Planful AI – Analyst Assistant

Planful Analyst Assistant is a powerful generative AI assistant built into the Planful platform. It enables users to run natural language financial queries, analyze trends, compare performance across scenarios, and visualize data instantly without the need to build reports or write formulas.

Planful Analyst Assistant streamlines financial reporting and analysis, enabling faster and easier access to actionable insights in seconds.

Planful Analyst Assistant enables you to:

• Get simplified financial data analysis with natural language processing, making data retrieval and analysis effortless.

• Obtain clear financial data overviews complete with tables, narratives, and charts, for easy interpretation.

• Compare actual financial performance against budgets or forecasts and analyze trends over the past months/quarters.

• Quickly drill down into financial reports without the hassle of manually generating new reports.

• Instantly locate and view Reports and Dashboards using natural language queries.

• Enforces data access controls, ensuring users can only view authorized information.

• Provides clear messages for scenarios such as data unavailability, access restrictions, and other limitations.

Important: Planful Analyst Assistant Activation

You must contact your Planful Account Manager to enable this feature.

What’s In Scope?

The current scope of Planful Analyst Assistant includes:

• Finance domain: Focused on delivering actionable data and insights from the financial reporting area

• Main and Alternate hierarchies: Supports the metadata of the finance main and alternate hierarchies

• 12 Periods: Covers standard 12-period financial reporting cycles, enabling monthly, quarterly, yearly, and year-to-date analysis

Note: The following features are not currently supported in Planful:

• Finance attributes and attribute hierarchies

• Configurations with more than 12 fiscal periods

• The Workforce Reporting Area

• Consolidation data-related queries

Ask intuitive financial questions using real-world terms. Planful AI supports multiple types of queries across categories:

Data Retrieval

• How much was the product 02 2025 Budget for digital marketing spend?

• What is the total Travel spend for Q1 2025?

Trend & Period Comparisons

• Compare last quarter's revenue with revenue from 2024 for same period.

• Show revenue for the last 6 months.

• Which product's revenues increased by more than 15% compared to last quarter?

 Variance Analysis

• What is the budget vs actual variance for Marketing?

• What is the expense variance from the 5+7 2025 forecast vs the 2025 budget.

• Which departments spent more than 10% above the budget?

 Data  Drill Down

• Break down salaries by department.

• Show T&E in North America by entity.

• What is the net revenue by department within sales & marketing for Q2 2025?

• Can you provide the R&D operating expense variance for June actuals compared to the 2025 budget scenario, broken down by department and account?

• Can you provide the variance vs. budget for all children of operating expense?

Note:

Planful now supports direct access to specific and leaf-level data using natural language, removing the need to drill down through each hierarchy level.

• Show travel expenses by second level departments.

• Show net revenue for 2025 by individual clients.

• Show GM of retail at the leaf-level.

• Show sales variance vs. plan for NA and leaf level products.

• Show operating expenses by lowest level of departments.

Threshold-Based Filters

• Which expenses are more than 500K?

• Which departments spent more than 10% above the budget?

• Which product's revenues increased by more than 15% compared to last quarter?

  Note:

  Supported Query Categories: Get Data and Scenario Variance.

Sum Calculation

• What is the total revenue for the top five customers?

• What are the total benefits and salaries costs for Q2?

Average Calculation

• What is the average monthly revenue for the past year?

• What is the average expense per department for the last quarter?

Autocomplete Search

When you begin typing a dimension member (e.g., entering “Ope”), Planful AI will automatically suggest matching members like “Operating Expenses” in real-time and you can select the required dimension member. This enhancement helps reduce ambiguity, while improving speed and accuracy when interacting with Planful AI.

Dimension Member Selector

You can now refine ambiguous questions interactively by selecting the exact dimension members (for example, departments, accounts, or products) using the new Dimension Member Selector.

How to Use Dimension Member Selector

1. Type your question or the keyword (following @, e.g., entering “Ope”) related to the dimension member you want to find.

2. Click here to open the Dimension Member selector.

3. In the Dimension Member Selector, search for the Required Dimension Member.

4. From the search results, select the appropriate dimension member.

5. Click Submit.

Users can dynamically interact with the AI responses and further analyze retrieved data using:

• Table/Chart View - View data in table or chart format

• Drill Down/Analyze Data by Dimensions - Ask follow-up questions to break down reports by relevant dimensions (e.g., region, department, or product line)

• Data Summary - Get AI-generated summaries for a quick narrative overview

• Exporting Capabilities - Download reports to share in Excel and PNG formats

• Copy Summary - Copy and share data summary for seamless collaboration

• Dimension Details - View dimensional information for the data

• Expand Window - Display large datasets in a full-screen table or chart view

• Sorting Capabilities - Organize the data within the data table in ascending or descending order

• Chart Type Customization - Specify the type of data visualization (Bar, Column, Line, Pie, and Dual Axis now supported.)

• Breadcrumbs Navigation - Track and navigate your query path (e.g., Revenue → Region → Department) to easily return to previous levels of your analysis.

Users can refine or expand their analysis with follow-up questions. Planful AI maintains conversation context for smooth and continuous interactions.

For example:

• Initial query: Show revenue for Q1.

• Follow-up: Break it down by region.

• Further analysis: Compare it with last year.

Favorite Questions in Planful AI

The Favorite Questions feature in Planful AI enables users to save and reuse frequently asked questions.

1. Click the Favorite (star) icon next to a question to add to your favorites.

Notes:

• Each user can  store up to 20 favorite questions, so you can easily access them later. If you would like to save more, just remove one of your existing favorites to make room for a new one.

• Users can remove favorites by clicking the delete icon in the Favorite menu or clicking the filled Favorite (star) icon to unmark it directly from the conversation.

Collaboration via Email

You can share insights with others directly from the Planful AI interface, only after a table or chart has been generated.

How to Share Planful AI-Generated Tables/Charts via Email

1. Open the AI Drawer.

2. Click the Export icon in the upper-right corner of the chart or table.

3. Add email details, in the Share Email dialog:

• Recipient(s): Type a user’s name or email. Select from the list of Planful users.

• Subject: Defaults to the chart/table title. You can edit it as needed.

4. Click Send Email.

Planful AI Analyst Assistant: Administration

Variance Sign Alignment with Account Properties

Planful AI honors Variance Type settings from Account Properties, ensuring signs (positive/negative) correctly reflect financial context.

1. Navigate to Maintenance > Hierarchy Management.

2. Search for Operating Expenses.

3. In the Segment Properties section, set the Variance Type to Negative.

4. Go to Planful AI and switch to Analyze mode.

5. In the search field, type your question.

6. To reference a specific dimension member, search for it or type the dimension member followed by @.

7. Click Submit.

8. Click the Full Screen icon to view the variance details clearly.

Planful AI Activity Log

Planful AI Activity Log gives admins new visibility into how users are engaging with the AI Assistant. This helps finance teams track AI adoption, measure usage patterns, and tailor training to drive higher productivity and ROI from Planful AI.

1. Navigate to Maintenance > Audit Log.

2. Click Planful AI Activity Log.

3. Select the required date range.

4. Click Apply.

5. Click Export  to download the activity log.

Configurable Decimal Display in Responses

You can now customize the number of decimal digits (up to 2) displayed in Planful AI responses. Contact Planful Support to configure it for your application.

Additional Notes

The @CURYR@ substitution variable is used by Planful AI as the default time context when no specific period is mentioned or referenced in the question. Ensure that it is set to the current year 2025.

Troubleshooting Checks Post Enablement/Activation

Follow these steps to verify proper setup and address any issues after Planful Analyst Assistant has been enabled. If the responses seem incorrect, or if you would like to begin a new chat, use the Start New Chat option to refresh the conversation and start a new chat.

• Test Planful AI Functionality

  Open the Planful AI dialog by clicking the Planful AI button on the top toolbar. Ensure you select the appropriate Mode (Reports, Templates, or Task) before entering your question.

    Ask a data-related question such as:

    How much did we spend on travel in the last quarter?

    (Replace "travel" with a relevant keyword or partial account name, e.g., “Sales”)

• Error Responses in Planful AI

  If you encounter an error response for multiple question like above:

  Click the dimension details icon (above the data table in the Planful AI response) to review the dimensions involved.

• Validate Data Visibility Using Dynamic Report

  Create a dynamic report using the same dimensions shown in the Dimension Details.

  If the report returns data successfully but Planful AI continues to show errors, submit a support ticket to the Planful Support team for further assistance.

You can access Planful AI's Analyze Assistant by following the steps below:

1. Navigate to the top toolbar and click Planful AI.
   

2. The Planful AI dialog box displays.
   

3. Click the expand icon beside the Help mode field, and select Analyze.
   

4. Type your question in the chat field, click the Arrow icon, or press Enter.
   Planful AI retrieves information in a default tabular format and provides an AI-generated data summary.
   

• To expand the table in full view, click the Full Screen icon.
  The table opens on the left panel.

• Right click on the table and select the Drill down option.

  

  

  
  

• If the response is incorrect or irrelevant, click the Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down icon to share feedback.
  The Feedback screen displays the applicable options and a feedback text field.
  

Click New Chat.