Concept: Scenarios

Scenarios use base versions as starting points for building what-if scenarios, or managing changes to the base version. With these scenarios, you can:

Make proposed changes to the data of base versions without affecting the base versions.

Build reports and charts of scenario data to analyze against the base version or other versions.

Share your scenarios with collaborators who can contribute to the changes.

Send back, discard, or approve the changes of others.

Merge proposed changes into the base version with a few clicks.

Scenarios work well for companies and departments that need to draft and evaluate different what-if scenarios before entering their final numbers into the current version.

Base Versions for Scenarios

All scenarios must have a base version. Base versions can only be plan versions, excluding virtual versions. New scenarios have the same data as the base version until you change the data in the scenario through data entry in sheets. When you duplicate scenarios, you copy any changed data from the original scenario into the new scenario.

Selecting Scenarios

After you create scenarios, or after someone has shared scenarios with you, you can find them in the versions prompt. The base version becomes expandable in the list. The scenarios nest within the base version. Scenarios in the version list have a special icon.

Scenario Codes

Workday generates codes for scenarios when you create the scenario. To change the code, you can hover over the scenario from the list of the scenarios until the 3 dots display. Click the dots and select, Edit
.

The code must not:

Match the codes of existing scenarios or the names of existing versions.

Exceed 1,024 characters.

Data in Scenarios

Scenarios have the same data as the base version until you make changes to the data in the scenario. The scenario data is still live, which means that when you change data in the base version, the changes persists to the scenario. The only exception to this rule is when you have made changes to the same intersection in the scenario.

Example: When you create the scenario, the data looks like this:

Account	Jan 2024	Feb 2024	Mar 2024
Expenses	10,000	12,000	8,000

You make changes in the scenario to January and February, leaving March as it is in the base version:

Account	Jan 2024	Feb 2024	Mar 2024
Expenses	8,000	10,000	8,000

Then you or someone else changes the March value to 10,000 and the January value to 9,000. Your scenario only changes March because you have already changed Jan and February in the scenario:

Account	Jan 2024	Feb 2024	Mar 2024
Expenses	8,000	10,000	10,000

This way you always see the latest data in your scenario while keeping your changes.

You must use sheets to enter the data. From sheets, cells display with a yellow highlight when scenario data differs from the base version.

To analyze the scenario further, you can build reports and charts to compare the scenario with other scenarios, with the base version, or with actuals data.

You can view or compare scenarios in these report types:

Matrix

Model

In matrix reports, you can add scenarios:

To rows or columns.

As report parameters or filters.

To Difference custom calculations.

The scenarios that you apply to the reports display in the

Report Information

panel. In the

Elements

pane of the report builder, scenarios display as children of the base version element.

When you add scenarios to reports, they display as siblings. When you add both parent and child scenarios to the filters, only the parent scenarios display. The start and end dates of the scenarios are based on their parent version.

In OfficeConnect reports, existing scenarios display as children of the base version. You can drag them into the report.

In Dashboards, you can select scenarios from:

The main page version drop-down prompt.

The chart version drop-down prompts in chart settings.

Dashboard charts visualize the data based on the scenarios that you select. For charts that support a reference and comparison version, you can select a scenario from the main page version drop-down to compare the scenario with the pinned base version. To configure the comparison, for the comparison value select the base version and for the reference version use the default from the version selector.

Dimension mapping tables are view-only when you select a scenario from the main page version drop-down.

The Scenarios Page

Depending on your permissions, the

Scenarios

page changes and displays a side panel with folders to filter your view:

All Scenarios

: Displays:

All scenarios from the Personal, Shared, and Global folders for admin users with the Manage Scenarios
permission.

All scenarios from the Personal and Shared folders for non-admin users.

Personal

: Displays the scenarios that you created. Scenarios that you have shared move to the Shared folder.

Shared

: Displays the scenarios that you have shared with others or that others have shared with you.

Global

For admin users, displays personal scenarios owned by other users and shared scenarios not owned by or shared with them. This enables the admin to see and take any necessary actions on all scenarios in the system.

For non-admin users, displays all personal scenarios owned by them and scenarios they've shared and that are shared with them.

Merged

: Captures the history for merged scenarios.

You can search and sort the list. You can also filter the list by base versions.

You can hover over a scenario until 3 vertical dots display. Click the dots to open the

Actions

menu. The menu includes these options:

View Details
: Enables you to see all columns. This option only displays if the window is truncated.

Edit
: Available only for scenarios that you created. Edit the name, code, or description. Editing the scenario doesn’t affect any changed data in the scenario. You can't change the base version of a scenario.

Delete
: Available for scenarios that you created, or for any scenario when you have the Manage Scenario
permission.

Duplicate
: Available only for scenarios that you created. Make a copy of the scenario. The duplicated scenario automatically includes any data changes that were made in the original scenario.

Download Changes
: Available with the Download Scenario Changes
permission. To review the detailed changes you have made to the scenario before merging, download the changes to an Excel file.

Merge
: Available only for scenarios that you created and for users with the Merge Scenarios
permission. Add the changes that you made in your scenario to the base version. When you merge, you delete the scenario because you move all changes to the base version.

Share
: Available for scenarios that you created and enables you to:

Pick individual users and groups to collaborate.

Optionally select the dashboard that has the data for the collaborators to review and change.

Optionally add a note to collaborators with specific instructions or details.

Manage Submissions
: Available to admins and owners. This option displays only for shared scenarios and shows the list of collaborators, their statuses, and applicable actions. See Manage Collaboration for Shared Scenarios.

Maximum Scenarios

We support a maximum of:

15 scenarios across versions for each user.

2000 sheet saves per scenario across all users who have access to the scenario.

5,000 scenarios per instance.

We recommend that you don’t share scenarios with more than 50 collaborators at a time.

From the

Scenarios

page, you can check your scenario limit by clicking the

Scenario Capacity Usage

button in the toolbar. Your number of scenarios might increase because an admin copies all your scenarios when they cloned the base version.

To avoid exceeding maximums:

Merge or delete scenarios frequently.

Use scenarios versus versions appropriately. See FAQ: Scenarios.

Limitations for Scenarios

We don't support these capabilities in scenarios:

Manual recalculation.

Audit trail reports. After you merge scenario changes into the base, you can run an audit trail on the base version to review the changes resulting from the merge.

Import and export of scenario data with Design Integrations.

Manual import and export of scenario data.

Planning as a data source for scenarios in Design Integrations.

You can't edit these areas in scenarios, which populate from the base version:

Shared formulas.

Exchange rates.

Default account formulas and formula overrides.

Value and spread lookups in modeled sheets.

Metric accounts.

Derived dimension rules from Dashboards.

Allocation rules.

Version-specific meta-data properties, such as version availabilities.