Forecast Scenarios

Introduction

Forecast Scenarios allow you to model different budget assumptions and staffing plans by creating draft workspaces where position changes and adjustment overrides can be explored without modifying your approved position data. This enables side-by-side comparison of cost projections and supports collaborative planning across your organization.

Every organization has a Baseline scenario that represents the current approved state of your position data. Additional scenarios can be created as either Organization Scenarios for shared planning with assumption adjustments, or User Scenarios as personal workspaces for drafting position changes.

The Baseline Scenario

The Baseline scenario is automatically created for your organization and represents the current approved truth for position calculations. It cannot be edited, deleted, or renamed. There is exactly one Baseline scenario per organization, and it is always marked as the default.

When you view position summaries, the Baseline scenario provides the "Approved" column of data that other scenarios are compared against.

Scenario Types

Organization Scenarios

Organization scenarios are shared across the entire organization and support assumption adjustments. They are intended for organization-wide planning activities such as modeling benefit rate changes, new adjustment rollouts, or budget projections.

Key characteristics of organization scenarios:

Created by administrators with the Forecast Scenario permission.
Visible to all users in the organization.
Support adjustment rate overrides and job code assumptions.
Attribute changes are automatically approved within the scenario.
Limited by the subscription plan's shared scenario quota.

User Scenarios

User scenarios are personal workspaces created by individual users for drafting position changes. They are useful for exploring staffing changes before submitting them for approval.

Key characteristics of user scenarios:

Created by users with the Position Edit permission.
Private to the creator unless explicitly shared.
Do not support assumption adjustments.
All attribute changes are saved as drafts and must be submitted for approval.
Limited by the per-user scenario quota.

Accessing Scenarios

User Scenario List

Navigate to Scenarios from the main navigation. This page shows all scenarios you have access to, including your own scenarios, scenarios shared with you, and organization scenarios. The page displays your current quota usage for personal and shared scenarios.

Admin Scenario List

Administrators with the Forecast Scenario permission can access the admin scenario list under Position Settings > Scenarios. This view provides two tabs:

Organization: Lists all organization scenarios with their creator, share count, and status. Administrators can create, edit, and delete organization scenarios here.
User: Lists all user-created scenarios across the organization. Administrators can view, edit, or delete any user scenario.

Creating a Scenario

To create a scenario:

Navigate to the scenario list and click Create Scenario.
Enter a Name for the scenario. Names must be unique within your organization.
Optionally enter a Description to explain the purpose of the scenario.
Click Save Changes.

Your subscription plan may limit the number of scenarios that can be created. If you have reached the maximum for personal scenarios or organization scenarios, the create button will be unavailable. Your current quota usage is displayed on the scenario list page.

Switching Between Scenarios

The scenario switcher allows you to change which scenario is active in your session. When you switch to a scenario, position data throughout the application reflects the draft changes and assumptions in that scenario.

To switch scenarios, use the scenario selector in the navigation. The currently active scenario is displayed, and you can select any scenario you have access to. Switching back to the Baseline scenario shows only approved data.

Scenario Assumptions

Organization scenarios support assumptions that modify how adjustments and job codes are calculated within the scenario. Assumptions are managed from the scenario's Assumptions page.

Adjustment Rate Overrides

Adjustment rate overrides allow you to change the rate of an existing adjustment within a scenario. This is useful for modeling changes such as a different benefit rate, a revised tax percentage, or a modified shift differential amount.

The assumptions page displays two sections for adjustments:

Adjustment Rate Overrides: Shows adjustments that already have an override in this scenario, with the current override amount, effective start date, priority, and the approved baseline amount for comparison. Overrides that do not exist in the approved baseline are marked as "New in scenario."
Available Adjustments: Shows all other adjustments that can have an override added, along with their current approved baseline amount.

To add an adjustment rate override:

Navigate to the scenario's assumptions page.
In the Available Adjustments section, click Add Override next to the adjustment you want to override.
Enter the override Amount. The approved baseline amount is displayed for reference.
Optionally set an Effective Start date for when the override begins.
Optionally set a Priority order for the override.
Optionally set a Max Basis or Max Impact amount.
Click Save.

To edit or remove an existing override, use the Edit or Delete buttons in the Adjustment Rate Overrides section.

Job Code Assumptions

Job code assumptions allow attribute changes to job codes within a scenario. These changes are visible only within the scenario and do not affect the approved job code data.

Scenario owners can share their personal scenarios with other users in the organization. From the scenario detail page, click Share to add users.

When sharing, you can grant two levels of access:

View: The user can see the scenario and its data but cannot make changes.
Edit: The user can modify position attributes and other data within the scenario.

Shared users appear on the scenario's share list, where you can adjust their access level or remove their access.

Administrators can manage shares for organization scenarios from the admin scenario detail page under Shares. The interface allows adding users with view or edit access, and removing existing shares.

Organization scenarios are visible to all users by default, but explicit shares grant edit access to specific users.

Submitting Scenarios for Approval

When a scenario contains position attribute changes that are ready to be applied, you can submit those changes through the approval workflow.

Submit for Approval

Users with the Request Approval permission can submit a scenario's changes for approval:

From the scenario detail page, click Submit for Approval.
Review the summary of changes, which shows the affected departments, request types, number of positions, and the assigned approval workflow for each group.
Click Submit to create the approval requests.

The system creates separate approval requests grouped by department and request type. Each request follows the standard approval workflow assigned to that department.

Bulk Approve (Admin Override)

Administrators with the Approval Override permission can immediately approve all changes in a scenario:

From the admin scenario detail page, click Approve All.
Review the summary of changes, including departments, request types, positions, and workflow status.
Click Confirm Approve All to create and immediately override-approve all requests.

When a scenario is bulk approved, any assumption adjustments in the scenario are also promoted to the approved baseline.

Scenario Promotion

When a scenario's changes are approved (either through the standard workflow or bulk approval), the following occurs:

Position attribute changes move from the scenario to the approved baseline.
Adjustment rate overrides are applied to the approved adjustment records.
Job code assumptions are copied to the approved data.
Any adjustments marked as "scenario only" are converted to standard adjustments.

Scenario Details

The scenario detail page shows key information about the scenario:

Available: Whether the scenario is available (Yes or No). Unavailable scenarios are hidden from the scenario switcher.
Position Attribute Changes: The number of draft position changes in the scenario.
Created By: The user who created the scenario.
Your Access: Your current access level (Edit or View Only) if you are not the owner.
Approval Requests: The status of any approval requests linked to this scenario, showing the request sequence, department, type, and current status.

Resetting Scenario Data

You can reset draft changes within a scenario to discard them and return to the approved baseline values:

Reset a single attribute: Remove a specific draft change from a position.
Reset a position: Remove all draft changes for a specific position.
Reset All: Remove all draft changes across all positions in the scenario. This action requires confirmation.

Editing and Deleting Scenarios

You can edit a scenario's name and description from the scenario detail page. The Baseline scenario cannot be edited.

To delete a scenario, click Delete from the scenario detail page. Deleting a scenario permanently removes all of its draft position changes, assumption overrides, and sharing records. The Baseline scenario cannot be deleted. Only the scenario owner or an administrator can delete a scenario.

Scenario Quotas

Your subscription plan determines the limits on the number of scenarios:

Organization Scenarios: The maximum number of organization-wide shared scenarios.
Per-User Scenarios: The maximum number of personal scenarios each user can create.

These limits are set by your subscription plan and cannot be changed by administrators. Current quota usage is displayed on the scenario list page. To increase your scenario limits, contact us about upgrading your plan.

Need Help?

If you have questions about forecast scenarios, please contact us or email us at support@ftetree.com.