Workday Adaptive Planning

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Machine Learning Predictive Forecaster

January 15, 2025 by Thomas McDade

Workday Adaptive Planning offers several features that allow users to achieve financial planning and analysis data solutions. One feature, predictive forecaster, leverages historical data to generate machine learning-based predictions within forecasted versions. With improved efficiency and accuracy, predictive forecasters can provide well-tuned predictions with the help of machine learning algorithms. In this blog post, we will delve into the steps needed to set up a predictive forecaster in Workday Adaptive Planning.

Step 1: Permission Sets

In order to access the predictive forecaster, navigate to the “Permission Sets” tab of the “Administration” section. From there click edit (next to the Permission Sets of the accessing users). Finally, make sure the predictive forecaster is checked off. Now predictive forecaster will be available under “modeling.”

Step 2: Navigation

In order to create a new predictive forecaster navigate to the “modeling” tab, choose “predictive forecast” and click “add new”.

Step 3: Necessary Requirements

To create the forecast, start by including a name and an optional description. Next, choose the sheet and the planned version that you want to populate with the data. Additionally, add the forecast start and end periods.

Step 4: Requirements continued

To continue filling out the necessary requirements select the accounts that you want to populate with the predicted data. There is the option to choose whether you want to populate based on levels or dimensions. Next for the “reference data” section, select the actual version that the algorithm will reference, as well as the start and end periods. Adaptive Planning requires users to maintain a 3:2 ratio of actuals to forecast.

Step 5: Algorithms

Finally, users must select which algorithm they want to deploy for their forecaster. AutoFit is the suggested algorithm because it selects the algorithm based on the seasonality of the data. Users also have the option to choose type of seasonality, add weekly seasonality, add multiplicative seasonality, to round values, and to add lever sheets. Several of these additional selections are only available for specific algorithms.

Predictive forecasting allows for users to leverage historical data to create well-defined predictions. The detailed criteria helps to create tailored data to the unique seasonality of the data.

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.

Budgeting That Works: How to Plan for Success in an Uncertain World

January 9, 2025 by Simon Foley

The Budgeting Blues

You’ve just wrapped up another marathon annual budget cycle spanning multiple months, countless late nights and endless revisions; you’ve finally pinned down the dreaded planning gap between top-down targets and bottom-up submissions. You appear to have a fairly consistent set of functional budgets with marketing initiatives aligned with sales targets, which in turn are aligned with operational plans and a suitable workforce plan. It is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, during the months since the budget cycle started and the corporate targets were agreed, the world has moved on, leaving your budget masterpiece in tatters.

A Better Way: Driver-Based Budgeting

Surely, there is a better way? Enter driver-based planning: a thoughtful approach that focuses on the key factors that truly move your business forward. Instead of getting bogged down in granular line-item details, driver-based budgeting focuses on identifying the key business drivers that really move the needle for your company. These could be things like sales growth, production capacity, headcount, or any other factors that have a major impact on financial performance.

By building your budgets and plans around a focused set of core drivers, you can create a more agile and responsive planning process. As the world changes, you can easily adjust your driver assumptions and assess the ripple effects across the business. Driver-based budgeting also aligns inputs to the right business owners – the sales team weighs in on bookings forecasts, operations gives their view on production capacity, and so on. This not only leads to more accurate plans, but also creates accountability and buy-in across the organization.

Defining the Right KPIs

To get started with driver-based budgeting, the first step is to nail down the right key performance indicators (KPIs) for your business. But more isn’t always better when it comes to KPIs. The most effective driver-based models focus on a concise set of metrics that:

1. Can be reliably and consistently measured for historical actuals
2. Are predictable enough to forecast
3. Have a direct link to key business goals and objectives
4. Have clear business ownership

For example, a software company might zero in on KPIs like new logo bookings, billings growth, and sales rep productivity as core drivers of the sales model. The finance team partners with sales leaders to pressure-test the assumptions, and the model projects how different scenarios would flow through to revenue, margins, and cash.

Eliminating Data Silos

With the right KPIs defined, the next step is to eliminate data silos and create “one source of truth” in your budgeting process. Driver-based budgeting thrives on collaboration and integration – sales, operations, finance, and executive teams all need to be looking at the same set of numbers. Modern cloud-based planning platforms make it easy to connect data, build driver logic, and engage business users in a streamlined process.

Planning with Agility

Driver-based budgeting enables a dynamic, rolling forecast rhythm to replace the annual or quarterly budgeting cycle. By refreshing forecasts on a monthly basis (or more frequently), you always have an up-to-date view of where the business is headed, allowing for more informed decision-making and better resource allocation.

Pair this with the ability to regularly and efficiently generate multiple additional “what-if” scenario versions and you gain the agility to quickly course-correct as conditions change and new opportunities or threats arise.

A True Business Transformation

But driver-based budgeting is about more than just building a better mousetrap. Done right, it can be truly transformative for an organization. It elevates the role of finance to focus on strategic business drivers rather than just policing the numbers. It creates alignment and accountability across functions. And most importantly, it arms decision-makers with visibility and insight to navigate through periods of volatility and change.

Start today

In a world of rapid change and pervasive uncertainty, agility is the ultimate competitive advantage. By focusing your planning efforts on the critical drivers of your business, you can position your organization to ride out the storms and seize new opportunities. So ditch those broken spreadsheets, engage your business partners, and start your journey towards more dynamic, driver-based plans. Your future self will thank you.

Revelwood is dedicated to helping the Office of Finance succeed through the strategic use of technology. We have a nearly 30 year history helping CFOs and FP&A leaders modernize and transform the Office of Finance. Our approach is to focus on your success, speak business first and to leverage best-in-class technology that suits your organization’s unique needs. Contact us at info@revelwood.com to start a conversation on how we can help your Office of Finance be thes best it can be.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

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

Workday Named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Financial Planning Software

Recommendations from the 2024 CFO Study

Workday Adaptive Planning for Budgeting and Forecasting for a SaaS Business Model

January 8, 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 SaaS company that is a next-generation online data provider for insurers.

Problem: Budgeting and Forecasting for a SaaS Business Model

Scenario: This fast-growing software-as-a-service needed a sophisticated approach to budgeting, planning, forecasting and reporting. The company is a very low-asset organization with minimal CapEx requirements. As a result, they are very focused on their P&L. They needed a model that reflects annual recurring revenue and enables them to manage multi-year planning several years out.

How We Helped: We built a revenue model that incorporates annual recurring revenue. It enables the company to drill down into P&L data. This model gives the company insights into future revenue as well as historical revenue. They are able to take all of their P&L data and provide reporting on it to senior management and to the company’s investors.

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

Top 5 Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks from 2024

January 2, 2025 by Revelwood

Did you have a favorite Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks post from 2024? We took a look at our analytics and figured out which tips & tricks published in 2024 were the most popular. Take a look:

1. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Importing with Ease

One of the key features of Workday Adaptive Planning is the ability to import data in mass efficiently, saving time and reducing errors. Read this blog post for a step-by-step guide to the import process. We provide detailed information on accessing import templates and correcting errors seamlessly within Workday Adaptive Planning.

2. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: A Practical Guide to Shared Formula Import

The shared formula import file in Workday Adaptive Planning saves time and gives users the ability to apply formulas to any account by version and by level. Read this blog post to learn a process that will efficiently allow Workday Adaptive Planning users to create large templates from scratch for importing mass quantities of shared formulas.

3. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: How to Filter Data for Sage Intacct Integrations within Adaptive Staging Tables

There are many times when importing data into the staging tables for Intacct integrations that you might be looking for just a subset of data. Importing everything from Sage Intacct to Workday Adaptive Planning takes time. If you filter your retrieval in the staging area, you can save time on the import. That enables you to spend your time on more impactful activities.

4. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Capital Summary Sheet – New & Existing Depreciation

The capital summary sheet provides a snapshot of an organization’s capital assets and their depreciation within an overview of CapEx by asset type and level. This sheet allows the user to see the total depreciation, which is broken down by new depreciation and existing depreciation, as well as fixed assets.

5. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Linked Accounts with Link Filter

Linked accounts serve as the backbone of financial modeling in Workday Adaptive Planning. They establish connections between different elements of your financial structure, enabling seamless aggregation and analysis of data across various dimensions. By linking accounts, you can bring data from different models to align for your organization’s reporting and analysis needs.

Popular Workday Adaptive Planning Webinars

December 27, 2024 by Revelwood

Do you watch on-demand webinars? You’d be surprised how many people do. We took a look at the Workday Adaptive Planning webinars we recorded in 2024 and found that our five most popular Workday Adaptive Planning webinars were viewed by nearly 1,500 people.

Workday Adaptive Planning is used by organizations of all sizes and industries – and this is reflected in the list of our most popular webinars.

Forecasting Excellence: A Workday Adaptive Planning Masterclass

Learn how to achieve forecasting excellence with Workday Adaptive Planning. Benefit from Revelwood’s experienced Workday Adaptive Planning experts, guiding you through the essentials and equipping you with the skills to become a proficient planning and analysis professional within your organization.

Driving Growth & Financial Visibility with Workday Adaptive Planning

Learn how to maximize Workday Adaptive Planning’s benefits and join the ever-expanding group of delighted companies. Revelwood’s Workday Adaptive Planning experts provide you with both a high-level overview of the platform along with a hands-on demonstration on how to use Workday Adaptive Planning.

Maximizing ROI: SaaS-specific Insights with Workday Adaptive Planning

SaaS-based companies must implement a flexible planning process that adapts seamlessly to the growth of the organization, ensuring agility and responsiveness. In this webinar, we delve into the tailored advantages that Workday Adaptive Planning offers to the SaaS industry, elevating strategic decision-making capabilities.

Transforming FP&A in Multi-site Healthcare Organizations

Discover how Revelwood client, LEARN Behavioral, a rapidly growing multi-site healthcare organization, revolutionized their financial planning and analysis (FP&A) process with Workday Adaptive Planning. With over 5,000 behavior analysts and clinicians, LEARN Behavioral operates in 18 states across the U.S. and was in dire need of a more efficient and effective budgeting solution.

From Data to Decisions: Harnessing Workday Adaptive Planning for Strategic Insights

In this webinar, we dive into advanced features of Workday Adaptive Planning and highlight real-world applications designed to elevate your financial operations and drive business success.

Which webinars did you watch in 2024?

Meet Emery Sinclair, Revelwood’s Vice President of Client Success

December 19, 2024 by Revelwood

Emery Sinclair recently rejoined Revelwood as our new vice president of client success. Previously, he spent eight years serving as Revelwood’s director of solutions and strategy. We sat down with Emery to learn his vision for this new role and why he returned to Revelwood.

Q: Welcome back! Tell us about your new role.

Emery: Thanks. I’m responsible for overseeing and expanding our Client Success team. Our goals are to optimize the client experience by expanding our service offerings and driving product adoption. We want to make sure our clients get the full benefits they expect from their investments in technology for the Office of Finance.

Currently our clients receive complimentary training, free system performance tune-ups, access to open Q&A sessions and exclusive content. We plan on expanding our offerings. At Revelwood we say – and we mean it – that we have our clients’ backs. Our Client Success team will put even more processes and thought around how we do that.

Q: What have you been doing in between your time with us?

Emery: I’ve focused on client success. I’ve had the opportunity to work with startups that were headquartered outside of the U.S. This has given me an interesting perspective on how to work with organizations of all sizes to partner for success. Success not just in selling software, but in actually working toward long-term relationships with our clients. As one Revelwoodian recently said, “We don’t just deliver [an implementation] and run away. In fact, we do the opposite of that.

Q: Why did you decide to return to Revelwood?

Emery: Revelwood has nearly quadrupled in size since I left in 2014. There’s a significant amount of growth in the financial planning software market and related technologies for the Office of Finance. Revelwood has the right people and the right experience to capitalize on this fast-growing market.

Revelwood also has a client base of raving fans. That’s a great starting point for my goals for the Client Success team. We’re not just a service provider, we are a vested advocate that helps them achieve their goals for transforming the Office of Finance.

And, they are great people!

Learn more about Emery – read the press release and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Meet Dino Daddona, Revelwood’s New Vice President of Sales, Americas

December 18, 2024 by Revelwood

Dino Daddona was recently named Revelwood’s vice president of sales, Americas. We sat down with him to learn more about his thoughts on Revelwood.

Q: Why did you choose to join Revelwood?

Dino: The majority of my career has been in roles selling to the Office of Finance. So it was functionally a good fit. More importantly, though, Revelwood is in a unique position in the market. The company is on a rapid growth trajectory and has a legacy of success helping clients transform financial performance and operations. That makes Revelwood a rare find.

Many Revelwoodians have been with the company for many years. That is a sign of a great company. It is a testament to the quality of the leadership, the commitment to individuals’ success and its commitment to the company’s Core Values.

Q: What do you see as Revelwood’s opportunity in the market?

Dino: There is a massive opportunity to help companies transform their Office of Finance. According to Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Financial Planning Software, “Organizations are increasingly seeking efficient, agile planning and management to respond to market changes.” Frankly, nearly every organization now faces “market changes” on a regular basis. This means that companies – and they are many of them – that still use spreadsheets for budgeting and planning need to modernize their finance operations now.

Workday Adaptive Planning is one of the best financial planning solutions on the market. Revelwood is the leading Workday Adaptive Planning partner in the Americas. Additionally, Revelwood has decades of experience (and awards to prove it!) partnering with IBM. We’ve also received awards from our partner BlackLine.

We are perfectly positioned for exponential growth in the market.

Q: What will you be doing in this new role?

Dino: I’m Revelwood’s first vice president of sales, Americas. I oversee our Sales and Pre-sales teams. These teams are a mix of Revelwood veterans and new team members, some of whom are just entering the workplace. Having a diverse team means that we can leverage both experience and new ideas.

My role also includes strengthening relationships with our partners. Our partnerships are not just traditional technology “Barney hugs.” We invest in training and certifications from our partners. We’re not generalists – we are experts in technology for the Office of Finance. It’s important that our partners understand how committed we are to mutual success.Learn more about Dino.

Read the press release and check him out on LinkedIn.

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Archived Versions For Data Freeze 2024R2

December 11, 2024 by Luke Griffie

What is an archived version in Workday Adaptive Planning?

Archived versions allow the user to calculate and store the values of all calculated and linked accounts in a plan version. This freezes the values and stops them from recalculating as you make future changes to the original model. There is an Archive version checkbox within plan versions that allow for this robust data freeze seen in the screenshot below.

Before archiving a version, you will receive the following warning message.

This feature allows you to modify actual version data, linked account configurations and model structures—such as levels and custom dimensions—without compromising the integrity of leaf-level data in archived versions. The archived version will maintain the calculations and all corresponding data from the point of archiving.

The new archived version checkbox within modeling and versions replaces the calculate formula values checkbox and locked version. Workday Adaptive Planning plans to eventually retire calculate formula values by the 2026R1 update.

In the screenshot below you can see that upon archiving a version, Adaptive Planning will provide you with any errors within the newly archived version.

Example/Use Case

A prime example of when Archived Versions for Data Freeze comes in handy is in a plan version with actuals overlay. Prior to Workday Adaptive Planning adding archived versions feature, you would select calculate formula values in the plan version with actuals overlay. The problem with this option is upon restating actuals data, it reflected the changes made in the actuals portion that was only meant for the plan portion of data in the version. With archive version, you are now able to restate actuals without impacting actuals overlay and save the calculations from the original output.

Additional Thoughts

Metric and system accounts are not included in archived versions meaning they still calculate. The user can make changes to the original version/ model without impacting the archived version. It will archive the leaf intersection data, not the rollups. You gain improved performance and increased confidence with historical versions. It solves for the restatement of actuals by storing actuals overlay data in the archived plan versions. It won’t change if you make changes in the original model. Actuals overlay data gets stored directly in the plan version. This prevents a restatement of actuals from impacting the archived version. Link account values will be stored at the time of archive and won’t change in the archived version regardless of any changes going forward in other versions.

Workday Named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Financial Planning Software

December 9, 2024 by Revelwood

Workday has been recognized as a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Financial Planning Software for the third consecutive year. This year’s Magic Quadrant for Financial Planning Software includes Anaplan, Board, IBM, Insightsoftware, Jedox, Kepion, OneStream, Oracle, Pigment, Planful, Prophix, SAP, Strata (formerly Syntellis), Vena, Wolters Kluwer and Workday.

A screenshot of a computer screen

Description automatically generated

The Gartner Magic Quadrant evaluates vendors based on their ability to execute and completeness of vision, classifying them as Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries or Niche Players.

Read a copy of the Magic Quadrant and learn:

Market dynamics and key trends
- Shifts towards agile financial planning
- Data integration and cross-functional collaboration
- The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics
- Cloud adoption and scalability
- Focus on user experience
Challenges facing the industry
- Adoption gaps
- Data silos
- Balancing customization and standardization
Why Workday was named a Leader – strengths
- Performance monitoring
- Management insights and dashboards
- Certified implementations

The financial planning software market is poised for continued growth, driven by the increasing demand for agility, integration and advanced analytics. Vendors like Workday are leading the charge by providing solutions that not only meet today’s needs, but also anticipate future challenges.

For organizations considering a move to modern financial planning tools, the Gartner Magic Quadrant serves as an invaluable resource to identify vendors best suited to their needs and strategic goals. As the market evolves, adaptability and innovation will remain key differentiators in this competitive space.

Workday Adaptive Planning

Step 1: Permission Sets

Step 2: Navigation

Step 3: Necessary Requirements

Step 4: Requirements continued

Step 5: Algorithms

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

The Budgeting Blues

A Better Way: Driver-Based Budgeting

Defining the Right KPIs

Eliminating Data Silos

Planning with Agility

A True Business Transformation

Start today

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

1. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Importing with Ease

2. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: A Practical Guide to Shared Formula Import

3. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: How to Filter Data for Sage Intacct Integrations within Adaptive Staging Tables

4. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Capital Summary Sheet – New & Existing Depreciation

5. Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Linked Accounts with Link Filter

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

Forecasting Excellence: A Workday Adaptive Planning Masterclass

Driving Growth & Financial Visibility with Workday Adaptive Planning

Maximizing ROI: SaaS-specific Insights with Workday Adaptive Planning

Transforming FP&A in Multi-site Healthcare Organizations

From Data to Decisions: Harnessing Workday Adaptive Planning for Strategic Insights

Read more from this series:

Learn more about Emery – read the press release and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Read the press release and check him out on LinkedIn.

Example/Use Case

Additional Thoughts

Read more Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks:

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

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