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

Activity Access needed
Open your organization Active organization membership
Search organization information View access for the kind of information you are searching
Review positions View positions for the relevant department
Submit position requests Submit position requests plus access to the affected position
Access setup See Permissions and roles.

Choose your starting path

Start with the work you are responsible for. You can return to the other areas as your responsibilities change.

If you need to Start here First things to learn
Review workforce information Select Workforce, then open Positions, Departments, Employees, or Assignments. Confirm the selected effective date and whether information is approved or proposed.
Prepare position requests Open the affected position and review its Summary, Details, and Calculations pages before preparing a change. Compare approved and proposed values, choose the effective date, and review the approvers before submitting.
Approve requests Start with Needs my review on Home or select Requests > My approvals > Ready now. Review the complete impact, attachments, comments, and prior decisions before choosing an outcome.
Manage workforce information Select Workforce, then open the kind of information you are responsible for. Learn how dates, departments, job codes, assignments, pay, and funding affect later results.
Use reports Select Reports and begin with the report that matches the question you need to answer. Confirm the date or date range, included departments, approved or proposed information, and download access.
Administer the organization Select Settings and begin with the area assigned to you. Review user access, security, setup, approvals, billing, or reporting without granting yourself unrelated information.

Start from Home

Home 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.

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

The main navigation is organized by work area:

  • Home: Your current work, recent records, messages, and shortcuts.
  • Workforce: Overview, Positions, Departments, Employees, Assignments, Org chart, and Import data.
  • Requests: position change requests and requests that need your review.
  • Reports: Report creation, prior results, and downloads.
  • Settings: Organization setup and administration areas available to your role.

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 familiar 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 that kind of information and its department.

Review positions

Select Workforce, then Positions to review approved position information and proposed changes where they exist. The position’s Summary and Details pages can include:

  • Summary values for the selected effective date.
  • Approved and proposed values.
  • FTE and cost details.
  • 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, pay, 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 required approval stage, approvers, requested values, effective dates, and FTE or cost impact. The form requires an organization-defined Reason. Sensitive Justification is optional unless the request type requires it, and you can add optional supporting files.

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, pay, cost, funding, and assignment impact.
  • The closest configured Reason, any useful sensitive Justification, and supporting files.
  • The approvers who will review the request.

Approve requests

If you are assigned as an approver, requests waiting for you appear under Needs my review on Home. You can also select Requests > My approvals > Ready now. The request detail shows the approved-versus-proposed impact, approval progress, requested values, attachments, comments, and decision history.

If you are unavailable, an approval administrator can record a decision for you or override the request when your organization’s policy allows it.

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

Reports

Open Reports to review position totals, costs, approval activity, access, imports, and data quality. Some reports can be viewed on screen or downloaded in a spreadsheet-friendly format.

Use position reports for department totals and date-range results. Use the detailed cost report when you need to review FTE, pay, funding splits, adjustments, and how costs are divided by date.

Report history helps you find prior report runs and downloads.

Comments and notifications

Comments are available on records such as positions, employees, and approval requests. Viewing the record lets you read its discussion when the request’s protected-content rules are also satisfied. Adding or changing comments requires the matching management access for a position or employee, or complete protected-content access for an approval request. 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 report.
  • 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 access.
  • Whether MFA or SSO is required.
  • Whether the record belongs to a different department.
  • Whether the record is inactive, historical, or future-dated.