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Forecast Explanations in Predictive Forecaster

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With machine learning predictions, it can often be challenging to understand why certain forecasts were made. To bridge this gap, Workday has a new feature: Forecast Explanation in Machine Learning Predictive Forecaster. With this feature, you gain deeper insights into the factors driving your forecasted data through visual charts and explanatory text. Learn more about predictive forecaster itself!

Business Benefits

Understanding machine learning predictions is crucial for trust and decision-making. Forecast Explanation provides clear, visual representations that make it easier to review and analyze the key components influencing each forecast made by the predictor. This feature enhances transparency and enables more informed planning decisions.

Changes

In the Forecast section of new and edited forecasts, there will now be a new Forecast Explanation option. When you enable this feature, two key insights become available in the “Confidence Metrics” tab of the Forecast History page:

  1. 1. Contribution Breakdown of Forecast Components: A visual chart that displays how factors such as seasonality, trends, and residual components (when applicable) contribute to the forecasted values.
  2. 2. Forecast Explanation: A text description that clarifies the significance of each component of the chart.

These enhancements provide a more intuitive way to understand your forecast results. You can access the Confidence Metrics when you view the history of a completed forecast.

How to Enable Forecast Explanation

To turn on this feature for existing forecasts:

  1. 1. From the main menu, select Modeling.
  2. 2. Navigate to Predictive Forecaster.
  3. 3. Hover over a forecast in the list and select the More Actions menu.
  4. 4. Click the three-dot menu and select Edit.
  5. 5. In the Forecast section, check Forecast Explanation.
  6. 6. Select Run to execute the forecast immediately, or select Save to run it later.

How to Review Forecast Explanations

Once your forecast runs successfully:

  1. 1. Select Modeling from the main menu.
  2. 2. Hover over the forecast in the list and access the More Actions menu.
  3. 3. Click the three-dot menu and select View History.
  4. 4. Navigate to the Confidence Metrics tab to review the new visual breakdown and explanatory text.

What Happens If You Take No Action?

The Forecast Explanation option is available for all new as well as existing forecasts, but it must be enabled manually to access the insights.

What’s Next?

Workday is continually enhancing the Predictive Forecaster feature. In future updates, expect even more detailed explanations and additional charts to further clarify the factors influencing the data predictions.By enabling Forecast Explanation, you can leverage machine learning forecasts with greater confidence and clarity. Activate this feature today to gain a deeper understanding of your predictive models!

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Solution Provider for Workday Adaptive Planning. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. By combining the software with our best practices and out-of-the-box applications, we help businesses achieve their full potential with Workday Adaptive Planning.

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Report Parameter Behavior

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Greatest & Least Formulas

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Editing Dimensions

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Transforming Financial Planning: How LEARN Behavioral Streamlined Operations with Workday Adaptive Planning

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We partnered with our client, LEARN Behavioral, on a webinar highlighting how multi-site healthcare organizations can benefit from adopting Workday Adaptive Planning. Here’s their story

LEARN Behavioral is a leading provider of autism services, specializing in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy and school-based programs. With multiple regional brands operating under the LEARN umbrella, the organization faced increasing complexity in managing its financial planning and analysis (FP&A) processes.

Challenges Before Workday Adaptive Planning

Prior to implementing Workday Adaptive Planning, LEARN Behavioral encountered several roadblocks in their budgeting and forecasting workflows:

  • Long Turnaround Times: The process of creating and updating budgets was time-consuming and inefficient.
  • Manual Excel-Based Templates: Reliance on spreadsheets led to errors, inconsistencies, and difficulties in consolidating data.
  • Lack of Insights Across Locations: With multiple sites operating under different brands, gaining a unified view of financial performance was challenging.

These challenges highlighted the need for a scalable and integrated solution to support LEARN Behavioral’s growth and operational complexity.

A Game-Changing Implementation

LEARN Behavioral adopted Workday Adaptive Planning to transform its FP&A capabilities. The implementation brought significant improvements, including:

  • Streamlined Processes: By automating data collection and reporting, LEARN drastically reduced the time required for budgeting and forecasting.
  • Enhanced Data Visibility: Centralizing financial data improved consistency and provided a single source of truth for decision-making.
  • Rolling Forecasts: The ability to maintain monthly rolling forecasts enabled greater flexibility and responsiveness to changes in the business.
  • Scenario Analysis: LEARN gained powerful scenario modeling tools to evaluate financial impacts and make informed decisions.

Empowering Operations with Data-Driven Insights

One of the most impactful outcomes of the implementation was empowering the operations team with direct access to financial data and dashboards. This self-service approach enabled managers to:

  • Monitor performance in real-time.
  • Identify trends and variances quickly.
  • Make data-driven decisions without relying heavily on the finance team.

Integration and Unified Systems

Another critical benefit was the seamless integration of billing, payroll, and financial data into a single platform. This unified system eliminated data silos, ensuring consistency and enabling better collaboration across departments.

Measurable Results and Future Outlook

Since adopting Workday Adaptive Planning, LEARN Behavioral has seen:

  • Reduced budgeting and forecasting timelines.
  • Improved accuracy and consistency in financial data.
  • Better insights to support growth and multi-site operations.

Looking ahead, LEARN Behavioral is well-positioned to continue scaling its services while maintaining financial discipline and operational efficiency.

LEARN Behavioral’s journey with Workday Adaptive Planning serves as an example of how technology can transform financial processes in complex, multi-site organizations. By streamlining workflows, enabling better data access, and enhancing forecasting capabilities, LEARN is now equipped to focus on its mission of providing high-quality autism services to families across the country.

Watch the webinar to learn more!

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Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Editing Dimensions

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Both modeled and cubed sheets in Workday Adaptive Planning offer the ability to add dimensionality to the model to further enhance data visualization. Dimensions and their values are often needed to be updated and maintained. While this could be seen as an inconvenience, Adaptive offers a feature that enables the user to edit the dimension directly on a cubed or modeled sheet rather than having to navigate through modeling to the dimension home screen. 

If you navigate towards the back end of your cubed or modeled sheet and press on column and levels, you will see your dimensions. Select the dimension you want to enable the feature on, and check the “Edit dimension on sheet” checkbox circled in red. Save your changes.

To use the feature, navigate to the front end of the sheet you are working on. Hover over the cell you want to edit under the correct dimension column, and click the drop down arrow. You will then hit the “Edit Dimension” button that is circled in red. 

Next, the window below will pop up. Circled in red is the button to add a new dimensional value directly onto the sheet. This will also be updated on the main dimensions tab as well. Additionally, you have the ability to rename an existing dimension in this same window.

This feature is also available for text-selectors and follows the same process as dimensions.

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Solution Provider for Workday Adaptive Planning. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. By combining the software with our best practices and out-of-the-box applications, we help businesses achieve their full potential with Workday Adaptive Planning.

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Cube Sheet Restrictions in Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: The User Access Calculator

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Machine Learning Predictive Forecaster: Lever Sheets

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

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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: This company manufactures premium lighting and home accessories. It produces approximately 1,000 different designs that can be made in more than 25,000 ways as a standard product. 

Problem: Granular Details Impeded System Performance

Scenario: The company worked with an implementation partner to build a Workday Adaptive Planning solution for budgeting, forecasting and reporting. The implementation they built went to the nth degree of detail and granularity. That level of granularity resulted in the system performing poorly. It also required a high level of upkeep. 

How We Helped: The manufacturer engaged Revelwood for a health check, after which we revamped the company’s model. Revising the company’s model enabled ad-hoc analysis – a key aspect of forecasting that was impossible to do in the earlier instance. 

These changes had a big impact on the company’s next budgeting cycle. By revamping the company’s model, Revelwood enabled the manufacturer to do scenario planning – something they could not do in their earlier implementation of Workday Adaptive Planning.

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

Using Workday Adaptive Planning for Headcount Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning for Incorporating Foreign Transactions

Using Workday Adaptive Planning to Model Revenue and Expenses

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Workday Adaptive Planning User Interface Changes 2025 R1 

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As part of the Workday Adaptive Planning 2025 Release in March 2025, Workday will be making changes to the user interface. These changes will impact Sheets, Matrix Reports, Dashboards, and Scenario Management. The goal of these changes is to adopt a user interface that is consistent with other Workday products. There will also be changes to parameter sizing and visualization of various layouts. The aforementioned changes are designed to optimize screen space and enhance the product’s usability. The User Interface will be forcibly changed in ALL instances by Workday when the 2025 Release rolls out in March (The target date is 3/8/2025). 

Make the Switch Now

Workday has provided users the opportunity to get ahead of these interface changes before they are enacted in March. The settings can be found within the administration section of Adaptive Planning, under the system portion, in visual preferences pictured below. 

In Visual Preferences, you will see the user interface section where you can check off the latest updates seen below.

It is recommended and could be very beneficial for users to make these changes manually now so they can adjust and get used to them before Workday forces the changes. If the user wishes they can deselect these options and revert back to the old interface but again, the changes will be forcibly enacted come March so it may be best to make the switch and keep the changes.

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Solution Provider for Workday Adaptive Planning. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. By combining the software with our best practices and out-of-the-box applications, we help businesses achieve their full potential with Workday Adaptive Planning.

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Write-back for OfficeConnect

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: New Feature – Long-Running Processes in Workday’s 2024R2 Release

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Machine Learning Predictive Forecaster

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10 Steps to Transform Financial Planning & Analysis: A Guide to a Successful FP&A Implementation

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The role of Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) has never been more crucial. Organizations are increasingly relying on FP&A solutions to streamline data, enhance decision-making and drive business strategy. Yet, despite the potential, many FP&A implementations fail to meet expectations.

Why FP&A Matters

FP&A systems are more than just software—they are a transformative tool for financial leaders. By centralizing data and enabling real-time analysis, FP&A allows organizations to:

  • Eliminate spreadsheet chaos and data silos.
  • Focus on strategic decision-making.
  • Align business goals with measurable financial outcomes.

But the path to success requires more than technology. It demands a strategic, phased approach that considers people, processes, and culture.

Read Top 10 Steps for a Successful FP&A Implementation to learn why the best implementations include:

  • Securing Strong Leadership: Every successful FP&A implementation begins with an engaged and empowered executive sponsor. Their support can steer the project and drive cultural alignment.
  • Defining Clear Requirements: A detailed understanding of your organization’s needs is critical. Without clarity, even the best technology will fall short.
  • Phased Implementation: Breaking the project into manageable phases ensures quick wins, sustained momentum, and reduced risks.
  • Emphasizing Ownership: Knowledge transfer is key. Ensure your team is equipped to take full ownership of the system post-implementation.
  • Communicating Effectively: Transparent communication keeps all stakeholders informed, builds trust, and minimizes resistance to change.
  • Partnering with IT: While FP&A is often led by finance, IT plays a vital role in data integration, infrastructure support, and ensuring scalability.
  • Investments in Training: The success of any system depends on its users. Tailored training programs ensure every team member—from power users to casual users—is ready to leverage the system.
  • Staffing Wisely: The right team can make or break your implementation. Carefully choose project managers, solution owners, and functional leads.
  • Closing the Loop: Measure your results against initial goals. Document lessons learned and use them to inform future projects.
  • Choosing the Right Partner: An experienced implementation partner can make all the difference. Look for expertise in your chosen software and a track record of delivering value.

Ready to Get Started?

Download the full whitepaper, Top 10 Steps for a Successful FP&A Implementation, to unlock the strategies for success.

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: ASCIIOUTPUT

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One of our recent IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks videos and blog posts focused on IBM Planning Analytics file manager, and how it can be used to export files. With IBM Planning Analytics, version 12, you can use that approach. But you can also still use ASCII output to create files.

The change with version 12 is that the output path is going to be a little different. Watch Lee Lazarow, Revelwood’s IBM Planning Analytics practice leader, explain how to use ASCII output in version 12.

Lee shows you how to:

  • Modify a TurboIntegrator script for specific paths
  • Create new folders with ASCII output

You’ll also learn the pros and cons of automatic folder creation.

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.

Read more IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks:

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Upcoming Changes to Planning Analytics

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Explorations and MDX

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: New Videos

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: File Manager

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Did you know that IBM Planning Analytics v 12 made changes to how users manage files? One of the biggest changes in version 12 was the removal of Microsoft Windows – which manage users rely on to manage file. 

For example, many of our clients use text files. They use these files to upload data or to create output files for exports. But fear not! Even though MS Windows have been removed, you can still manage files. What has changed is the approach to managing files.

Planning Analytics users will now use a new tool called File Manager to manage files. You can access File Manager through a modeling workbench. 

Watch one of our latest IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks videos to learn how to use File Manager. You’ll see Lee Lazarow, Revelwood’s IBM Planning Analytics practice lead, and a 2024 IBM Champion, manage files by starting with a new workbench. 

Lee will show you how easy it is to sort files by name, by file size, or by when it was last updated. 

IBM Planning Analytics’ File Manager, available in version 12, makes it easy to upload, download, manage and use any of the files you need for your Planning Analytics environment.

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: PAW Process Indent Script Button

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: PAW Workbench Go To Rule

IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: VSTACK_HSTACK

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IBM Planning Analytics Tips & Tricks: Converting a Manual Process to TurboIntegrator Scripts

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This post is the latest post in our new blog series: How We 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 financial services company specializing in retirement and life insurance.

Planning Environment: IBM Planning Analytics

Problem: Their business process included allocating summary quarterly forecast data to a more detailed level. When looking at months and the other dimensions, there were over 200 trillion possible target combinations. The process was performed manually and took two days to consolidate the source data, perform the allocation calculations in Excel and load the results into Planning Analytics.

How we Helped: We converted the full process into automated TurboIntegrator scripts that took under 10 total minutes to run.  

Do you have a challenge with your Planning Analytics environment? Let us tackle the problem! Send us a quick email!

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