Planning & Forecasting

Why Strategic Headcount Planning Is the Missing Link in FP&A

September 4, 2025 by Revelwood

In a recent episode of FP&A Done Right – The Podcast, the focus is on strategic headcount planning. This episode delves into the critical role of aligning workforce planning with organizational strategy, emphasizing the importance of integrating financial planning and analysis (FP&A) with human resources to drive business success.

Transforming Headcount Planning into a Strategic Advantage

Strategic headcount planning goes beyond filling roles—it’s about aligning your workforce with your organization’s long-term goals. This episode explores how incorporating workforce planning enables more agile decision-making, improves resource allocation, and ensures your people strategy keeps pace with business demands.

1. The Importance of Strategic Headcount Planning
Effective headcount planning is essential for aligning talent acquisition and management with the company’s strategic objectives. By forecasting workforce needs and understanding the financial implications, organizations can make informed decisions that support growth and adaptability.

2. Leveraging Workday Adaptive Planning
Enterprise planning solutions facilitate real-time collaboration between finance and HR departments. These tools enable dynamic modeling and scenario planning, allowing organizations to respond swiftly to changing business conditions and workforce requirements.

3. Integrating FP&A with HR for Better Outcomes
By integrating FP&A processes with human resources planning, you ensure that financial forecasts account for workforce trends and HR strategies are grounded in financial realities, leading to more cohesive and effective organizational planning.

4. Navigating Challenges in Headcount Planning
The episode addresses common challenges such as data silos, communication gaps between departments, and the complexities of modeling various workforce scenarios. It offers strategies for overcoming these obstacles, emphasizing the need for transparent communication and integrated planning systems.

5. Real-World Applications and Success Stories
We share practical examples of how organizations have successfully implemented strategic headcount planning. These success stories illustrate the tangible benefits of aligning workforce planning with financial strategies, including improved agility and resource optimization.

For finance professionals, HR leaders and organizational strategists, this episode offers valuable insights into the interplay between workforce planning and financial management. It underscores the necessity of integrated planning approaches to navigate the complexities of modern business environments effectively.

Tune in to this episode of FP&A Done Right – The Podcast to explore how strategic headcount planning can serve as a cornerstone for organizational success.

Mastering Merged Cube Sheets in Workday Adaptive Planning

September 3, 2025 by Revelwood

Merged cube sheets are a powerful tool in Workday Adaptive Planning that combine data from up to three modeled or cube sheets. They enable advanced calculations, simplify data management, and enhance forecasting. Let’s dive deeper into understanding their purpose, characteristics, and how to build them.

Why Use Merged Cube Sheets?

Merged cube sheets are especially useful for:

Creating calculated accounts without requiring data presence in the sheet itself. This feature ensures that formulas calculate accurately, even when data is absent in the merged cube’s standard accounts. Usually, a lack of data in the cube’s standard accounts forces formulas to evaluate at zero. Merged cube sheets bypass this rule by using the data presence of the source sheets.
Building simpler source sheets that focus only on necessary dimensions, then merging them to manage complex data across multiple dimensions efficiently.

Additional benefits include:

Allocations across dimensions using formulas.
Serving as calculation identifiers for other cube sheets.
Chaining merged cubes, where one merged cube acts as a source for another.

*Disclaimer: Using merged cube sheets in these additional ways can increase complexity of your model and may cause unexpected behaviors.

Example of a Merged Cube Sheet

Suppose you need to calculate revenue based on quantity and price across dimensions like customer, region, and product. Instead of managing this in one massive sheet:

1. Create a modeled sheet with the Customer dimension for forecasting total product purchases without breaking it down by product.
2. Create a cube sheet with the Product dimension for forecasting prices and mix by product.
3. Build a merged revenue sheet that combines these two sources to calculate total revenue by multiplying quantities and prices for each customer and product.

Characteristics of Merged Cube Sheets

Merged cube sheets:

Are read-only with no data entry support.
Require at least one calculated account. Data entry overrides are not available for this account.
Only allow account groups, calculated accounts, and metric accounts.
Can merge up to three source sheets (modeled or cube).
Contain only dimensions already present in the source sheets.
Must include any common dimensions across all source sheets.
- Ex: if both sheets contain the product dimension, the merged cube must also include the product dimension.
Cannot include cube restrictions.
Only calculate intersections where data exists in the source sheets.

Steps to Build Cube and Merged Cube Sheets

1. Create Dimensions, Attributes, and Levels you want to add to the sheet.
- Follow standard procedures for adding these elements to your planning model.
2. Create Source Sheets for Merged Cube Sheets.
- Source sheets can be either modeled or cube sheets.
3. Start a New Sheet.
- Select cube sheet and check the box for a merged cube.
4. (For Merged Sheets) Select Source Sheets.
- Identify the sheets you wish to merge. This is located in the settings under “Dimensions, Attributes and Levels.”
5. (Optional) Create Account Groups.
- Organize accounts for easier navigation.
6. Create Cube Accounts.
7. Add general ledger and custom accounts to your sheet and ensure they are cube-entered in account settings.
- You can add general ledger and custom accounts to the cube sheet after you make the accounts cube-entered. In the account settings, for Data Entry Sheet Type, click Cube.
8. Add Dimensions and Attributes.
- Include necessary custom dimensions and attributes in your sheet.
9. Select Time Periods.
- By default, all available time periods are included.
10. Add Levels, Accounts, Dimensions, and Attributes.
- Optionally hide certain cube accounts to simplify the sheet view.
11. (Optional) Adjust Sheet Properties.
- Set the initial view, remove the cube root account, set the time strata, and manage calculation scope as well as other settings to enhance usability.
12. Assign the Sheet to Users.
- If the sheet requires user assignment, ensure permissions are correctly set.
13. Load Data into the Sheet.
- Data can be imported via spreadsheets, integration loaders, or entered directly from the Sheets menu.
14. Monitor Usage and Performance.
- Regularly review the sheet’s performance to ensure optimal functionality.

Merged cube sheets are a great feature for streamlining complex forecasting models. By combining data from simpler sheets, they improve calculation efficiency and enhance data visibility. Following these steps will help you create effective merged cube sheets tailored to your organization’s planning needs.

Revelwood is more than just a Platinum Workday Adaptive Planning partner — we’re a trusted advisor to the Office of Finance. With 30 years of experience and award-winning expertise, we bring together powerful software, proven best practices and pre-built, ready-to-deploy solutions that accelerate time to value. Our team doesn’t just implement technology — we help finance teams transform the way they plan, analyze and make decisions. Discover how Revelwood can help you get the most out of Workday Adaptive Planning — and achieve results that matter.

Limiting the Scope of Calculated Accounts

August 20, 2025 by Revelwood

Both modeled and cubed sheets in Workday Adaptive Planning allow the user to set a scope to limit the calculation for calculated accounts for both actuals and planned data. A user may utilize this feature to allow calculations to start at a certain point, without having to alter the actuals or plan version start date.

In order to limit the scope of the calculated accounts, you will begin by navigating to the back end of the sheet and go to columns and levels. Once you are at columns and levels, you can press the sheet properties gear in the middle of the screen.

Once you have navigated to the sheet properties, press the last tab that is titled “Scope.” This is where you will have the option to limit the scope for calculated accounts.

You now have the ability to set the scope either forward or backwards for actual values or plan values as well. For the actuals, the drop down for the start/stop calculating gives you an option to select start/end of version, month, quarter, year. For the plan, the drop down for start/stop gives you the option of left scroll limit, end of plan, month, quarter, year.

In the example above, we set the scope so that the plan values do not start until 6 months after the start of the plan. As you can see from the start date, it should start 1/1/2025, but from the row details we can see that the calculations do not begin until July.

Workday Named a Leader in IDC MarketScape Report for MidMarket Organizations

August 14, 2025 by Revelwood

Our partner, Workday, has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting Applications for Midmarket Organizations 2024 Vendor Assessment, which was issued in late 2024.

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The IDC study assessed vendors in the worldwide enterprise planning, budgeting and forecasting applications that focus on midmarket organizations. The evaluation is based on a “comprehensive and rigorous framework that assesses each vendor relative to the criteria and to one another.

Vendor requirements to be included in this report included:

Have 50% of its enterprise planning, budgeting and forecasting applications revenue from the midmarket segment.
Have business operations in two or more regions worldwide.
Have market presence and momentum based on IDC inquiry volume.

Download this report to learn why:

The latest functionality being added to enterprise planning, budgeting and forecasting applications is AI-/ML- and generative AI (GenAI)-based functionality.
Applications continue to be enriched with improvements in collaboration and collective intelligence capabilities
Market uncertainty and volatility have increased demand for more robust what-if or scenario planning and analysis capabilities.

Key Highlights on Workday:

Workday is in the Leaders category for this IDC MarketScape for its Workday Adaptive Planning offering. The report cites Workday’s strengths as:

Workday Adaptive Planning is user-friendly for both data modelers and business users.
There is a strong ecosystem of implementation partners (like us!).
The software is feature-rich, with extensive planning, analytics and data management functionality.

Download your copy of the study today.

Override Formula Settings on Calculated Accounts

August 13, 2025 by Cameron Burke

Workday Adaptive Planning is a powerful tool for financial planning and analysis. One of its key strengths is its flexibility in handling data input and formula calculations. One often overlooked, but highly useful feature is the Override Formula Setting on accounts. This allows users to control how data is entered and calculated within specific accounts or sheets.

In this post, we’ll explore the three options in the Override Formula Setting — None, Override Formula, and Data Entry — and how you can leverage them to refine your planning models.

What is the Override Formula Setting?

The Override Formula Setting determines whether users can manually enter data into an account or if the system will enforce a formula-based calculation. This setting is particularly useful when working with modeled sheets, standard sheets, or specific versions of your budget and forecast.

1. None (Default Setting)

When the Override Formula Setting is set to None, the account strictly follows the formula defined in the account’s properties. This means that users cannot manually enter data in the cell; Adaptive Planning will always use the account’s default formula to calculate the value.

Use Case:

When you want to ensure that a particular metric (e.g., Gross Margin % or a calculated KPI) is always derived from a formula and never manually overridden.
Useful for accounts that should remain consistent across all planning scenarios.

2. Override Formula

Selecting Override Formula allows users to enter data manually in specific instances while keeping the formula intact. When a user inputs a value, it replaces the formula-driven calculation for that particular cell, but the original formula remains in place for all other cells where data is not manually entered.

Use Case:

When you want the flexibility to override a formula-based calculation in certain months or scenarios but still rely on the formula for most periods.
Example: If revenue is usually calculated using a formula but needs to be adjusted manually for a particular product launch or seasonal fluctuation.

3. Data Entry

With Data Entry enabled, the formula is completely removed, allowing full manual input for all periods and scenarios. This effectively turns the account into a standard input field rather than a calculated one.

Use Case:

When the account should be completely user-driven, such as manually entering sales targets or one-time adjustments.
Example: Entering specific planned expenses for an event that vary from period to period and do not follow a predictable pattern.

This setting also allows you to have different override settings for different versions. For example, if you want to manually upload/enter actuals for an account and have the budget version calculate numbers based off of these actuals, you can set the actuals version to data entry and the budget version to none. You are able to enter a formula in the budget version referring to actuals data for that account as shown below.

Best Practices for Using the Override Formula Setting

1. Lock Critical Formulas: If an account should always be formula-driven, keep the setting at None to prevent accidental overrides.
2. Use Override Formula Sparingly: This setting is powerful, but frequent overrides can lead to inconsistencies. Use it only when necessary and document any manual inputs.
3. Enable Data Entry When Needed: If you expect manual input for an account, proactively set it to Data Entry to avoid confusion among users.

The Override Formula Setting in Workday Adaptive Planning provides essential flexibility in managing how data is calculated and entered. Understanding when to use None, Override Formula, or Data Entry ensures that your planning models remain both accurate and adaptable.

By strategically applying these settings, you can strike the right balance between automation and user control, leading to more effective and reliable financial planning.

Workday Adaptive Planning for Managing Cash Flow

July 25, 2025 by Revelwood

This post continues our series on how we use Workday Adaptive Planning to solve problems. Each blog post focuses on a real-world client experience where Revelwood was presented with a unique or thorny problem. We’ll explain our approach to how we solved it.

Revelwood Client: A construction company that prides itself on building homes that “just feel right.” They build quality-made homes across Easter Pennsylvania, in Berks County, Chester County, Lancaster County, Lebanon County and more.

Problem: Managing Cash Flow

Scenario: Cash flow is one of the biggest challenges facing home builders. A home building company will get a down payment from a client, after which the construction company relies on bank loans per project to cover the labor and material costs until the home is finished and turned over to the new homeowner. It sounds simple – except when faced with variable costs for labor and goods, delays for materials and a multitude of new projects at various levels of completion. This company needed insight into how the increasing costs and delays impact any one project. They also wanted to understand how the sum of the current projects relate to cash flow and the company’s ability to sign contracts with new clients.

How We Helped: Revelwood integrated Workday Adaptive Planning with MarkSystems Home Builder Software. Revelwood built a cash flow model that incorporates detailed loan information. The cash flow modeling, analysis and reporting solution relies on data sets for “draws.” A draw schedule is a detailed payment plan that determines when a bank will disburse funds to the home building company. The company how has a sophisticated and comprehensive view of cash flow based on projects, payments and milestones.

Do you have a challenge you’d like to leverage Workday Adaptive Planning for? Reach out to us – we can help!

Read the posts in our series, How We Solve Problems Using Workday Adaptive Planning

How We Solve Problems: Improving the Performance of Workday Adaptive Planning

How We Solve Problems Using Workday Adaptive Planning

Using Workday Adaptive Planning for Headcount Planning

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Picklists

July 15, 2025 by Marc Assenza

You may have read our previous blog posts about creating picklists in IBM Planning Analytics and using them in the Planning Analytics Workspace (PAW) interface.

PAW version 101 introduced the ability to easily create picklists from a view. This is done by simply selecting one or more cells (note that the selected cells must be the same type – string or numeric), right-clicking, and selecting the option to Set picklist.

Once selected, a screen will appear that allows you to define the picklist type: static or hierarchy:

A static picklist is a hard-coded list of cells that you can define independent of the existing model. This is done by clicking on the option to Add Values to a list.

A hierarchy picklist allows you to reference an existing dimension to define the selections. The dimension can reference all elements in the dimension or an existing subset within the dimension.

Once defined, a picklist icon will appear within the defined cells so users can easily select their input values.

This approach provides an easy-to-use, wizard-based approach to creating picklists in your PAW environment.

Revelwood is an IBM Gold Business Partner with 25+ years of experience designing, developing, implementing and maintaining IBM Planning Analytics environments. Revelwood has helped clients in all sizes across all industries optimize and grow their use of Planning Analytics. Revelwood’s Planning Analytics team consists of experienced PA experts, including a multi-year IBM Champion.

Stay up to date with PA – sign up for our weekly Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks newsletter, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and join our IBM Planning Analytics All-Stars group on LinkedIn.

Workday Adaptive Planning for Complex Workforce Planning

July 11, 2025 by Revelwood

Revelwood Client: A multi-site healthcare organization that helps families with autism or other special needs thrive. The organization specializes in the use of tailored treatment programs based on contemporary, family-focused applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy, as well as clinical insights and best practices.

Problem: Workforce / headcount planning

Scenario: This organization has complex workforce planning needs that include analyzing non-billable time.

How We Helped: Revelwood built a model for Workday Adaptive Planning that integrated with UKG Pro. With Workday Adaptive Planning, the organization can run a report with conditional formatting to identify any employee who logs more than 250 hours of non-billable time in one payroll period. The team can easily make updates, such as adding in expected promotions and departures, and see what impact those actions will have. By having this information readily available, the organization can have larger, more meaningful conversations about the best use of its workforce.

Do you have a challenge you’d like to leverage Workday Adaptive Planning for? Reach out to us – we can help!

Read the posts in our series, How We Solve Problems Using Workday Adaptive Planning

How We Solve Problems: Improving the Performance of Workday Adaptive Planning

How We Solve Problems Using Workday Adaptive Planning

Using Workday Adaptive Planning for Headcount Planning

Driving Operational Efficiency

July 10, 2025 by Revelwood

A recent episode of FP&A Done Right – The Podcast, focuses on how finance teams enhance operational efficiency through strategic planning and data-driven decision-making.

In today’s dynamic business environment, the ability to plan effectively and adapt to change is crucial. Company-wide planning platforms offer tools that not only streamline financial processes but also provide strategic value by enabling better decision-making and fostering collaboration.

Strategic Planning and Operational Efficiency

Strategic planning drives operational efficiency by:

1. Enhancing Agility in Financial Planning

Enterprise planning enables finance teams to adapt swiftly to changing business conditions. It facilitates real-time scenario modeling and forecasting, which means organizations can make informed decisions promptly.

2. Streamlining Collaboration Across Departments

Company-wide planning fosters cross-functional collaboration. A unified platform ensures that all stakeholders are aligned, reducing silos and enhancing overall efficiency.

3. Leveraging Data for Strategic Insights

By harnessing data, finance teams can uncover insights that drive strategic initiatives and long-term growth.

Listen to this episode to learn more about how enterprise planning can drive results in efficiencies beyond the Office of Finance.Want a deeper dive?

Download our eBook on the topic.

Why Strategic Headcount Planning Is the Missing Link in FP&A

Transforming Headcount Planning into a Strategic Advantage

Mastering Merged Cube Sheets in Workday Adaptive Planning