 Scenarios

What is a scenario? A scenario is the detailed planning equivalent of the Version dimension in FP&A Plus financial models. You manage scenarios in the Administration panel.

What are scenarios used for? Scenarios are ideal for what-if type analysis. Each scenario can be mapped to one Version in the detailed plan and (optionally) to one Version in the finance model. The benefit of this approach is that multiple personnel planning cycles can be performed before the approved plan is posted to the finance model.

How are scenarios used? You can have calculations and allocations apply to all scenarios or to selected scenarios.

  Example:  In personnel planning, an Input calculation that enables users to enter monthly data for each employee independently can be made to vary by scenario; this effectively allows each scenario to easily have its own parameters.

Employee attributes can also vary by scenario. For example, managers can be asked to modify the department where an employee works based on two organizational scenarios.

What is the Default scenario? The Default scenario is a special scenario present in every detailed plan. This scenario serves as your baseline or reference scenario, prior to any other, or "what-if" scenarios that you create later. After you add scenarios, you can designate any scenario as the Default scenario. You can rename the original Default scenario to any name you want. You cannot delete a scenario while it is designated as the Default scenario.

How does the Default scenario affect posting? When posting to the detailed planning model, the Default scenario is also the sole source of the attribute values of the Detailed Planning dimension. The purpose of this is to maintain the integrity of the Detailed Planning Object's data.

  Example:  In personnel planning you might have a what-if scenario where you change an employee's job title. However, when you post data to the detailed plan, you want to avoid ambiguity as to the employee's actual job title. To achieve this, detailed planning gives the Default scenario precedence for Employee data. The following table summarizes what gets posted for either scenario:

	Default scenario	What-if scenario
Value in the Employee object's Job Title attribute:	Programmer	Analyst
Value posted to the Employee Dimension attribute	Programmer	Programmer