Corporate performance management software vendor Adaptive Insights Inc. has brushed up its Adaptive Suite in version 2017.2, adding self-service analytics, user-configurable time modeling and improved flexibility and scalability.

The company is also rolling out its first vertical package, targeting financial executives at software firms. The company made the announcements Wednesday.

Self-service analytics addresses the hottest area of data analytics right now, which is the ability for users to create their own models without the help of data scientists. Adaptive Insights said users of its software as a service can now set up personalized dashboards that cover plans, actuals, forecasts and assumptions, with drill-down capabilities. They can also drag data from the Adaptive Suite, such as from a plan or forecast, and drop it directly into a dashboard.

In-context analytics eliminates the need to download data, as is often required with client-server business intelligence tools. That gives users access to the most current data, with drill-down to any specific data point.

Configurable time modeling offers the flexibility to model calendars without the limitations of a 12-month standard. The company said this feature is especially useful for retail organizations, sports teams, academic institutions, and others that use calendars that need to be customized to certain times of the year. Adaptive Insights Chief Executive Tom Bogan said this feature is the most important enhancement of the new release. “Some organizations want to plan in more granular increments, such as weekly or daily, and we now allow them to do that,” he said.

The Software Planning & Analytics Solution, which is oriented toward software-industry chief financial officers, represents lessons learned form working with the more than 400 software companies that Adaptive Insights counts as customers. It consists of a series of templates that cover some of the unique needs of financial executives in that business.

“Revenue tends to be unique, particularly for subscription software businesses,” Bogan said. “These include planning around renewals. You have to make assumptions around the number of years remaining on a contract, as well as take into account renewal rates and upselling. All those things are pre-built into these templates.”

The templates also cover a set of metrics that are common to software companies, including percentage of revenue spent in areas like research, sales and marketing. They also cover cost per acquisition, renewal rates, upsell options and pipeline velocity.

The Software Planning & Analytics Solution isn’t a new product created out of whole cloth but rather a set of pre-packaged reports rooted in the core performance management service. “I guess you could call it a bolt-on,” Bogan said.

Founded in 2003, Adaptive Insights has raised $176 million but is in no hurry to go public, he said. Last year’s revenues were around $80 million, still below the $100 million that Bogan said is an informal threshold for an initial public offering.

Image: Adaptive Insights