Getting started: new user guide

Overview

This guide helps new users understand the main areas of FTE Tree after they join an organization. What you can see depends on the access your organization assigned to you.

FTE Tree is organized around live position control: approved positions, proposed changes, approvals, assignments, employees, reports, and Activity history.

Use this guide as a first-day checklist. You do not need access to every area to use FTE Tree well; your organization should assign only the areas needed for your role.

Access needed

Start from the Dashboard

The Dashboard shows the work most likely to need your attention:

• Requests waiting for your review.
• Requests you submitted.
• Recent positions or departments you worked with.
• Messages and comments.
• Shortcuts to positions, approvals, and reports when you have access.

Open the Dashboard first when you sign in. It is the fastest way to find approval tasks, unread messages, recent records, and shortcuts that match your access.

Main navigation

The main navigation is organized by work area:

• Dashboard: Your current work, recent records, messages, and shortcuts.
• Workforce: Position list, position requests, org chart, and reports.
• Manage: Employees, assignments, and batch imports.
• Approvals: Requests you submitted, requests assigned to you, and approval workload views.
• Settings: Organization setup and administration areas available to your role.

Search

The search box in the top navigation helps you find positions, employees, departments, job codes, approval requests, and users in your organization. Search only returns records you have permission to view.

Use ordinary search words, such as a position number, position name, employee name, department, or job code.

If search does not find a record you expect, confirm the spelling, try a shorter search term, and check whether you have access to the record's department or record type.

Review positions

Open Workforce > Position list to review approved position data and proposed changes where they exist. A position detail page can include:

• Summary values for the selected effective date.
• Approved and proposed values.
• FTE and cost math.
• Funding allocation.
• Pay-range comparison.
• Assigned employees.
• Org chart.
• Comments and Activity history.

Use the effective-date navigation on a position to review dates where the position changed.

When reviewing a position, confirm the selected effective date before comparing values. The same position can have different department, FTE, wage, funding, assignment, or status values on different dates.

Prepare or submit changes

If you have request access, you can prepare proposed position changes before submitting them for approval. Proposed values do not change the approved position until the request is approved and applied.

When you submit a request, FTE Tree shows the workflow, approval level, approvers, requested values, effective dates, and FTE or cost impact before submission. If the workflow requires attachments or a reason, the form will show those fields.

Before submitting, review:

• The request type and effective date.
• The approved values you are changing from.
• The proposed values you are asking for.
• The FTE, headcount, wage, cost, funding, and assignment impact.
• Required reasons, notes, and attachments.
• The approvers who will review the request.

Approve requests

If you are assigned as an approver, requests waiting for you appear on the Dashboard and in approval work lists. The request detail shows the approved-versus-proposed impact, approval path, requested values, attachments, comments, and decision history.

If you are unavailable, an approval manager can reassign the pending task or record an approve-on-behalf decision when your organization's policy allows it.

Approvers should review the full request, not only the summary. Check effective dates, department, funding, wage, FTE, attachments, comments, and prior decisions before approving or denying.

Reports

Open Workforce > Reports to review position totals, cost output, approval activity, access, imports, and data quality. Some reports can be viewed on screen, downloaded as CSV or Excel, or exported in analytics-friendly formats.

Use position reports for department totals and period output. Use position cost audit detail when you need line-level math, funding splits, adjustment rows, and allocation evidence.

Saved views help you return to frequently used report settings. History helps you find prior report runs and downloads.

Comments and notifications

Comments are available on records such as positions, employees, and approval requests when you have permission to view the record. Comments are separate from approval decision notes and Activity history.

Your user profile controls your comment email preference and other notification settings where your organization allows user-level choices.

Common first-week tasks

Depending on your role, your first week may include:

• Confirming your profile, MFA, and notification settings.
• Finding your departments, positions, employees, and approval requests.
• Reviewing a position's effective-date timeline.
• Adding a comment or replying to a mention.
• Submitting a small position change request.
• Approving or denying a request assigned to you.
• Running a saved report view.
• Asking an administrator to adjust access if you cannot see records required for your job.

When you cannot see something

FTE Tree hides records and actions that your access does not allow. If you cannot see a position, employee, report, request, setting, or button, ask an administrator to review:

• Your active organization membership.
• Your role assignments.
• Your department scopes.
• Whether MFA or SSO is required.
• Whether the record belongs to a different department.
• Whether the record is inactive, historical, or future-dated.