Introduction

Forecast scenarios let you model different budget assumptions and staffing plans without changing the Operating Budget. Use them to compare cost projections, test staffing changes, and collaborate before changes are approved.

Every organization has an Operating Budget that represents the committed position plan. Additional scenarios can be created as either Organization scenarios for shared planning with assumption adjustments, or User scenarios as individual workspaces for drafting position changes.

The Operating Budget

The Operating Budget is automatically available for your organization and represents the committed position plan. It cannot be edited, deleted, or renamed from the scenario tools.

When you view Staffing Strategy overview totals or scenario comparison reports, the Operating Budget provides the comparison column that scenarios are measured 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 Manage scenarios permission.
  • Visible to all users in the organization.
  • Support adjustment rate overrides and job code assumptions.
  • Field changes are automatically approved within the scenario.
  • Limited by the subscription plan's organization scenario quota.

User scenarios

User scenarios are 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 Manage user scenarios permission.
  • Private to the creator unless explicitly shared.
  • Require the Manage user scenarios permission to edit, share, reset, or delete.
  • Do not support assumption adjustments.
  • All field 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 quota usage for user and organization scenarios.

Scenario administration

Administrators with the Manage scenarios permission can access scenario administration under 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:

  1. Navigate to the scenario list and click Create user scenario.

  2. Enter a Name for the scenario. Names must be unique within your organization.

  3. If an optional reporting label is shown, leave it blank unless your reporting team wants a specific short label for this scenario.

  4. Optionally enter a Description to explain the purpose of the scenario.

  5. Choose whether the scenario is Available. Available scenarios appear in the scenario switcher; unavailable scenarios are hidden from users until they are made available.

  6. Click Save changes.

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

Draft position cap

Scenario-only draft positions do not count against your paid subscription position count while they remain in draft. Each organization also has a per-scenario draft position cap so planning work stays manageable.

If no custom cap has been set, the default is the greater of 25 positions or twice your subscribed position count. FTE Tree may set a different cap for your organization. The cap applies separately to each scenario, not across all scenarios combined.

If a scenario already has more draft positions than the cap allows, existing draft positions are kept. New draft positions in that scenario are blocked until the scenario is reduced below the cap or the cap is increased.

Paid position capacity is checked later, when draft positions are submitted for approval or promoted into the Operating Budget.

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 active scenario is displayed, and you can select any scenario you have access to. Switching back to the Operating Budget shows the committed plan.

On job code settings pages, the scenario selector applies to assumptions for existing job codes. Creating, renaming, deleting, or restructuring job codes must be done from the Operating Budget.

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. Matching positions are recalculated in scenario summaries and scenario comparison reports even when the position itself has no draft field changes.

Adjustments can be available in the Operating Budget and organization scenarios, all organization scenarios, or selected organization scenarios. Job codes work differently: scenarios can hold assumptions for existing job codes, but the job code tree itself is managed from the Operating Budget.

For examples of scenario adjustment overrides, inherited job-code wage assumptions, scenario-only draft positions, and Operating Budget versus scenario change calculations, see Position calculations and examples.

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 override affects positions that use that adjustment directly or inherit it from their job-code chain.

The assumptions page displays two sections for adjustments:

  • Adjustment rate overrides: Shows adjustments that already have an override in this scenario, with the override amount, effective start date, calculation order, and the Operating Budget value for comparison. Overrides that do not exist in the Operating Budget are marked as "New in scenario."

  • Available adjustments: Shows all other adjustments that can have an override added, along with their Operating Budget value.

To add an adjustment rate override:

  1. Navigate to the scenario's assumptions page.

  2. In the Available Adjustments section, click Add override next to the adjustment you want to override.

  3. Enter the override Amount. The Operating Budget amount is displayed for reference.

  4. Optionally set an Effective start date for when the override begins.

  5. Review the inherited Calculation order for the override.

  6. Optionally set a Max basis or Max impact amount.

  7. 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 let you test changes to existing job code values within a scenario. These changes are visible only within the scenario and do not affect the Operating Budget. Scenario summaries and reports use the scenario job-code value for positions assigned to that job code or inheriting from that job-code chain. Job code assumptions do not create new job codes; create, rename, delete, and other job code structure changes must be made from the Operating Budget.

Sharing scenarios

Sharing user scenarios

Scenario owners with the Manage user scenarios permission can share their user 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 fields 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.

Sharing organization scenarios

Administrators can manage shares for organization scenarios from the scenario administration 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 field changes that are ready to be applied, you can submit those changes through the approval workflow.

Request scenario approval

Users with both the Manage user scenarios and Create position requests permissions can submit a scenario's changes for approval:

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

The system creates one approval request for each affected position, routed by that position's department and request type. Each request follows the standard approval workflow assigned to that department.

If the scenario includes new active positions, submitting it for approval reserves paid position capacity for those positions. If there is not enough capacity available, the submission is blocked. Cancelled or denied requests release the reserved capacity.

Scenario promotion

Scenario promotion is an administrative action that moves scenario data directly into the Operating Budget. It does not create approval requests and does not use approval workflows.

Users with the Promote scenarios permission can promote a scenario:

  1. From the scenario administration page, click Promote scenario.
  2. Review the summary of position values, new draft positions, job code assumptions, adjustment assumptions, readiness warnings, and paid position capacity.
  3. Click Promote scenario.

When promotion succeeds:

  • Position changes move from the scenario to the Operating Budget.
  • Adjustment rate overrides are applied to the Operating Budget.
  • Job code assumptions are copied to the Operating Budget.
  • Promoted adjustments become available in the Operating Budget and organization scenarios.
  • Scenario-only draft positions become Operating Budget positions.
  • The scenario is closed and hidden from the scenario switcher.
  • The promotion is saved in scenario promotion history.

Promotion requires available paid position capacity for any new active positions being promoted to the Operating Budget. The same active-position readiness checks used by approval requests also apply, so new active positions must have the required calculation inputs before they can be promoted.

Promotions can be viewed from Settings > Scenarios > Scenario promotions or from the Promotions tab on a scenario administration page. The promotion detail shows what was moved to the Operating Budget, and the promotion history page shows who made changes and when.

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 field changes: The number of draft position changes in the scenario.

  • Created by: The user who created the scenario.

  • Your access: Your 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 status.

Resetting scenario data

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

  • Reset a single field: Remove a specific draft change from a position.

  • Reset a position: Remove all draft changes for a specific position. If the position exists only in the scenario and has no remaining dependencies, the draft position is discarded.

  • 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, description, and availability from the scenario detail page. The reporting label is set when the scenario is created so exported reports can keep a consistent scenario label. The Operating Budget cannot be edited from scenario pages.

To close a scenario without deleting it, set Available to No. Closed scenarios are hidden from the scenario switcher but remain available for administrator review and audit history.

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

A scenario cannot be deleted after it has approval request history, promotion history, or related import history. Close the scenario instead so the history remains available.

Scenario-only draft positions can be discarded. Positions with any approved values cannot be deleted; they must be deactivated if they should no longer be active in the Operating Budget.

Scenario quotas

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

  • Organization scenarios: The maximum number of organization scenarios.
  • Per-user scenarios: The maximum number of user scenarios each user can create.
  • Draft positions per scenario: The maximum number of scenario-only draft positions that can be created in a single scenario.

Scenario count limits are set by your subscription plan and cannot be changed by organization administrators. The draft position cap is managed by FTE Tree. Quota usage is displayed on the scenario list page. To increase your scenario limits or draft position cap, contact us about updating your plan or scenario settings.

Need help?

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