Create a workforce plan

Create a workforce plan using a template or your own setup, duplicate an existing plan, and update the plan setup as your needs change.

There are several ways to create a workforce plan:

• Use a template: The quickest way to create a plan. The column structure is already set up, so you only need to add a plan name and administrators. You can customize the setup later.
• Customize your own plan: Build a plan from scratch when you want to choose your own column structure, benefits, and benefit plans.
• Import from a file: This feature is coming soon.
• Duplicate an existing plan: After you create a plan, duplicate it to quickly create a similar plan. You can reuse the plan configuration and, optionally, its employee information. For example, you might create separate plans for different scenarios or for a budget and forecast.

The plan structure defines what information you capture for each employee and how it's organized. Regardless of how you create the plan, each plan contains one or more groups of columns, with employee data in the rows.

Start from a template

1. On the Workforce Planning page, click Create plan.
2. Click Use template.
3. Select a template:

   • Basic: Includes a predefined column structure for workforce planning.

     

     Column structure in the Basic template
   • Benefits-ready: Includes the same column structure as the Basic template, plus predefined benefits and benefit plans.

     

     Column structure in the Benefits-ready template
4. Click Next.
5. Enter a name for the plan.
6. Select the plan administrators.
7. Click Save and finish. The new workforce plan opens and is ready for you to add employees.
8. If you selected the Benefits-ready template, review the predefined benefits and benefit plans and update them as required:

   1. Click the menu button on the Benefit plan column header, then click Edit.
   2. Edit or remove the existing benefits, or add new ones as required, then click Next.

      
   3. Edit or remove the existing benefit plans, or add new ones as required, then click Save and finish.

      

Customize your own plan

Build a workforce plan from scratch when you want to define your own column structure, remuneration, benefits, and benefit plans.

1. On the Workforce Planning page, click Create plan.
2. Click Start from scratch. The Plan setup panel opens.
3. On the Plan configuration tab:

   1. Enter a name for the plan.
   2. Select the plan administrators.
   3. Click Next to continue to the Column groups tab.

Set up the column groups

On the Column groups tab, you define how the columns in the workforce plan are grouped.

The Remuneration group is included by default. It contains the remuneration measures that you set up on the next tab. You can't remove this group, but you can rename it.

Add other groups as required. For example, you might create groups for:

• Employee attributes, with columns such as gender, age range, or manager.
• Organizational categories, with columns such as business unit or department.

Each group you add creates another setup tab where you define its columns.

1. (Optional) Click Add group and enter a name for the group. Repeat this step to add more groups as required.
2. Click Next to continue to the first column group tab (Remuneration).

Set up the columns

On the Remuneration tab, you can review the default columns in the group: Salary (measure), Bonus (measure), Commission (measure), and FTE (property).

For the remuneration measures, you can change the spread method if required.

Benefits are calculated from measures in the Remuneration column group, so you can't rename or remove these measures. If you need another remuneration-style measure that shouldn't affect benefit calculations, add it to another column group.

Add other columns to the group as required:

1. Click Add column and select the column type:

Column type	Purpose and setup	When entering employee information
Database dimension	Use a dimension that already exists in a Phocas database. Use this option when you need to map workforce plan data to financial data in Budgets & Forecasts. Select the database and dimension, then rename the dimension if you want it to display differently in the workforce plan.	Select an entity from the dimension in the underlying database.
Custom dimension	Create a new dimension that doesn't already exist in Phocas. For example, you might create one for gender, age range, or manager.	Enter an entity name. New entities are added to the dimension as you work.
Database measure	Use an existing measure from the Workforce database. Database measures are static by default; change the setting to Temporal if the value needs to change over time.	Enter a numeric value. For a static measure, the value applies for the employee's employment period. For a temporal measure, you can change the value over time.
Custom measure	Create a new measure. Custom measures are static by default; change the setting to Temporal if the value needs to change over time. Measures that contain formulas should be static if they're not expected to change.	Enter a numeric value. For a static measure, the value applies for the employee's employment period. For a temporal measure, you can change the value over time.
Property	Add a value that isn't projected across time in the same way as an effective-dated measure. The value is applied to each day and can be aggregated in the published data using options such as average, period end, period start, or count. For example, you might add properties for hourly rates or hours worked.	Enter the property value.

When you create a plan to use alongside an existing plan, such as separate salaried-staff and waged-staff plans, reuse an existing database dimension or measure where it represents the same thing. This keeps published plans consistent and easier to compare. If you duplicate a plan, this reuse happens automatically. See Employee unique ID for why this matters.

1. Give each column a name and configure its settings.
2. Click Next to continue to the next column group tab and repeat these steps as required. After the last column group, click Next to continue to the Benefits tab.

Add benefits

Benefits represent additional employee costs, such as superannuation, allowances, or payroll-related expenses.

1. Click Add benefit.
2. Enter a name for the benefit.
3. (Optional) Enter a description.
4. Select the calculation method:

   • % Remuneration: Enter the percentage in the Calculation box. Optionally, enter the Floor and Cap values.
   • Fixed amount (p/a): Enter the annual amount in the Calculation box, then select whether to prorate the benefit based on FTE. For example, a 0.5 FTE employee receives 50% of the benefit amount.
5. Repeat these steps to add more benefits as required.
6. Click Next to continue to the Benefit plans tab.

Add benefit plans

Benefit plans allow you to group related benefits together. For example, you might create separate benefit plans for employees in different countries or employment types.

1. Click Add benefit plan.
2. Enter a name for the benefit plan.
3. Click Select at least one benefit, select the benefits to include, then click Save.
4. Repeat these steps to add more benefit plans as required.
5. Click Save and finish.

The new workforce plan opens and is ready for you to add employees.

Duplicate a workforce plan

Duplicating creates a copy of an existing workforce plan. The entire setup is copied, including administrators, benefits, benefit plans, column groups, columns, and dimension mappings. You can choose whether to include the employee rows or start with an empty plan.

Duplicating is useful when you want to keep the detail of an existing plan intact while working on a variant. For example, roll a Budget plan into a separate Forecast plan by duplicating it rather than editing and republishing the original.

When you publish the duplicated plan, it writes to its own stream in the Workforce database, named to match the plan.

1. On the Workforce Planning homepage, click the plan's menu button and click Duplicate.

   
2. Enter a name for the new plan. The name must be different from any existing plan.
3. (Optional) Clear the Include current data checkbox if you don't want to copy the employee rows into the new plan. Only the plan's setup will be copied.
4. Click Duplicate. The new plan opens.

Learn about plan administrators

By default, you are the only administrator of the workforce plan and the only person who can access it.

Add other administrators to:

• Ensure someone else in your organization has full access to the plan.
• Help manage and keep the plan up-to-date. Administrators can also publish it.

All plan administrators have the same access. There is no plan owner.

See Access to the workforce plan and its data.

Edit a workforce plan's setup

You can edit a workforce plan setup at any time. For example, you might add or remove plan administrators, create a new benefit, rename a column, or add a new workforce category.

1. Open the workforce plan.
2. Choose how you want to edit the setup:

   • Edit the entire setup: Click Plan > Edit plan setup.

     This is the only way to edit the plan name and administrators. You can also review or update all setup sections.

     
   • Edit a specific section: On the required column group header or Benefit plan column header, click the menu button, then click Edit. This opens only that section of the setup, allowing you to make a quick change.

     
3. Update the settings as required. See Customize your own plan for information about each setting.
4. Click Save and finish.