Best Of

In today’s world, disruption is constant--economic shocks, supply chain volatility, and fast-evolving markets have made agility a survival skill. Traditional, periodic planning simply can’t keep up.

At Board, we believe the answer is AI-powered continuous planning, a future where decisions are faster, insights are sharper, and collaboration between humans and machines drives sustained performance.

Why Traditional Planning Falls behind

Business planning used to be monthly or quarterly. But when conditions change daily, reactive planning isn’t enough.

Enter Board Agents, AI-powered, context-aware agents built to continuously:

• Monitor real-time internal and external signals
• Detect trends and emerging risks
• Simulate scenarios
• Recommend the best next action

This isn’t theory. It’s happening now across finance, supply chain, and commercial operations.

Board’s AI Strategy: Built for Real Work, Not Hype

We don’t believe in AI for AI’s sake. Our platform is built around three core pillars:

1. Planners First

Board Agents are designed for the people behind the numbers: FP&A teams, merchandisers, supply chain leaders. Agents understand business context and work alongside humans, not instead of them. Through natural language and intuitive interfaces, users can explore data, surface insights, and test “what-if” scenarios with agents providing instant reasoning and recommendations.

2. Solutions That Deliver

With 25+ years of enterprise planning expertise, our platform offers pre-configured, customizable solutions across:

• Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)
• Consolidation & reporting
• Merchandise Planning
• Supply Chain Planning
• Workforce Planning

Every solution reflects real-world workflows and domain-specific expertise ready to go live and scale fast.

3. A Future-Proof Platform

What makes our agents different? They’re not just intelligent, they’re enterprise-ready:

• Smart Business Data Access: Our semantic model allows agents to interpret Internal and External data, the way humans do.
• High-Performance Engine: Real-time analysis powered by our in-memory and sparsity engine.
• Enterprise-Grade Security: Role-based access, data-layer protection, and compliance-first governance.
• Flexible, Scalable Infrastructure: Built on Azure to support rapid integration and future growth.

>> Find us on Microsoft Azure Market place

Agentic Capabilities That Drive Results

Board Agents bring to life three key AI capabilities every planner needs:

🔍 Monitor & Predict Spot shifts before they escalate. Agents track external signals and performance anomalies in real time.

🧠 Analyze & Simulate Uncover root causes and run scenario-based “what-ifs” with AI-generated recommendations.

📈 Optimize Agents suggest actions under real-world constraints, always keeping the human in control.

Human + AI: A New Era of Collaboration

Board’s vision for agentic planning is clear: humans remain the decision-makers, while AI enhances their reach, accuracy, and speed. That’s why our agents:

• Learn your unique business model
• Adapt to existing planning assets and structures
• Integrate into real workflows, not theoretical frameworks

It’s not about replacing people. It’s about empowering them.

Ready for the Future of Planning? It’s Already Here

Organizations across industries are already using Board Agents to:

• Accelerate forecasting and review cycles
• Anticipate disruption
• Transform planning from reactive to proactive

With Board, AI becomes your planning partner, not a tool to manage, but an engine that drives confident decisions at scale.

Let’s build the future of planning excellence...together.

Ready to join us?

Author: Eugen Melnic, FP&A Manager and Community Captain

We all know that Excel is often the source of business frustration and confusion that leads to the start of a successful transformation through the power of Board. Excel can also be the end point too, as once the business data and processes are in Board, business users will have specific needs that require the power of Board in an Excel interface.   

Too often, the initial transformation projects keep such deliverables to a future phase or part of a continuous improvement component that Board allows with its flexibility. End users can find this very frustrating as their needs appear just within reach. So, instead of extracting and modifying Excel workbooks every week or month, why not have them integrated with your latest Board data?

Eugen Melnic has delivered reliable and effective reporting to the Finance team at HH Global using the Board Excel add-in. Today, he's sharing his best practices for successfully working with Board and Excel to support others who have similar needs.

General Setup

• Always build the Excel file offline, not on MS SharePoint.
• Keep a backup copy of the latest working version in case of corruption.
• Avoid:
  • Sharing file on SharePoint and
  • Having multiple active users editing at the same time and
  • Adding/removing tabs or modifying layouts — this can corrupt the workbook.
    
• Safe actions while shared:
  • Users can view or refresh sheets simultaneously without issue.

Creating Layouts

1. Start the Layout:

• Select required cubes → click Apply.
• Do necessary sheet/workbook selections.
• Go back to layout → add dimensions in Axes tab → click OK.

2. Optimize Performance:

• If using a lower-level dimension, add higher-level ones from the same tree in Data tab > Blocks.
• Avoid putting too many dimensions from one/multiple trees in Axes — this affects performance.

3. Copying Layouts:

• Never use “Move or Copy” if the tab contains a layout.
• Use “Copy layout” functionality instead.

4. If Errors Occur:

• Check if too many dimensions are used in Axes.
• If multiple cubes with different dimensions are used, remove some cubes/dimensions.

5. Reusing Existing Views:

• Export from Web → tick “Microsoft Excel Workbook for Board Add-in” → copy tab into main report.

6. Display Issues:

• If entity shows as member count, try:
  • Rearranging dimensions in Axes or Blocks.
  • Removing cubes/entities to simplify the layout.

Operating Layouts

• Use “Copy layout” and “Paste layout” – not Ctrl+C/V.
• Avoid using Row templates – can impact performance.
• To delete a layout:
  • Click “Clear Layout”, then Delete layout cells.
  • If prompted “Do you want to remove layout?”, click Yes.

Excel Formatting

• Set layout formatting to Manual (not default Automatic).
• Disable block “Format” and “Alert” to avoid Excel formatting conflicts.
• Layouts don’t retain “wrap text” after refresh:
  • Duplicate and format a row above layout → hide layout header row.
    
• Format Painter:
  • Single-click: works fine.
  • Double-click: may override layout on certain Board versions.

Selections

1. Workbook vs Sheet:

• Use Workbook selection for consistent selections across tabs.
• Use Sheet selection for tab-specific filtering.

2. Set Selection Function (Preferred Method):

• Create a Control tab with dimension members listed.
• Use Name Manager to name cell references.
• In each tab: type =SetSelection() and add named elements.
• To update:
  • Change in Control tab → go to each tab → press F2 + Enter.
  • Or automate with a macro.
    
• If Set Selection is used, do not use Sheet or Workbook Selection.

Refreshing Data

• Use “Refresh Sheet” – ensure no active Excel filters.
• Avoid “Refresh Workbook” – may freeze Excel.

Data Entry

• Only for users with appropriate security settings.
• Useful for bulk uploads from unstructured sources.
• Ensure correct cubes, dimensions, and selections are used.
• Entries are static – procedures must be run in Board Web to process data.

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Thanks, Eugen, for sharing these tips and tricks with the Community!

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Author: Umesh Bugata is a Community Captain and Senior Software Engineer at Wipro.

When I look back on my journey as a developer, the key areas that I focus on are my technical skills and soft skills and maintaining a balance between them. These include having sound technical knowledge of the tool, good understanding of the business domain, enhancing user experience, and aligning with the business goals. Here’s a breakdown of key areas to focus on!

🛠️ Mastering the tool

• Acquiring technical skills – The Board Academy is the best medium to kickstart your journey. Level 100 covers basics and helps any user to get started with development, Level 200 gives a hands-on experience on building a planning solution on Board. Level 200 is a wonderfully crafted course that takes us to the next level and makes us ready to work on real projects. Level 300 covers advanced applications like security, system administration and user access settings. Give it a shot!
  
  I give credit to Level 300 for helping me and my team set up security access for one of our customers. In addition, the Board Manual has a clear set of instructions about everything that one would want to know about the various elements of the tool. Though I make use of the Manual every now and then whenever I feel the need to do so, one object that I recently picked up from it is Nexel. It covers everything the one needs to know to start implementing Nexel – a powerful object that has made my life easier!
  
• Hands on experience – The most important aspect of mastering Board is to have hands-on experience in building a solution. Initially, I started working on proof of concepts (POC) which helped me know the tool to a good extent. Even though POCs are not full-scale projects, they do give us ideas on how to approach a problem and be prepared for what’s coming. I played around with objects like Nexel, block format, templates, and rules while building POCs and eventually got confident in using them in real projects.

📊 Understanding the Business

• Domain knowledge – Being technically sound is good but it limits our capabilities as consultants. It is imperative to know key Enterprise Performance Management concepts like budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting, and planning which helps understand requirements well before building a solution. Good business understanding saves time and efforts for all stakeholders and enhances customer experience.
  
• System Integration – Board is a powerful tool as far as integration with other ERP systems and BI tools is concerned. Understanding how to integrate with these systems is crucial for delivering value to customers.

👩‍💼User-centric solutions

• User Interface – focusing on UI/UX is crucial as it directly impacts user satisfaction and engagement leading to happy users. Digital experience must be intuitive, enjoyable, and effective.
  
• User Feedback – Actively seeking feedback from customers helps in understanding their pain points and requirements better. Regular meetings (once or twice weekly) to discuss development progress and making changes to the solution, as and when required really helped my team provide value.

✍️ Collaboration

• Internal as well as cross-functional collaboration - I would not have been able to achieve anything without the help of my colleagues and team. Communication and collaboration are extremely important to be successful in our area of work. Sharing knowledge and experiences help each other tackle challenging tasks in hand which eventually leads to a happy customer.
  
• Documentation – It is always helpful if there is a proper documentation in place. This ensures the system can be maintained easily by others in the future.

💡 Extending the learning curve

• I try to learn as much as I can through discussions with peers, taking up certifications to expand knowledge, documenting challenging tasks to be able to tackle them in future, and so on. Technologies evolve rapidly hence it is essential to be proactive in keeping up with new updates.

To summarize, I would conclude that as a developer technical skills are important but it is equally important to have the ability to collaborate with stakeholders, understand business needs and translate them into solutions that sets us apart.

What do you focus on in your Board journey? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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We’ve just hit an exciting milestone of 8,000 Board Community members! Whether you’re new or you’ve been around since the beginning through all phases of the Community, we’re thrilled to have you here for all the knowledge, updates, and innovation.

Community is here for you—the Board ecosystem—to provide a hub for insight, support, and shared success. We’ve been listening to your feedback and working to improve not only what you can find here to support your daily planning activities, but also how you experience Community's shared knowledge.

Here are a few recent highlights:

By harnessing the power of macroeconomic intelligence, the Board Enterprise Planning Platform now enables more comprehensive, collaborative, and continuous planning capabilities than ever before. Board Foresight and Signals give business leaders the ability to look beyond internal historical data, forecast with greater accuracy, scenario plan with more agility, and make strategic decisions with confidence in an increasingly volatile world. 

The new Board 14.3 release includes significant improvements for Developers, Administrators, and Planners (End Users). Board 14.3 proudly introduces new improvements to the Flex Grid Object, including the additions of Data Entry, a Detail By-like feature called “Column By”, Range Charts, and Drill Down. 

Community Captains are a committed cohort of highly-engaged members dedicated to enhancing the Community experience for all. Selected based on their exceptional involvement, Captains voluntarily participate in the program, pledging to contribute meaningfully throughout the year. Learn from the Captains and join the movement!

YOU make the Board Community great. Communities don’t run on content or code alone. Community thrives when you thrive. We're always listening and happy to hear how we can improve the experience for you, our valued members. Take our always-on Community Experience Survey to help us, help you. Let's keep the momentum going by learning, building, and growing together!