Set up and Configure

Enable the planning menu

From the Strategic Management Options page, enable Use Investment and Capacity Planning.

From the Menu Actions tab, select the planning tab on the left, then select the checkbox to display all the available options. Feature controls may also be added from this page.

From the Configure Roles screen, enable the following features for each role that will use planning. 

Strategic management: 

• Use investment & capacity planning

Investment decisions:

• Define portfolio targets

• Make investment decisions

• Publish to shared scenario

• Publish to entities

In order for the comparison between the enterprise or work financial model and the cost center financial model to work, Use Providing Organization (Cbs1) must be selected on the enterprise or work financial model. 

To confirm this is configured correctly, go to the Administer Financial Planning Models screen, find the model used for Work Financial planning, select Edit Financial Planning Model, and confirm that the option Use Providing Organization (Cbs1) is checked. 

Confirm demand financial model configuration: 

• Cost center must be a line attribute on at least the labor account
• Use in Investment and Capacity Planning option must be checked for the model
• There must be commonality in both accounts and attributes 
• Financial plan versions are configured (we recommend using actual forecast for demand, but another version may be added and used as a baseline) 

If the financial plan for a potential project is blank, or contains lines with no financial data within the horizon dates, the project will not pull into the investment and capacity planning portfolio. 

How data is added to work (demand) financial plans: 

• Load:
  • The work financial load can be manually performed or scheduled within job stream management. For information about scheduling a financial plan load job by using a job stream, see Configuring Financial Plan Load Job Parameters.
• Manual entry

See What is Needed to Make it Work for more information. 

When adding the new model, select Cost Centers from the dropdown. 

Use the same calendar, planning horizon start and finish dates, forecast period, and other fields as in the enterprise or work financial model.

For the new cost center financial model, the next step is to configure accounts. At a minimum, the labor account is required. Select Use Account, Allow Edit, and Allow Loads for the labor account.

Depending on how the cost center structure is configured, you may want to enable a generic benefit, capital, or expense account. Select Allow Edit and Allow Load as needed, based on usage in other parts of Planview Portfolios. 

Use in Investment and Capacity Planning must be checked for all accounts that will be used. 

From the Add Accounts screen, click the Line Attributes icon for the labor row, and select the line attributes that you want to set capacity constraints for. The attributes selected should also already be selected on the enterprise or work financial model, as the attributes must match.

Attributes which are selected here and also have a matching attribute or account on the enterprise or work financial model will make up the capacity and demand primary "pivot."

Note that Cost Center Availability Type is automatically selected and required.

Best practice: As you consider which attributes to include on each account, consider how your company makes investment decisions.

The attributes selected will make up the content and depth of the pivot table between the capacity and demand financial plans, so we recommend to minimize the number of attributes if possible. 

Example: Split by CapEx/OpEx.

From the Add Accounts screen, click the Account Options icon on the labor row. Deselect any unnecessary options to customize the display according to your preferences.

If investment and capacity planning is going to also include non-labor accounts, you will need to configure the attributes for those accounts as well. This is not required. 

From the Add Accounts screen, click the Line Attributes icon, and select the line attributes that you want to set capacity constraints for. The attributes selected should already be selected on the non-labor accounts for the enterprise or work financial model, as the attributes must match.

Best practice: As with the labor account and attributes, consider the level of detailed required to make investment decisions. 

The next step is to configure versions for the new model. At least one version is required, but it's advisable to add two – one as a working version and another as a baseline version. Configure the working version to allow editing and loads, aligning its sub-options with those of the work financial versions.

From the Configure Versions screen, load the working cost center version. The load can be manually performed, or scheduled within job stream management. For information about scheduling a financial plan load job by using a job stream, see Configuring Financial Plan Load Job Parameters.

Columns included in the investment and capacity planning column set will drive how you rank the potential investments. 

Create a new column set that includes all criteria that should be considered for ranking and prioritization. This should include all relevant financial subtotals and prioritization attributes. 

Key actions: 

• Include In: Check the box for investment and capacity planning
• Roles: Select either Corporate Wide, or select specific roles that will be involved in the portfolio planning process. 

To communicate published portfolio planning decisions to project and resource managers, configure the application to support viewing details about a scenario's investment ranking values.

These details typically include: 

• Investment ranking values that exist within the scenario at that time it was last published
• Planning portfolio from which those values were last published
• Name of the user who last published the scenario
• Date on which the scenario was last published

You can add the columns to column sets relevant to the Investment and Capacity Planning screen, Resource Management and Assignments screen, or Work Portfolio View screen. The investment ranking details a user will be able to view after selecting one of the column sets you configure is dependent on which investment ranking columns you add to that column set. 

Identify and configure financial subtotals you want to make investment decisions against. Make sure they are configured for the correct level of capacity and demand. 

Key actions: 

• Primary Structure: Check the box for Cost Centers and other options, as needed. 
• Check the box for In Investment and Capacity Planning, do not respect portfolio capacity, if needed. 
• Check the box for In Investment and Capacity Planning, do not respect portfolio horizon, if needed.

Alerts

(optional)

Alerts are dynamic calculations that an administrator can configure to help users resolve issues as they make investment decisions.

For example, you can configure the Count of Cost Center Overutilized alert to be displayed when the demand for cost centers reaches 75 percent of the capacity available for those cost centers.

As an administrator, alerts are configured by enabling one or more alerts on the Investment and Capacity Planning Alerts screen within System Configuration, and then entering information that defines the alert using the grid. 

If no alerts are enabled by the administrator, the alerts pane will not show within investment and capacity planning.

Understand and configure Impact Analysis visual tiles

(optional)

Impact analysis tiles provide portfolio managers with the ability to visualize and compare investment scenario impacts across portfolios. 

Users with access to the Planning menu can create as many tiles of this type as needed to analyze data in different ways. Impact Analysis tiles are a unique type of report that are created on the Planning menu, using the Analyze button. They can only be viewed on the Planning Portfolio View ribbon. 

As an Administrator, the Analyze tile can be enabled or hidden from the Ribbon Options screen within Global Options.

Using investment dependencies

(optional)

An investment dependency is a connection between two entities that describes how those entities influence one another from an investment perspective.

For example, if project A is dependent on project B, you must commit to project B if you are going to pursue project A. If project C is codependent with project D, both must be pursued, or neither pursued.

Work and project dependencies are often created on the Work View screen, but the decisions on which investments to approve are done within Investment and Capacity Planning.

The system uses both investment approval status and dependency type to help determine whether an dependency between investment entities is valid or results in a conflict.

As an administrator, Use Investment Dependencies can be enabled within Global Options. Then you can configure alerts for dependencies, add information about them to Planning Column Sets, and use them on both Work and Planning menus.

Pending

Indicates the investment opportunity has been identified; however, the business case has not been completed and the opportunity is not ready to be considered. Investments with this status are not displayed on the Investment and Capacity Planning screen.

Analyze

Indicates the investment opportunity has been identified and the business case prepared. The opportunity can be considered; however, no final investment decision has been made.

Accept

Indicates the investment opportunity has gone through the investment and capacity planning process and that your organization has chosen to proceed with the investment. Anything approved in the previous planning cycle will already appear above the line (in-flight).

Conditional

Indicates the investment has gone through the investment and capacity planning process and has been accepted under certain conditions.

Refuse

Indicates the investment opportunity has gone through the investment and capacity planning process and your organization has chosen not to accept it.

Resubmit

Indicates the investment opportunity has gone through the investment and capacity planning process via a lifecycle, and your organization initially refused to accept it. The opportunity has been revised and should be reconsidered.

This status is used in investment and capacity planning if your system is configured for lifecycles.

Investments – or in this case, projects – must have an investment status (OpCapAppr alternate structure) of Analyze, Accept, Conditional, or Refuse to be included in a planning portfolio.

As an administrator, you must configure the investment demand structure, then the status must be added to all potential investments/projects.

Things to consider: 

• Many set the default to Analyze for simplicity. To do this, select the (definition) link next to the Investment Approval alternate structure, then select Analyze in the default drop down.  
• Pending can be used to enable a lifecycle checkpoint before moving to planning
• Resubmit and Repropose can be used in sub-lifecycles in advanced configurations and are not required.  
• If used, the status chosen in the lifecycle can trigger successive workflows for the relevant entities or projects. See Prioritization and Ranking for a more detailed description of each status.

Create a new planning portfolio. 

From the planning menu, navigate to the Investment and Capacity Planning tab. Use the View dropdown to select each view option, and make sure the portfolio displays rows for each option.

If no data displays, review this criteria: 

• Demand data for the selected financial version must be available for the selected capacity entities.
• The demand must exist within the selected planning horizons.
• The investment approval status must not be Pending.
• If an additional demand portfolio was applied to the planning portfolio, the investments must also be included in the definition of the selected demand portfolio.