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Workday Adaptive Planning in Use: A Fireside Chat with Ben Hart, CFO of Texans Credit Union

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In a recent Fireside Chat, we had the opportunity to delve into the world of financial insights with Ben Hart, the CFO of Texans Credit Union. The conversation provided a glimpse into how using Workday Adaptive Planning has transformed financial processes within the credit union. 

Watch the recorded Fireside Chat:

Navigating the Financial Landscape

In the first part of the chat, Ben highlighted the challenges posed by the 18-month-long rising rate environment and the crucial role of pricing loans. The credit union leveraged the capabilities of Adaptive to ensure expected returns on various products. The dashboard in Adaptive allowed for real-time visualization and scenario comparisons – something that was impossible to do with static spreadsheets.

From Static to Dynamic: A Paradigm Shift

Ben emphasized the profound differences between the old and new processes and the transformative power of Adaptive. The ability to run “what if” scenarios, create visualizations on the fly, and assess the impact of assumptions in real time has provided a level of agility and responsiveness that was previously unattainable. Now that Texans CU is no longer bound by the limitations of static spreadsheets, the finance team can navigate financial complexities with ease, providing stakeholders with immediate, data-driven insights.

Collaborative Customization: Partnering with Revelwood

The chat also touched upon the collaborative effort with Revelwood in customizing Adaptive for Texans CU. Ben shed light on the necessity of engaging an external partner to expedite the budgeting component for their 2023 budgets. Revelwood not only facilitated the process but also played a crucial role in imparting knowledge to Ben’s team, ensuring a seamless transition and empowering them to become self-sufficient users of Adaptive.

Unlocking the Full Potential

Despite the evident success and positive feedback, Ben acknowledged that there’s more to explore in terms of Adaptive’s potential. Looking ahead, he wants to fine-tune income statements based on cost centers, moving beyond the current enterprise-wide focus. The scalability of Adaptive, in Ben’s view, ensures that the credit union will never outgrow the solution, allowing it to adapt to evolving needs seamlessly.

Real-Time Results and Continuous Improvement

One of the standout features highlighted by Ben was the ability to achieve real-time results during crucial financial discussions. Whether it’s assessing the impact of CapEx needs with the IT department or navigating the intricacies of the 2024 budget process, Adaptive allows for immediate insights, aligning stakeholders with the financial implications of their decisions.

The Decision to Engage External Expertise

Closing the conversation, Ben shed light on the decision to collaborate with an external consulting firm like Revelwood. The need for a quick and efficient onboarding, coupled with the desire for a higher level of expertise, were pivotal factors. The external partnership not only accelerated the implementation process but also brought a creative perspective, leveraging years of experience with Adaptive.

The Fireside Chat with Ben Hart provided a fascinating look into the evolving landscape of financial planning within credit unions. As the financial industry continues to evolve, insights from leaders like Ben offer valuable guidance for credit unions seeking to navigate a dynamic and challenging landscape.

Read more from this series:

Workday Adaptive Planning Customers See 249% ROI

Unlocking Success: Harnessing Customer Satisfaction Metrics with Workday Adaptive Planning

Aged to Perfection: The Whiskey Model for Workday Adaptive Planning

Home » Workday » Page 8

The Mandate for Business Agility

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This is a blog post from our partner Workday Adaptive Planning. It highlights recent research from the Association for Finance Professionals (AFP). 

Change and disruption are inevitable, and to tackle them, finance must intentionally build agile practices into its work. That’s according to the Association of Finance Professionals (AFP) in its financial planning and analysis (FP&A) report, underwritten by Workday, Finance Agility: Change Is Part of the Plan. For organizations that strive to become more agile, it’s imperative to embrace a new model of business agility, in which planning and execution converge into an entirely new discipline—an ongoing, closed feedback loop of planning, execution, measurement, and adjustment.

The AFP guide outlines three key areas to focus on for addressing change as it happens. Read on to learn how your organization can navigate the path to business agility. 

Accelerate or Inhibit Agility in the Organization

The term agility implies a mindset open to change, the ability to rapidly assess the environment, and the capability for action that effects change. The importance of agility is often seen in adapting capabilities of working toward goals. Over time, agile companies outperform because they have a better capability to change internally in a world that is in a constant state of flux.

Finance owns the fiscal calendar with its agenda and rhythms and wields massive influence in defining:

  • How people spend their time in the planning cycles.
  • Metrics of success.
  • Depth of analysis into the business and related conversations.
  • Level of risk the organization is willing to take.

This goes far beyond just delivering the numbers, so FP&A must consider whether its processes and performance management systems add to agility (and cash flow) or detract from it.

Become a Dynamic, Learning Organization

Anti-agile traits include staff mistrust, turnover, and unengaged employees who simply follow routines. FP&A needs to define and create the agile culture it wants that is open to challenge. These steps can help:

  1. 1. Develop psychological safety on the team.
  2. 2. Develop good leaders.
  3. 3. Engender a team ethos of continual improvement.

Be Good Backstage to Be Good Onstage

Being agile and able to handle the unpredictable requires that you handle routine work. FP&A’s ability to deliver its services and insights on stage to business customers requires:

  • A reliable, scalable infrastructure operating backstage. 
  • A platform that allows FP&A to accomplish the work.
  • Access to good data with minimal curation.

To put these ideas into practice and develop a strong, resilient organization that can achieve its goals, even in the face of change, download the 2023 AFP FP&A Guide: Finance Agility: Change Is Part of the Plan, underwritten by Workday.

Read the full blog post on the Workday blog.

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Active Planning Dashboards in Workday Adaptive Planning

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In today’s Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks video, Dave Miersch, Revelwood’s Workday Adaptive Planning practice lead, demonstrates how to use active dashboards. Active Planning dashboards allow for real-time updates and insights, eliminating the need to toggle between multiple screens. 

Watch this video to see Dave explain how Active Planning Dashboards:

  • Seamlessly integrate with sheets in Adaptive Planning
  • Enable easy data entry with real-time updates
  • Allow users to drill-down for more detailed information
  • Provide both a high-level overview while also facilitating in-depth analysis
  • Deliver flexibility to modify targets and entry points and offers options for changing display settings, adding notes and even reorganizing dimensions.

Dave also demonstrates how to seamlessly integrate sheets into a new dashboard. This functionality streamlines the process of creating comprehensive reports by combining various elements such as charts and views, with the newly added sheet. 

Active Planning Dashboards give you combined data entry and reporting in a unified interface, saving you time, reducing errors and enabling you to make more informed decisions.

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Workday Adaptive Planning partner. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. 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:

Limit the Drill Down List on a Workday Adaptive Planning Report

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Restrictions on Cube Sheets

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Metadata Loaders

Home » Workday » Page 8

Workday Adaptive Planning Customers See 249% ROI

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This is a guest blog post from our partner Workday, highlighting a recent Total Economic Impact Report from Forrester.

Calculating the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying a modern planning platform is no simple task—it’s a comprehensive undertaking and a job for the (objective) experts. That’s why we commissioned a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study by Forrester Consulting to understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with deploying Workday Adaptive Planning.

As part of its research, Forrester interviewed five of our customers. Prior to using Workday Adaptive Planning, these interviewees noted how their organizations relied largely on spreadsheets and manual processes for their financial planning and forecasting activities, either because they didn’t have other solutions in place or because their legacy planning solutions were difficult to use. Aggregating, manipulating, reconciling, and reporting on data was time-consuming and error-prone, limiting the depth of analysis the financial planning and analysis (FP&A) team could perform.

For a quick snapshot of the results (and they are significant), check out the Forrester Consulting infographic below. It explores how Workday Adaptive Planning helped the composite organization drive cost optimizations, increased FP&A productivity improvements, and delivered positive ROI, specifically:

  • Achieving 249% ROI
  • Reaching $2.30 million in net present value (NPV) 
  • Increasing FP&A productivity up to 20%

Download the full report here!

Read more from this series:

Unlocking Success: Harnessing Customer Satisfaction Metrics with Workday Adaptive Planning

Aged to Perfection: The Whiskey Model for Workday Adaptive Planning

Reusable Cash Flow Forecasting in the Solar Installation Industry

Home » Workday » Page 8

How Artificial Intelligence will Impact the CFO

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This is a guest blog post from our partner Workday. It is the first installment of Workday’s Q&AI video series.

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way finance leaders operate worldwide. Sayan Chakraborty, co-president of Workday, shares how AI is supporting CFOs in managing a range of global challenges, such as disruptions in supply chains and inflation. In addition, he highlights how AI can enable cost management, overcome talent shortages, and implement new strategies. Watch the video to gain insight into the effects of AI on finance.

This post was originally published on the Workday Adaptive Planning blog.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

Fortune Interview with Workday’s CFO on Artificial Intelligence

The Power of the Growth Mindset: How CFOs Drive Success in Finance

Workday Adaptive Planning Recognized with the 2023 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Financial Planning Software

Home » Workday » Page 8

Increasing Accuracy in Forecasts by Using Workday Adaptive Planning with Incorta

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This is a guest post from Ardeshir Ghanbarzadeh, senior director of product marketing at our partner, Incorta. Ardeshir explains how the integration between Workday Adaptive Planning and Incorta helps FP&A leaders uncover opportunities, while also increasing accuracy.

FP&A leaders looking to increase the accuracy of forecasts and budgets need a comprehensive and detailed view of the financial and operational data that drives the business, and the ability to analyze this data, inform stakeholders and take appropriate action. However, many organizations today are challenged with the complexities of accessing complete, business-ready data from disparate sources in a timely and cost-effective way.

These challenges include:

  • Accessing complete data from multiple operational and financial systems
  • Identifying supply chain, inventory and cashflow bottlenecks in real time
  • Visibility to transactional details to analyze variances, trends and anomalies
  • Leveraging AI/ML to increase productivity and forecasting accuracy

Adding to these operational challenges are headwinds from today’s business and economic climate that have every organization looking to reduce costs without sacrificing productivity or growth.

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Incorta bridges the data gap and puts an end to the disjointed data experience by bringing together detailed, transaction-level data from Point-of-Sale, inventory, workforce, supply chain, ERP and financial systems including GL and subledger details, enabling FP&A teams to virtually eliminate guesswork and build highly accurate forecasting models. And since Incorta does not rely on traditional ETL processes and time-consuming batch loads, FP&A teams can access the latest actuals in minutes to quickly adjust forecasts and plans and stay on track to meet financial and operational objectives.

With the freedom to drill down into subledger details to investigate the veracity of topline metrics, variances and you can identify the key metrics that have a material financial and budgetary impact.

Adjust Plans with Ease

In a business environment where plans and forecasts are constantly changing, FP&A teams need immediate and granular visibility to new data to quickly respond and make adjustments that keep plans aligned with business strategy. However, limitations on data access combined with visibility to only topline metrics, aggregate values or subsets of data introduces uncertainty into the planning process. Incorta eliminates the complexities of accessing detailed data from ERP systems and business applications by quickly connecting and bringing together 100% of your financial and operational data, making it instantly available to Workday Adaptive Planning users for analysis.

Dramatically Better Forecasts

In the absence of complete, timely data organizations are forced to forecast and plan based on assumptions and experience. While some may be very good at this guessing game, it can lead to wide variances that negatively affect both operational efficiency and project budgets.

FP&A teams using Workday Adaptive Planning significantly increase the accuracy of their forecasts and budgets when using Incorta. With access to multisource transactional-level details from across the enterprise, users can drill any direction to analyze and identify anomalies, trends and operational bottlenecks that introduce risks and uncertainty into the forecasting and planning processes.

Embracing AI-lead Analysis

While the philosophical debate on whether AI will lead to humanity’s destruction or nirvana continues, knowledge workers need to leverage the capabilities of AI and machine learning tools and their benefits. AI-driven analysis of data at scale speeds up analysis by quickly finding anomalies, identifying areas of risk or even uncovering new opportunities that could take months to discover manually. Although AI insights are only as good as the data used to train, tune and deploy these capabilities. Inaccurate or partial datasets used to create ML models can lead to false predictions. In order to avoid this dilemma, data teams can uplevel their AI projects for FP&A with the benefit of complete, multisource data to support ML models and advanced analytics.

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Whether your organization relies on data from multiple ERP or EPM solutions, inventory management, operational or financial systems, Incorta can simplify access and delivery of complete, transaction-level data to Workday Adaptive Planning users at record speed so you can create a consistent experience for FP&A teams that drives continuous improvement of the planning and budgeting process.

In summary, Incorta helps Workday Adaptive Planning users:

  • Increase the accuracy of P&L models, workforce plans, and scenario analysis.
  • Get immediate access to detailed data from multiple POS, CRM, GL, inventory and operational systems.
  • Drill into subledger details to investigate variances and identify drivers with financial impact.
  • Eliminate guesswork with instant access to the latest actuals, quickly adjust forecasts and align scenario plans.

This blog post was originally published on the Incorta blog.

Read more about Data Analytics in Finance:

Bringing Operational Analytics to the Office of Finance

Incorta Recognized in 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and BI Platforms

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Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Data Cleansing with Microsoft Power Query

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In our last blog post on using Microsoft Power Query, we talked about using the tool to organize your data. Today we’ll look at using it for data cleansing. 

Data Cleansing with Microsoft Power Query

1. Handling Missing Values

Missing or incomplete data can lead to poor analysis and translation of data. Power Query lets you replace, remove, or fill in missing values according to your data quality requirements. To do this, select the column with missing data and right-click. In the new window, select fill and the desired fill direction. 

2. Standardizing Data

Inconsistent data formats can create confusion. Power Query helps you standardize data by applying formatting rules, such as converting text to lowercase or uppercase. Right-click after selecting a column and select transform in the new window, choose a desired output. 

3. Error Handling

Power Query allows you to identify and handle errors in your data. You can replace errors with specific values or filter them out entirely. To remove error simply highlight the column with the error and select the “Remove Rows” option on the home tab. From there select “Remove Errors.”

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4. Data Type Conversion

Ensuring that data types are consistent is crucial. Power Query automatically helps you by converting data types to match your analysis needs.

By harnessing the power of Power Query, you can unlock valuable insights from your data and make data-driven decisions with confidence. So, start using Power Query today, and take your data preparation skills to the next level!

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Workday Adaptive Planning partner. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. 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:

Limit the Drill Down List on a Workday Adaptive Planning Report

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Restrictions on Cube Sheets

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Metadata Loaders

Home » Workday » Page 8

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Data Organization with Microsoft Power Query

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In the world of business, data analysis and interpretation are essential to creating effective, well-informed decisions. However, messy and unorganized data can create serious roadblocks in this process, leading to inefficiencies, and lost opportunities. Fortunately, Microsoft Power Query is a powerful tool designed to eliminate the headaches and tedious tasks related to creating clean and accurate data. The first step is to organize your data.

What is Microsoft Power Query?

Microsoft Power Query is in Excel under the data tab under the “Get and Transform Data” group option. It is designed for data transformation that can also be used for other Microsoft applications such as Power BI and Power Automate. The tool allows users to connect to various data sources, transform data into the desired format, and load it into their preferred destination in ways that native Excel functions such as formulas and pivot tables cannot. 

Benefits of Using Microsoft Power Query

Data from Multiple Sources: Power Query acts as a one-stop shop for you to connect to a wide range of data sources, including databases, spreadsheets, web services, and more. This means you can gather data from multiple sources in one place for analysis.

Data Transformation: With Power Query’s intuitive interface, you can easily clean, reshape, and transform data without writing complex code. It offers a range of functions and transformations to suit your needs.

Automation: Power Query enables automation of data extraction and transformation processes. This reduces manual errors and saves time, especially when working with large datasets.

Reusable Queries and Data Volume: The tool saves a history of previous queries for future use. This allows users to reuse processes for similar datasets, saving time and effort. Additionally, queries can import copious records of data that would not fit into a standard Excel worksheet.  

Data Connection: Updates from the source data are seamlessly integrated into your Power Query process. This ensures that your analysis is always based on the most up-to-date information.

Data Organization with Power Query

1. Data Connection

To start organizing and cleaning data using Power Query, you need to establish a connection to your data source. In this example, the data is in an Excel worksheet as a table. 

Loading the table can be done via the “From Table/Range” option in Excel or the relevant data source connector in other Microsoft applications.

2. Data Import and Preview

Once your data source is connected, Power Query displays a preview of your data. This step allows you to review the data’s structure and make initial decisions about what needs to be cleaned or transformed.

3. Removing Duplicates

Duplicate data can skew your analysis. Power Query provides a simple way to remove duplicate rows, ensuring that your data is clean and accurate. To do this, highlight the desired columns and select “Remove Rows” and the “Remove Duplicates” option.

4. Filtering Data

You can filter data based on specific criteria. This can be helpful when you need to focus on a particular subset of your data. Find the drop-down menu above each column header to easily filter your data.

5. Data Transformation

Power Query provides a wide range of transformation options. You can perform tasks like splitting columns, merging data, renaming columns, and more. These transformations help you reshape the data to fit your analysis needs. To rename, simply double-click the column header and type the desired name.

6. Reporting

After making the desired changes to your data, return the data back to excel by selecting the “Close & Load” option and selecting “Close & Load To.” Then select the desired output in the following window. 

Additionally, Pivot tables can be used to retrieve data directly from Power Query. This can be helpful when the data set does not fit in a native Excel spreadsheet. To do this, select “Close & Load” in Power Query, and select “Close & Load To.” From the following dialogue box, select “Only Create Connection.” Now you can insert a Pivot Table using an external data source and select your query.

Microsoft Power Query is an indispensable tool for professionals working with data. Whether you’re dealing with financial records, customer information, or any other dataset, Power Query simplifies the process of data organization and cleansing, saving you time and ensuring data accuracy. 

Check back soon for our next blog post on Microsoft Power Query. We’ll share tips on using Microsoft Power Query to cleanse your data.

Revelwood is an award-winning, Platinum Workday Adaptive Planning partner. We build solutions for the Office of Finance that minimize your risk by seamlessly incorporating business analytics into your everyday thinking. 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:

Limit the Drill Down List on a Workday Adaptive Planning Report

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Restrictions on Cube Sheets

Workday Adaptive Planning Tips & Tricks: Metadata Loaders

Home » Workday » Page 8

Fortune Interview with Workday’s CFO on Artificial Intelligence

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This article by Sheryl Estradada (Sheryl.Estrada@Fortune.com) originally appeared in Fortune’s CFO Daily newsletter.

Generative AI developments are moving at a rapid pace. And CFOs are tasked with understanding the latest trends as it relates to the workplace.

“It’s not like finance people who are savvy in technology can do it all themselves,” Zane Rowe, CFO at Workday, tells me. “What I love about technology is that it actually takes more than just anyone with one discipline to implement.” You have to bring a cross-functional group together to think about what type of strategic changes are needed, determine the technology to support it, and create a plan for change management, Rowe says. “I’m very fortunate to have a wealth of people that I know in different areas that keep me challenged and learning,” he says. 

Rowe began his role as finance chief at Workday (which is a CFO Daily sponsor) in June. The enterprise cloud company’s total annual revenues for its fiscal year 2023 were $6.22 billion, an increase of 21.0% from fiscal 2022. Rowe succeeded former Workday CFO Barbara Larson, who stepped back to spend more time with her family, according to the company.

Rowe was most recently CFO of VMware, a developer of virtualization software, for seven years. During that time, he served as interim CEO from February to May 2021. Before VMware, Rowe was the CFO at EMC. He was also previously CFO at United Airlines and Continental Airlines and then led North American sales for Apple. 

Working as a finance chief in the people-centric airline industry was actually a catalyst for his love of tech. “Back in those days with the airlines it was about growing internationally and connecting people, and technology became such a big part of underpinning that,” he says. “And then I shifted, and had an opportunity to work at Apple, and found my passion for technology and driving change.”

Rowe says Workday’s people, culture, and products attracted him to the CFO role. The company recently announced a series of new AI and machine learning (ML) enhancements for finance and HR solutions, including generative AI capabilities for creating job descriptions and employee growth plans, for example. In using AL and ML technology, “on the financial side, you can be looking at variance analysis, you can take a lot of the mundane tasks out of the everyday work week,” Rowe says.

What CFOs are thinking about GenAI

Generative AI, and its impact on productivity, continues to be a hot topic in the business community. Recent McKinsey research estimates that generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy.  

What’s Rowe hearing from fellow CFOs about investing in this technology? Companies that don’t prepare themselves for technological disruption run the risk of competitors capturing market share and taking business away, Rowe says. “I think many CFOs do recognize this,” he says.

“In the area of AI and the work going on there, a lot of the peer groups that I talk to are very inquisitive and want to learn a lot more about it,” he says. “I think the nature of the job has changed where I haven’t heard many CFOs pull back on that type of spending. In fact, they are encouraging it, to really understand where it adds value.”

According to Deloitte’s CFO Signals survey for Q3 2023, the finance chiefs surveyed said if their company decides to incorporate generative AI, these are the top three goals: to reduce costs (52%), provide better customer experience (50%), and achieve greater margins, efficiencies and productivity (45%), according to the report.

Thinking outside the box

Rowe still believes in being people-centric, so, since joining Workday, he’s been having a lot of conversations. “I’m spending a lot of time with customers to understand what we can do with the product, and spending time with our own product teams looking at cutting-edge ideas,” Rowe says. He’s also building out the finance and accounting teams, he says. 

What does he seek in a team member? Someone who can think outside of the box, according to Rowe. “We did a session fairly recently with our accounting team to think about how they can use AI to do processes a little bit more differently and creatively than they did before,” he says. You can find the original article on Fortune.com.

More from our FP&A Done Right Series:

The Power of the Growth Mindset: How CFOs Drive Success in Finance

Workday Adaptive Planning Recognized with the 2023 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Financial Planning Software

No, Artificial Intelligence Will Not Replace Finance Jobs

Home » Workday » Page 8