ValQ Premium FAQs

General

1. What can I use ValQ for?

ValQ is a multi-purpose product that can support use cases across the enterprise. In general, you can leverage ValQ for decision-making by way of dynamic what-if simulations, scenario analysis, variance analysis, business modeling, sales/ finance/ operations, forecasting, budgeting, rolling forecast and more. Specifically, for the finance domain, ValQ supports advanced use cases such as financial planning & analysis and the three-statement model.

2. How do I try out ValQ?

ValQ for Microsoft Power BI is available as a custom visual in the Microsoft AppSource.

3. Does ValQ require any coding knowledge?

No. You do not need to write even a single line of code while using ValQ. Everything is configurable in the product.

4. How complex is the installation process?

Installation takes less than a minute. It is nothing but adding a custom visual in Microsoft Power BI from the Microsoft AppSource.

5. What are the data sources supported by ValQ?

ValQ is a Power BI custom visual hence it supports all the data sources that are supported by Power BI.

6. Is my data safe?

ValQ Premium is a certified Power BI visual. A certified PBI visual meets the Microsoft PBI code standards and guidelines. Therefore, it is secure.

7. How fast is the runtime performance of ValQ?

ValQ comes with an embedded calculation engine that handles all calculations locally (front-end) on the fly. Once data is loaded into the tree for the first time, all further interactions & what-if analyses are handled locally without any requests going back to the server or the data source. As a result, any changes due to simulations are updated in a fraction of a second.

8. When was ValQ first launched?

ValQ is a mature product that has been in existence for 4+ years. Earlier known as ‘Value Driver Tree’ for SAP Lumira designer, the product was adopted by several enterprise customers to build value driver planning with 1400+ KPIs. Since then, ValQ has evolved into a next-generation product for Power BI with a lot of additional self-service capabilities.

Features and Capabilities

1. Is ValQ customizable?

ValQ allows a high degree of customization, without the need to write code. The tree structure of KPIs, the hierarchy, and calculations involved at each level that define the relationship between KPIs, reports, dashboards, presentation slides, conditional formatting, number formatting, scaling, etc. – all are customizable.

2. Can I compare & save scenarios?

Absolutely. You can compare and save the scenarios to your database using one of several options available.

3. Can I collaborate with other users?

Yes. Several features such as Scenario collaboration, Planning collaboration, Commenting, History Log, Model Merge, Writeback, etc. are available as part of the collaboration.

However, all these collaboration options are available only with the ValQ Enterprise edition.

4. Can all Math (JS) methods be still used in formulas like log(x) exp(x) in ValQ?

All mathematical JS methods will work in ValQ Formula Functions.

5. What types of formulae can be used in ValQ?

ValQ supports many traditional user-friendly functions that allow you to create complex models. You may recognize many of these from your experience with Microsoft Excel. Listed below are a few examples,

• Logical functions such as IF, SWITCH, AND, OR

• Math functions such as POW, SQRT, EXP, LOG

• Finance functions such as IRR, NPV, PMT, RATE

An ability to refer to individual or combination of period values of nodes has also been introduced with the Range functions such as RANGE, FOREACH, GET and LastNPeriods.

6. What is the difference between Plan and Simulate functions in ValQ?

The Plan tab does both bottom-up as well as top-down allocations. E.g. Changes to sales projections for a product can be proportionally allocated to geographies or SKUs using several distribution methods. You can also view how it impacts the overall KPIs like net profit. You can modify the baseline series(after creating a copy of it) and use the updated one as a reference on which you can develop multiple scenarios.

Simulate tab does only bottom-to-top allocations. Any changes you simulate at a particular node roll up to the top. It does not ‘allocate’ the impact of such simulation to its children. Every scenario is created with the baseline data series as a reference. Hence, there is a logical separation between baseline series vs. scenario data.

Why ValQ over other apps?

1. How is ValQ different from commercially available planning software?

ValQ is designed to be a self-service planning solution. It helps you model, plan, simulate, analyze, report and visualize on the fly. Most of the other commercial planning software usually follows a bottom-up planning approach, but ValQ uses both top-down and value-driver planning approaches.

1. You can model business scenarios on the fly – in a matter of few hours to a few days – something that would take weeks or months with best-in-class bottom-up planning software.

2. Highly visual and intuitive user experience means executive and operational management alike can analyze and simulate on their own completely changing the use of models

3. You have a high-performance experience as ALL calculations happen on the front end.

2. Is ValQ intended to replace commercially available planning software?

Yes and No. It depends on the size of your business and whether you have prior investments with other planning software or not. For large enterprises that already have planning software in place, ValQ can complement existing bottom-up planning processes by helping you build interactive & dynamic top-down planning models. This delivers time & cost savings through a faster planning cycle & reduced number of iterations. However, for small and medium businesses where there are no prior investments in planning software – ValQ can act as an independent planning and simulation software.

3. We have an in-house, advanced software that we use for planning and budgeting. Why would we need ValQ?

With ValQ, you can model scenarios on the fly, and your executives can directly play around & interact with the models with minimal reliance on an IT analyst or consultant.

After a few initial iterations, discussions & feedback, you can subsequently leverage your planning software for more detailed fine-tuning, configuration and validation. This saves a lot of time & effort. Your business meetings would also be more effective using ValQ as executives can receive instantaneous feedback on changes to scenarios.

Technical Support

1. Can ValQ be used with the on-prem version of Power BI?

Yes. On-prem Power BI is basically Power BI Optimized for Report Server. ValQ works with the latest version of Power BI Desktop optimized for the Power BI report server.

2. Do I get to keep the data within my organization?

Yes, we offer On-Premise installation of ValQ for Power BI which allows you to keep the data completely within your organisation. If you want to talk to us about On-Premise, kindly drop your questions here.

3. Is there any ongoing support for ValQ?

Yes. ValQ offers global enterprise-class support for customers supported by a valid support and maintenance agreement. There is a dedicated helpdesk with a support portal that customers can access.