I would like
datarails implementation
Pros:
It is excel based and comes with a lot of templates and dashboards. You can do a lot of analysis on the platform and it simplifies a lot of complex analysis
Cons:
learning phase taking longer than expected but comes with an on-demand easy to access video bank
Solid cloud FPA solution
Comments: Our finance team is incredibly satisfied with the experience with this platform. DataRails has changed the way we plan. It has enabled integrated and connected planning, enhancing our business and financial planning processes greatly in little time. A great product, we were able to take existing excel-based planning models and make them better with this FPA solution.
Pros:
Well built, simple tool. Backed up data on centralized database, great support
Cons:
No cons worth mentioning. Our finance team is very happy with this platform.
Datarails Response
3 years ago
Another satisfied customer :) We couldn't be prouder in your statement about how we changed the way you plan by consolidating your data to enhance your financial planning.
Great reporting tool
Pros:
Enjoy the Excel integration functionality. Formulas are easy to use once you get the hang of them. The online platform is clear and easy to navigate.
Cons:
It is not an all-in-one tool; it requires upgrades to get additional functionality.