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Adaptive Planning
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Advanced Workflows

Advanced Workflows

Preview Date: 2026-02-07. Production Date: 2026-05-08.
With this release, we introduce Advanced Workflows, a new framework that builds off of the existing Configurable Workflows framework which enables you to design, orchestrate, and execute planning cycles. When you create your reusable workflow definitions, you can now also use submit and approve tasks, which include the flexibility to place a submitter and corresponding approver at any level of the organizational hierarchy. This framework also supports multiple approver tasks for a given submission, ensuring that configuration, notifications, and monitoring remain consistent across complex approval chains. Configurable Workflows and Advanced Workflows replace the legacy Workflow and Process Tracker.
Advanced Workflows is only available under certain Adaptive Planning SKUs.

Business Benefits

This feature enables you to have:
  • Enhanced flexibility. You can now design workflows that match your unique organizational structure, supporting both bottom-up and top-down planning motions.
  • Improved governance. You can now enforce strict data locking upon submission and approval to ensure data integrity during planning cycles.
  • Increased process efficiency. You can now automate task handoffs, notifications, and submission routing, reducing administrative overhead.
  • Granular control. You can now utilize sheet scoping to limit tasks to specific data slices, ensuring users only focus on relevant accounts and levels.
  • Improved visibility. You can now gain immediate insight into your planning progress with detailed monitoring and audit logs, helping you identify and resolve bottlenecks quickly.

Changes

Workflow Administration and Definitions
On the
Workflow Definitions
 page of the
Workflows
 section in your hubs, we add these new task types that you can use when you create definitions:
  • Submit.
  • Approve.
You can create definitions with the new task types together with these existing task types:
  • To-do.
  • Hierarchy submit.
When you create a new workflow definition on the
Workflow Definitions
 page, you can now use the existing graphical workflow definition builder to also move tasks within submit and approve task groups.
When you create submit and approve task groups, you can additionally also configure sheet scope to define specific modeled or cube sheets applicable to a task. We now automatically lock only these sheets for specific roles when assignees submit. If you don’t select a sheet, we automatically lock all sheets.
When you launch or edit a workflow, you can now use a multiselect enterprise tree to choose participating levels for submit and approve task groups. We automatically select valid levels; you can change the selected levels.
Workflow Management
You can now use the
Workflows
 page in the
Workflows
 section in your hubs to monitor your workflows with submit and approve task groups using a flat-list view of all workflows, their statuses, and progress. When your workflow uses submit and approve task groups, you can now use this page to:
  • Drill down into specific active workflows to view submit and approve task-level details.
  • Export workflow task history and participating levels to Excel for audit and detailed review.
  • View a flat tree and grid view of your workflow with submit tasks. This view includes aggregated progress counts (such as
    In Progress
    ,
    Submitted
    , and
    Not Ready
    ) and allows you to search by level or filter by assignee and status.
  • View a flat tree and grid view of your workflow with approve tasks. This view includes aggregated progress counts (such as
    Pending Approval
    ,
    Approved
    ,
    Not Ready
    , and
    Sent Back
    ) and allows you to search by level or filter by assignee and status.
  • Send a reminder to assignees who have not yet completed their assigned submit and approve tasks. We only display this option for
    In Progress
     tasks.
End User Experience
When you’re assigned a submit or approve task group, you can now use the
My Tasks
 section in your hubs as a central inbox to:
  • View and access your assigned tasks.
  • Take action directly on task destinations, which we surface in the task. Example: You set your
    Expenses
     sheet as a submit task destination, and your assignee can view and take action on the
    Expenses
     sheet directly from the task.
  • Submit
    ,
    Submit All Levels
    ,
    Send Back
    ,
    Approve
    , or
    Approve All
     on your tasks.
We include a
Workflow Path
 modal for submit and approve tasks, enabling you to audit previous submissions, read notes, and understand why a task was sent back. The modal displays a chronological table (oldest to newest) of all completed actions for the selected level.
When you send a submit or approve task back, we automatically:
  • Unlock the data for that specific part of the level and organization hierarchy.
  • Notify the original submitter.
  • Reset the task status back to
    In Progress
    .
In addition to the existing notifications for Configurable Workflows, we now automatically send notifications:
  • To submitters when the task is triggered, so they can take action.
  • To approvers upon submission for submit and approve task groups.
  • To approvers of approvers upon a lower-level approval for submit and approve task groups.
We continue to consolidate send-back notifications by assignee where possible.
Security and Setup
We require you to select the existing
Enable Configurable Workflows
 check box on the
General Setup
 page in
Administration
 so that you can use Advanced Workflows. When you enable Configurable Workflows, we disable the legacy Workflow and Process Tracker features.

What Do I Need to Do?

After you purchase the applicable SKUs to access Advanced Workflows, complete these prerequisite and configuration steps. You don't need to complete these steps if you already completed them for Configurable Workflows.
  1. Select the
    Enable Configurable Workflows
     check box on the
    General Setup
     page in
    Administration
     and save. Note: When you enable this feature, we disable the legacy Workflow and Process Tracker features.
  2. Assign the
    Access Hubs
    ,
    Edit Hubs
    , and
    Manage Workflows
     permissions to the security groups or users who will administer planning cycles.
  3. Configure the associations you want to use as assignees for submit and approve tasks. Go to
    Administration
    Associations
     to define the relationships between users and levels that will drive task routing. Example: Create an association for budget submitters for level Product Development.
  4. Create a new hub to house your workflow definitions or use an existing hub. Example: Create a Financial Planning hub.
  5. Ensure that all workflow participants have access to this hub and all the artifacts in the hub.

What Happens if I do Nothing?

If you don’t select the
Enable Configurable Workflows
 check box and save, your tenant will continue to use the legacy Workflow and Process Tracker features. However, we recommend planning your migration as this new framework provides enhanced capabilities and will be the standard for future updates.

Test Scenarios

When you use Ask Workday to ask questions about configurable workflows, the links to configurable workflows topics in the
Source Links
 section won't work until we deliver this feature to Production.