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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-04-17
Create Headcount Plans

Create Headcount Plans

  • Create and activate a workforce planning configuration manager with:
    • Company, Cost Center, Supervisory Organization, or a custom organization configured for Level.
    • Use Plan and Execute Tasks
       selected.
    • Overlapping positions filtered out of your roster sheet.
  • In Adaptive Planning, edit the formulas for these accounts that your workforce planning configuration manager automatically created in the modeled sheet:
    • Headcount.
    • FTE.
    • Cost of Workforce.
    These accounts drive the metrics in various views on your headcount plans.
  • For aggregate view, access Adaptive Planning and create these custom accounts with default formulas for the modeled sheet:
    • Attrition. Use this case-sensitive code: REPORT_TERMINATION
    • Ending Headcount. Use this case-sensitive code: REPORT_HEADCOUNT
    • Filled. Use this case-sensitive code: REPORT_HEADCOUNT_FILLED
    • Open. Use this case-sensitive code: REPORT_HEADCOUNT_OPEN
    • Planned. Use this case-sensitive code: REPORT_NEW_HIRE
    • Starting Headcount. Use this case-sensitive code: REPORT_STARTING_HEADCOUNT
    • Target Cost of Workforce. Use this case-sensitive code: TARGET_COST_OF_WORKFORCE
    • Target FTE. Use this case-sensitive code: TARGET_FTE
    • Target Headcount. Use this case-sensitive code: TARGET_HEADCOUNT
    Without these accounts, your aggregate view will display this message: No data available.
  • Create and set up an integration system user (ISU) for headcount planning on the
    Adaptive Planning
     tab of the
    Tenant Setup
     report.
  • Configure the
    Headcount Planning
     business process security.
  • Security:
    Process: Headcount Planning
     domain in the Adaptive Planning for the Workforce functional area.
You can create a headcount plan that you use:
  • For bottom-up or top-down, position-level workforce planning with a more intuitive experience that also provides the data needed for financial planning.
  • To initiate a decentralized planning process by dimension while maintaining a single plan.
This enables you to analyze and plan for stable staffing throughout the organization.
You can create headcount plans with or without events. When you create headcount plans without events, we don’t send My Tasks items to planners that invite them to plan. You can add events later to invite planners. Example: You create a headcount plan without events so that you can complete preliminary activities like loading targets or changing assumptions.
When you create a headcount plan with an event, you create My Tasks items for both:
  • A plan controller who manages the business process event.
  • Plan participants who contribute to their parts of the plan.
These My Tasks items include links to forms for position data entry.
A headcount plan can contain multiple events. Each of those events contain their own sets of My Tasks items, and they can differ from each other.
We distribute My Tasks items to plan participants with links to their parts of the plan based on:
  • Dimension access.
  • How you configure the
    Headcount Planning
     business process.
  • Organization structure.
  • Your users' roles in the planning organizations.
When participants create or edit positions for their parts of the plan, we display options to select based on:
  • The level and dimensions that you filter for on your workforce planning configuration manager. If you only include a subset of those levels and dimensions when you create the headcount plan, we display options based on the subset to planners.
  • Whether the users have access to this level.
When a planner submits on their My Tasks item, we send a My Tasks item to the next planner in your organization hierarchy who has access to the headcount or headcount forecast plan.
  1. Access the
    Configure Headcount Plan
     task.
  2. Complete the initial prompt for the task:
    Option Description
    Select Application
    Select a workforce planning configuration manager.
    When you select existing planning configuration managers, you can only select planning configuration managers that use the
    Use Plan and Execute Tasks
     option.
    New Headcount Plan
    Select to create a new headcount plan. You can create this headcount plan with or without events. You configure the events later on this task.
    Click
    OK
    .
  3. Create the headcount plan:
    Option Description
    Plan Name
    Enter a unique name that equal to or less than 64 characters. We automatically use this name as the Adaptive Planning version name.
    From
    To
    Select the effective dates for:
    • Plan start date.
    • Plan end date.
    Top Level Hierarchy
    We automatically use the top-level hierarchy from your workforce planning configuration manager.
    Planning Organizations
    Select the organizations that:
    • The plan controller and plan participants have headcount planning roles on.
    • You want to include on the overall plan.
    We only display organizations that are subordinate to the top-level hierarchy.
    Reporting Currency
    We automatically populate this field with the default currency of the Workday tenant. Ensure that this currency matches the reporting currency of your Adaptive Planning model.
    Create an event for this headcount plan
    A headcount plan can contain multiple events, but you can only add 1 event at a time. Complete the
    Configure Headcount Plan
     task again to add another event.
    Planning Organizations for This Event
    Select organizations that you included as
    Planning Organizations
     for this headcount plan.
    Include Subordinates
    Select to include all subordinate organizations underneath the planning organizations for this event.
    Example: For
    Planning Organizations for This Event
    , you select Cost Center 10.
    The organization hierarchy is:
    • Cost Center 10
    • Cost Center 10.1
    • Cost Center 10.1.1
    Each cost center has their own planner. When you select
    Include Subordinates
    , each planner receives a My Tasks item. When you keep
    Include Subordinates
     cleared, only the planner for Cost Center 10 receives a My Tasks item.
    View Participants
    Select to review the planners who will receive My Tasks items.
    Position Detail View
    Select to enable your planners to use a position-level grid to create and edit positions.
    You must select at least 1 view.
    Aggregate View
    Select to enable your planners to use these grids to update summarized headcount numbers for job profiles:
    • Headcount
    • Cost of Workforce
    • FTE
    Example: When you select the
    Software Engineer
     job profile on the filters, we display data like total
    Planned New Hires
     for each period in your headcount plan date range. Your planner can enter
    10
     for
    Planned New Hires
     in February and
    0
     for March.
    You must select at least 1 view.
    Organization View
    Select to enable your planners to use an organization chart to create and edit positions. We display the supervisory organization that the planner selects on the filter and all of the subordinate organizations.
    You must select at least 1 view.
    Routing
    The bottom-up and top-down routing methods require separate business process configurations. Ensure that your
    Headcount Planning
     business process is set up for the routing method that you select.
When you submit, we:
  • Create and distribute the My Tasks items. We automatically consolidate My Tasks items for planners with multiple organizations.
  • Create the plan version that's associated with the headcount plan.
You can cancel the
Headcount Planning
 business process event and delete the:
  • My Tasks items for the shared participation controller and participants.
  • Baseline version and working plan version associated with the headcount plan.
While the business process is in progress:
  • If a reorganization occurs and the worker assigned to a plan participant role changes, we only remove the
    Headcount Planning Participant Detail Event
     from the My Tasks of the outgoing worker. We retain any saved changes made to the plan by the outgoing worker.
  • We lock the corresponding Adaptive Planning baseline version. We lock the plan version after the business process completes. If in progress plans exist from before 2025R2, you must manually lock the plan version.
We recommend that you load your target KPI data after you submit so that planners can plan using those targets. Your planners see this KPI data above the headcount plan when they enter position data.
Access the
View Headcount Plan Configuration
 report to view the:
  • Events on the headcount plan.
  • Headcount plan configuration.
  • Headcount plan using the
    Open Headcount Plan
     button.
  • Status of the background jobs that keep this level in sync with Adaptive Planning. This status includes the status of version creation in Adaptive Planning.
  • Status of the plan.
You can also use the report to add events and complete the headcount plan.