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Analytics

FP&A Done Right: How CFOs Can Lead in Today’s Challenging Environment

September 11, 2020 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

This is a guest blog post from our partner Workday Adaptive Planning, written by Steve Dunne. It is the second in a series looking at macro trends in the economy. This post explains how the CFO can play a strategic role in today’s uncertain business environment.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses were facing a plethora of social, economic, and technological challenges, as discussed in the first article of this series. Yet change and uncertainty—while sometimes painful—can create new opportunities, as long as people and organizations have the agility to leverage change for the better.

This is particularly true for the finance function. CFOs must be prepared for both short-term and long-term uncertainty to fully understand and mitigate risk for their organization. This requires a fundamental shift: To become the strategic guide the business needs, finance leaders and their teams must embrace and accept continuous change as part of the new normal.

But how? Below are five key areas for finance leaders to explore in order to guide their businesses through persistent change.

Planning, Liquidity, and Risk Management Are Key to Finance Agility

During uncertain times, it’s difficult to forecast specific revenue and expense targets with any degree of accuracy. Businesses must be able to model rapidly changing conditions, and this demands organizational agility. Uncertainty heightens the need for more dynamic business planning based on a range of scenarios rather than traditional quarterly or annual planning cycles.

Having the ability to conduct more dynamic business planning means organizations can respond to changes and course correct to better understand the impact on top-line revenue and bottom-line expenses. For example, are customers paying on time? What are the implications of a percentage of those customers not settling invoices? Which supplier contracts need to be renegotiated based on changes in demand?

Discussing her own experience of business planning during COVID-19, Workday Senior Director of Corporate Finance Kinnari Desai says, “We were able to leverage actuals data from Workday Financial Management into our forecasts. This enabled us to see the resulting impact on the P&L and cash flow right away. All in all, we were able to speed up the process and operate 50% faster versus using spreadsheets.”

Similarly, during tough times finance functions are also well placed to help business leaders forecast cash and liquidity and identify risks with greater speed and accuracy. Many organizations have multiple sources of cash and creating a complete picture of their overall cash position and liquidity can be challenging without the right tools.

Keep Stakeholders Informed and Aligned with Key Insights

The need to make insights more accessible across an organization is heightened during times of uncertainty, and it doesn’t help when data is trapped in departmental silos or locked away in different tools and requiring time-consuming integrations. Workday research shows that over half of respondents we surveyed believe access to data within their organization is somewhat accessible but remains outdated and siloed within functional teams.

Businesses should have access to financial, workforce, and operational data together, as a single source, to answer fundamental stakeholder questions. Other C-suite leaders are increasingly looking for deeper insights from a wider range of data sources to help them make better decisions. For finance, this means having the ability to share credible insights with the wider business and, more importantly, encouraging these stakeholders to take action based on this data.

For example, finance needs to provide the business with better insights into working capital to better understand minimum cash and liquidity requirements. While the primary focus for most companies is on growing the top line while carefully managing the bottom line, this can lead businesses to take for granted routine but critical back-office activities, such as paying bills and turning receivables into cash.

Thomas Willman, principal, finance advisory global practice leader at The Hackett Group, told me, “Finance organizations must take advantage of opportunities to extend payables while still taking care of their most strategic suppliers. They must also share these insights with the wider business. It will be imperative for CFOs to put a sound plan in place to preserve cash and liberate cash that is tied up in working capital.”

Similarly, executives are looking for insights from finance on how they should manage investor expectations during periods of persistent change. This includes thoughtful and proactive communication and risk mitigation planning in advance of regularly scheduled earnings reports.

CFO Efficacy: Report from Any Location

The COVID-19 outbreak changed the rules completely in terms of how and where businesses operate. With employees now working from home, many finance functions had to consider new ways to keep delivering critical services, such as closing the books. This raised questions for finance leaders around the processes and controls required to support a remote close and the risks associated with performing “finance-as-usual” tasks outside the walls of the business.

The need for finance to embrace more efficient, dynamic ways of working pre-dates the global pandemic, yet it is now proving to be a significant catalyst for transformation. For finance, that means embracing automation and emerging technologies, such as machine learning, that can be applied to key processes. CFOs have long since been looking to reduce the time spent on processes such as closes, consolidations, reporting, and payroll—what’s happened in 2020 has now made this an imperative.

The Hackett Group’s Willman explains, “Finance has had to transform in so many ways in 2020. What hasn’t changed is that all of this work still has to be done; what has changed is that it has to be done away from the office. Finance professionals are exploring things such as machine learning and how it can identify patterns and make recommendations that previously would have required manual intervention.”

In addition, compliance and audit don’t suddenly stop during times of crises. Finance is still required to provide effective controls to enable auditing—even if it has to be done remotely. When discussing the company’s remote close, Philippa Lawrence, chief accounting officer at Workday, says, “We asked our internal audit team to review some of the more important and impactful controls to confirm they were operating as they should. Financial controls need to operate the same remotely as they would during any quarter-end close.”

Understand Skills and Opportunity for the Future of Finance

More than half of respondents to a global Workday survey said they planned to reskill at least 50% of their workforce by 2024 to contend with the changing world of work. Today, how will the plethora of macro-challenges to global business further intensify this conversation? How will the emergence of machine learning and other data-driven technologies influence how business leaders—including the CFO—reskill or upskill talent for their organization?

We are at the crossroads of a technology and people transformation. Finance has traditionally been stuck in the role of gatekeeper, intrinsically bound to manual transaction processing and tied to systems that prevent it from becoming a strategic guide to the business. Now, with the global appetite for automation and the technological capability in place, finance should seek to transform.

And this should be viewed as an opportunity for finance, rather than a threat from the rise of the robots, as long as AI is used in a way that continues to put people first. A poll of 375 executives by MIT Technology Review Insights revealed that “pandemic preparedness will speed up AI deployment and accelerate the pace of AI innovation in high-risk job categories, causing both ‘job-positive’ and ‘job-negative’ effects.”

Finance is well-placed to cast aside legacy technology challenges and develop the skills of its existing workforce to benefit from emerging technologies. Now may be the optimal time to drive this transformation.

Collaborate and Communicate to Build Trust and Integrity

According to Deloitte, in the article “COVID-19: Maintaining Customer Loyalty and Trust During Times of Uncertainty,” consumers—whether purchasing for themselves or for their organization—increasingly want to buy from companies that demonstrate integrity in how they treat their employees, their customers, and the environment. These consumers seek trust, honesty, transparency, equality, and a better overall experience.

Blake Morgan, author and customer experience futurist, wrote in Forbes, “An amazing customer experience is one of the biggest competitive advantages a company can have. Instead of competing on price, more than two-thirds of companies now compete mostly on the basis of customer experience.” And, based on Edelman’s analysis of stock prices in 2018, high-trust companies beat the rest of their sector by 5% on average.

For businesses, this is often about making bold internal changes and committing to operating differently. It’s about being open and transparent, as well as being able to pivot and adapt to meet customers’ changing needs. Finance has its own part in this journey toward trust and transparency by delivering real-time data from a variety of sources and delivering these insights to the rest of the organization to drive collaboration and better decision-making.

Large businesses are being asked by stakeholders to stop merely promising to put purpose over profit, and instead make trust an organic value ingrained within their organization. This requires the right technology and processes to enable these businesses to track and analyze the data, then deliver it — whether financial, legal, or compliance—to key constituents in order to be held accountable.

Focusing on the right areas will be absolutely key for finance leaders as the world starts to spin again. Making agility a priority, while arming the organization with the right insights to make better decisions and understanding how finance will deliver what the business needs — potentially from any location — will also be paramount. All of these factors exist alongside a heightened need for brand trust and transparency — something which the finance function will play a key role in delivering.

This blog post was originally published by Workday Adaptive Planning and appeared here.

Read more guest blog posts from Workday Adaptive Planning:

FP&A Done Right: 3 Steps to Help you Plan for What’s Coming

FP&A Done Right: Reforecasting in a COVID-19 World – Best Practices you can Implement Now

FP&A Done Right: FP&A Tips for Scenario Modeling During COVID-19

Home » Analytics » Page 3

Filed Under: FP&A Done Right Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, Analytics, CFO, CFO + leadership, CFO efficacy, COVID-19, finance agility, Financial Performance Management, Revelwood, Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday survey

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Excel LET Function

September 8, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Have you ever created a formula that repeats another formula within a cell? Did you know that this repetition may be slowing down your reports?

For example, you may have a report where you want to pull IBM Planning Analytics data and replace zeros with the word “None.”  You can write this as a formula via:

=IF ( DBRW(cube,dim1,dim2,dim3)=0, “None”, DBRW(cube,dim1,dim2,dim3) )

Within this formula, the IF check first looks at the DBRW formula to determine a value. If the value is not zero then the IF check needs to re-run the exact same DBRW formula to produce the value that will appear in the cell.  This means that one cell potentially needs to run the same formula twice! While this doesn’t sound like a big deal, it can easily impact the performance of your report if you have many iterations of the formula.

Excel has introduced a new function called LET that will help optimize this situation. This function allows you to define a variable that can repeatedly be used within a calculation. It will help you improve performance since it will only execute the calculation once within the cell.

The syntax of the function is:

=LET (VarName, VarValue, Calculation)
  • VarName is the name of the variable to be used
  • VarValue is the value of the variable
    • This can be a hard coded number or it can be a formula
  • Calculation is a formula that uses the variable name
    • This can be a simple formula such as X+Y or it can use any existing Excel function

A simple iteration of this formula can be written as:

=LET (x, 5, x*2)

This formula would result in the number 10.

The LET formula also allows you to define multiple variables.  A simple example of multiple variables can be written as:

=LET (x, 5, y, 2, x*y)

This formula would also result in the number 10.

Using this approach, our initial formula can be rewritten using the LET function:

=LET ( CubeVal, DBRW(cube,dim1,dim2,dim3), IF(CubeVal=0,”None”, CubeVal) )

This ensures that the DBRW pull is only executed once within the cell.

This functionality allows you to optimize your Excel based reports by minimizing the number of calculations that happen within your report.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters!

Read more Excel Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Learn the Excel CELL Formula

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: The Excel FORMULATEXT Function

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: New Excel Feature – XLOOKUP

 
Home » Analytics » Page 3

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Excel tips & tricks, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, Planning Analytics tips, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Control Space

September 1, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

Have you ever been deep in thought while writing a rule or a process only to realize that you forgot the parameters for a specific command?  IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) has solved this dilemma by giving you the ability to determine those parameters with a simple set of keystrokes.

PAW’s rule editor and process editor allows you to use Ctrl-Space (e.g., press the control key and the space bar at the same time) to determine the required values associated with any rule or TI command. For example, if I type ATTRS and then press Ctrl-Space, the following will appear on the screen:

IBM Planing Analytics Tips & Tricks: Control Space

I now know the parameters that are required to complete the code.

Ctrl-Space will also help you determine which function to use.  For example, if I type ATTR and then press Ctrl-Space, the following will appear on the screen:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips: Control Space

I am now aware of all the possible attribute functions that are available and can double click on one of the results to have it automatically inserted for me.

If I do not know anything about the name of the functions to use, I can click on the fx button to see a list of the available functions, all grouped by category.

IBM Planning Analytics Tricks: Control Space

This approach allows you to quickly remember the functions and parameters that can be used in your code without having to shift your focus to another screen or manual.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Home Button

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Subset Control Dimension

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Pass Context

Home » Analytics » Page 3

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, lee lazarow, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, Planning Analytics Workspace, Revelwood, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: New PAx Feature – Double Click

August 25, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

IBM Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx) contains a task pane that shows the cubes within your model. Double clicking on a specific cube expands the information associated with the cube, including public views, private views, and the dimensions. Version 49 introduced a new feature to the double click … the ability to launch an exploration browser within your Excel environment.

When double clicking for the first time, you will be promoted to define what happens upon double click. There are two options to select from: Expand and Launch

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAx double click
  • Expand will show the nodes associated with the cube
  • Launch will open a view editor
  • Note: as of this writing, at least one view must be defined for the launch option to properly work.  IBM is currently working to change this requirement.

After launching and modifying your view, you can then bring the results back to Excel by clicking on the Reports button and selecting the type of report that you want to convert your view into.

New IBM Planning Analytics PAx feature - double click

If you want to reset the action associated with double click, you can change it within the options dialog box.

New double click feature in IBM Planning Analytics for Excel

This feature allows you to quickly analyze data via a drag-and-drop approach and then bring the results back into a Planning Analytics for Excel worksheet.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: The Collect Feature in Planning Analytics Workspace

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: The Hold Feature

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: How to Reorder Cubes in TM1

Home » Analytics » Page 3

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, lee lazarow, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, Revelwood, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Home Button

August 18, 2020 by Lee Lazarow Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) offers an easy to use navigation menu that will quickly allow you to navigate to any open book. This is done by clicking on the menu at the top, center of your screen. Here is a sample menu that shows three open workbooks.

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Home Button

But did you know that you can also go back to PAW’s opening screen via a single click? A “home” button exists at the top, left corner that takes you directly to the welcome page.

The home button in IBM Planning Analytics

This approach will allow you to save time by quickly navigating back to the start via a single click.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters! You can also sign up to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks sent directly to your inbox!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Create New Books with the Diamond Icon

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Video: Formatting Views in Planning Analytics Workspace

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: The Collect Feature in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace

Home » Analytics » Page 3

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, lee lazarow, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, Revelwood, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Subset Control Dimension

August 11, 2020 by Dillon Rossman Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

Did you know that dimensions exist within IBM Planning Analytics that display your model’s public subsets?

A dimension called }Subsets_<Dimension Name> is automatically created when a dimension is created. The elements of this new dimension are dynamically updated as permanent public subsets are created and destroyed (note: the creation of temporary subsets does not update this dimension).

These control dimensions allow for easy access to public subsets within TurboIntegrator processes. In addition, the subset control dimensions can be accessed via Architect and Planning Analytics for Excel (PAx).

To access subset control dimensions via Architect:

  1. Make sure “Display Control Objects” is enabled
IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Subset Control Dimension

2. Navigate to “Dimensions” and scroll down until you reach “}Subsets_<Dimension Name>”

IBM Planning Analytics Tips: Subset Control Dimension

To access via Planning Analytics for Excel:

  1. On the task pane, make sure “Show Control Objects” and “Show Dimensions” are both enabled
IBM Planning Analytics Tricks: Subset Control Dimension

2. Navigate to “Dimensions” and scroll down until you reach “}Subsets_<Dimension Name>”

Subset control dimension in IBM Planning Analytics

This feature gives you an easy approach to see (and loop through) your public subsets without having to create scripts that reference Windows folders.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Maintaining Subset Driven Consolidations

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Compatibility of Views and Subsets

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: The New Set Editor

Home » Analytics » Page 3

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, Revelwood, TM1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Pass Context

August 4, 2020 by Dillon Rossman Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

IBM Planning Analytics Workspace sheets allow users to add buttons. These buttons can be used to navigate to different sheets or books, or even run processes. But did you know you can “pass context” from one book to another?

Before beginning, ensure everything on your sheets is synchronized. This is as easy as going to the synchronization properties of any views, visualizations, etc. on your sheets and enabling “synchronize dimensions.”

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Pass Context

To enable “pass context,” navigate to the properties of your button and select “Button target.”

IBM Planning Analytics Tips: PAW Pass Context

Under “Other book” simply enable “Pass context.”  Your button will now pass selections made from book to book.

IBM Planning Analytics Tricks: PAW Pass Context

This allows you make a selection in one book, such as a year, and then carry it over to another book.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters! You can also sign up to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks sent directly to your inbox!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Swap Rows & Selectors in Planning Analytics Workspace

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Learn to Use Snap Commands in Planning Analytics

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Create New Books with the Diamond Icon

Home » Analytics » Page 3

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, Revelwood, TM1

FP&A Done Right: FP&A Tips for Scenario Modeling During COVID-19

July 24, 2020 by Revelwood Leave a Comment

FP&A Done Right

This is a guest blog post from our partner Adaptive Insights, written by Steve Dunne. It is a unique Q&A with Kinnari Desai, Workday’s senior director of corporate finance, on how Workday responded to the FP&A impact of COVID-19.

Kinnari Desai, Workday’s senior director of corporate finance, has deep insight into scenario modeling and how Workday approached this following the outbreak of COVID-19. We spoke with her to get more best practices and tips for financial planning and analysis (FP&A) teams.

How did Workday have to adapt its business planning process following the start of the crisis?

We were coming off the back of our annual planning cycle and thanking our teams for their efforts in delivering “Plan A.” Then of course, everything changed with COVID-19. We had to spring right back into action, modelling scenarios in an environment that was so new—and seemingly changing hour by hour.

I believe that in an uncertain environment like this, it’s very important the FP&A team aligns with the leadership team, understands the context of what’s happening, and looks at a small number of relevant scenarios. It can be easy to get carried away producing several scenarios, but the goal is to provide the leadership with a range of likely outcomes and provide data, in a simple way, that would enable decision making.

In these situations, I’d imagine speed is of the essence, but you have to get it right if scenario modeling data is going to be valuable to your business leadership?

I do think it’s important to execute quickly, but in order to achieve our objectives, we had to be thoughtful in our approach.

As a business, you have to agree on your priorities. Are you going to focus on top-line growth, cash, the impact of employee relief programs, hiring pauses, and so on? Then you should consider the impact of those on the P&L and cash flow.

The next big thing is getting input from the business. While we are always in lock-step with our business partners since we can’t model in a vacuum, it’s more important than ever to meet with the operational business leaders, gather their perspectives, and understand what’s top-of-mind for them. You should be meeting with leaders multiple times to quickly narrow down focus areas that are a priority for them, such as support for employees, availability of equipment, and hiring direction.

From there, how do you start thinking about how you’ll use scenario modeling to drive decision making and elements such as forecasting?

In our case we had to adapt our scenario modeling frequency to help us make decisions faster. This impacts things like forecasting —we could no longer rely entirely on a monthly forecast process, so we adjusted the process slightly. This has led our FP&A team to a more continuous approach to planning, versus point-in-time or quarterly updates.

There are areas like revenue and cash that we are visiting on a weekly or even a daily basis. Then there are other areas that we may not review daily, but look at more frequently than before. We also discussed as a team that at times, the level of guidance we can give to other internal teams may not be as detailed or defined as it has historically been, since the situation is constantly evolving. As a result, we all need to remain agile.

Last but not least, we also identified drivers of large spend, and cost levers that can be pulled should the need arise.

Technology obviously plays a key part in enabling scenario modeling. Can you tell us a bit about how you used Workday Adaptive Planning to drive the whole process?

Part of our job is to provide a sense of calm amidst chaos, and the Workday tools and data model enabled us to do just that. We spun up different versions in Workday Adaptive Planning, and adjusted the drivers like new business and renewal rates for revenue. For expenses, for example, we tweaked the timing of hiring, and the related impact on other expenses like benefits and employee relations costs were updated right away since they are based on timing of hire.

We were able to leverage actuals data from Workday Financial Management into our forecasts. This enabled us to see the resulting impact on the P&L and cash flow right away. All in all, we were able to speed up the process and operate 50% faster versus using spreadsheets. And the ability to use one data model and driver-based forecasting was very valuable.

What is the magic number when it comes to scenario modeling?

We modeled three different scenarios, and I think that’s a good number to work with during a fluid situation like this. I strongly recommend for my friends and colleagues in FP&A that they don’t drive themselves crazy doing 15 different scenarios! We don’t know everything yet, and spinning up more scenarios isn’t necessarily going to provide the answers.

We aligned on three possibilities and reasoned why these are important. This allowed us to focus on what matters, keeping it manageable so important decisions can be made without data overload.

What would your advice be to other FP&A professionals looking at ways to improve their business planning models today?

I’d start with “over-communicate.” I really can’t emphasize enough the importance of communication. We’ve moved to a remote, digital world, so hallway conversations are no longer a possibility. We needed to ensure emails are not misinterpreted, so we checked in via Slack or had quick Zoom calls. We provided financial guidelines on how to operate in the near term and why these are key.

For publishing updated forecasts to finance, accounting, and lines of business, we heavily leveraged our management reporting capability in Workday. Keeping these stakeholders informed on the approach and current thinking, even when all decisions have not been made yet, goes a long way.

Educate the business as well as accounting. In a changing environment, accounting also needs to be informed of the latest plan so they know what to expect (actuals) relative to the plan. This helps them as they prepare for and move through a remote close —with confidence and in concert with FP&A. The business will also need guidance to understand the latest plan and take action accordingly. Keep an eye on the fundamentals of the business, and take this as an opportunity to rethink some of the processes and outputs.

And lastly, remain agile. As the market continues to shift, we will need to remain flexible so that we can continue to pivot as needed. This is not a one-time shift in light of COVID-19, but a new and more agile way of operating that will allow finance to continuously adapt to change.

This blog post was originally published by Adaptive Insights and appeared here.

Read more guest posts from Adaptive Insights:

FP&A Done Right: 3 Words for a COVID-19 World –“Flexible Budget Variance”

FP&A Done Right: What FP&A Must Do Differently to Make Planning a Success

FP&A Done Right: Modernize your Budget Process to Anticipate Change

Home » Analytics » Page 3

Filed Under: FP&A Done Right Tagged With: Adaptive Insights, Analytics, Budgeting, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, cloud financial performance management, COVID-19, Financial Performance Management, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, scenario modeling, Workday, Workday Adaptive Planning

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Edit Action Button

July 21, 2020 by Thanh Chau Leave a Comment

Tips & Tricks

Action buttons in IBM Planning Analytics are a great utility that allow users to recalculate a sheet, navigate to another location, or run a TurboIntegrator process. As your models evolve, you may need to periodically revise your templates to maintain their functionality. This sometimes include the action buttons.

In Perspectives, updating an action button was as simple as right-clicking on it and selecting the Properties option. In Planning Analytics, the approach is a little different.

From the task pane, click on the tab labeled “Workbook.”

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Edit Action Button

This section will show you all the different Planning Analytics objects that exist in your workbook.  Expand the folder labeled “Action buttons.”

Edit action buttons in IBM Planning Analytics

The name of each action button will be prefixed with the sheet name in which it is located.  Find the action button that you’d like to edit, right-click it and select the “Edit” option.

Learn how to edit action buttons in Planning Analytics

This will open the properties window where you can make changes to the action button.

How to edit action button in IBM Planning Analytics

This approach will allow you to quickly edit all of your action buttons at the same time instead of having to navigate through your workbook and search for each button.

IBM Planning Analytics, which TM1 is the engine for, is full of new features and functionality. Not sure where to start? Our team here at Revelwood can help. Contact us for more information at info@revelwood.com. And stay tuned for more Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks weekly in our Knowledge Center and in upcoming newsletters! You can also sign up to get our Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks sent directly to your inbox!

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Merge an Icon and a Button, Part 1

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Merge an Icon and a Button, Part 2

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Creating Buttons in IBM Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW)

Home » Analytics » Page 3

Filed Under: IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks Tagged With: Analytics, Budgeting Planning & Forecasting, Financial Performance Management, IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Planning Analytics, Planning & Forecasting, Planning & Reporting, Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks, Revelwood, TM1

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London & Edinburgh | +44 (0)131 240 3866

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