Create and compare plan scenarios in the Scenario Planner

Last update: February 21, 2025

Topics:
Workfront Scenario Planner

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User

When you are planning your company’s long-term strategy, there is a lot of information that you might not have or think of in the beginning. It takes time and experimentation to arrive at a final strategy that your stakeholders can accept. Conducting a “what if” analysis to create multiple scenarios for your plan can help you accurately predict and evaluate potential circumstances and ultimately develop the best possible plan.

Access requirements

Expand to view access requirements for the functionality in this article.

Adobe Workfront plan*	New: Ultimate The Scenario Planner is not available for the new Workfront Select or Workfront Prime plans. Current: Business or higher
Adobe Workfront license*	New: Light or higher Current: Review or higher
Product*	For the new Workfront plans: Adobe Workfront For the current Workfront plans: Adobe Workfront Adobe Workfront Scenario Planner For more information, see Access needed to use the Scenario Planner.
Access level	Edit access to the Scenario Planner
Object permissions	Manage permissions to a plan For information on requesting additional access to a plan, see Request access to a plan in the Scenario Planner.

*For information, see Access requirements to Workfront documentation.

Create scenarios

A scenario is a copy of a plan. You can create as many scenarios as you need. However, we recommend that you keep the number of scenarios to a minimum so that you can easily compare them.

Click the Main Menu icon in the upper-right corner of Adobe Workfront, or (if available), click the Main Menu icon in the upper-left corner, then click Scenarios.
Create a plan or click the name of an existing one.

For information about creating plans, see Create and edit plans in the Scenario Planner.

The first plan you create is automatically saved as the “Initial scenario.”
Click the down-pointing arrow next to an existing scenario, then click the Copy icon.

This creates a new scenario with the same information as the copied scenario. It is automatically named “Scenario 2” if it’s the second scenario of your plan, “Scenario 3” if it’s the third, and so on. You cannot rename your scenarios. There is not a limit to the number of copies you can make.
Update your new scenario in any of the following ways:
- Create, update, or delete initiatives
  
  TIP
  When you delete an initiative in a scenario it is removed only from the selected scenario, not from all the scenarios.
  
  For information about creating initiatives, see Create and edit initiatives in the Scenario Planner.
- Update the priorities of your initiatives
- Adjust people or budget information
- Review and adjust initiative conflicts in your scenario
  
  For information about resolving conflicts, see Resolve initiative conflicts in the Scenario Planner.
Click Save Plan to save your changes.

Compare scenarios

After creating your scenarios, you can compare them to find the best one for your organization.

Go to the plan for which you want to compare scenarios.
Click Compare scenarios. The scenario comparison page displays.

All existing scenarios for the plan display in a side-by-side card format. The Initial scenario is always listed first and it is static.

(Optional) Scroll to the right to view all scenario cards.

The following information displays on a scenario card:

Name of the scenario	An automatically generated name by Workfront and cannot be edited. For example, "Initial scenario", "Scenario 2", and so on.
Scenario description	A manual entry where you can describe specifics about the scenario.
Available Job Roles	The number of job roles available from the plan's budget for the duration of the plan.
Required Job Roles	The number of job roles required, based on your initiatives.
Budget	The total budget defined for the plan in this scenario. For budget information about plans, see Plans overview in the Scenario Planner.
Costs	The costs associated with the initiatives on the scenario. For information about costs, see Initiatives overview in the Scenario Planner.
Utilization	The Budget Utilization percentage for the plan in this scenario. For information about the Budget Utilization percentage, see Plans overview in the Scenario Planner.
Net Value	The Net Value of the plan in this scenario. For information about the Net Value of a plan, see Plans overview in the Scenario Planner.
Initiatives	The number of initiatives for the plan in this scenario.
Conflicting	The number of initiatives that show any type of conflicts in the plan for this scenario. For information about initiatives conflicts, see Resolve initiative conflicts in the Scenario Planner.

NOTE

When information differs between the initial scenario and additional scenarios, an up or down arrow displays next to the value that changed to indicate an increase or decrease in that value, compared to the initial scenario.

For example, the budget, the number of job roles, the number of initiatives might change from one scenario to another.

Click the name of a scenario to access it and make changes to it.

For more information, see the Create scenarios section in this article.
Click Add description to add a description for the scenario

Or

Click the description field to update it, then click anywhere on the screen to save your changes.
(Optional) Click the More menu to Copy or Delete the scenario.

When you copy a scenario, it automatically appears on the card page and is renamed according to this pattern: “Scenario <next number in order>.”
(Conditional) If you clicked Delete, click Yes, delete it to confirm.

Deleted scenarios cannot be recovered.

For information about deleting scenarios, see Delete plans in the Scenario Planner.
Click Save Plan to save your scenarios and your plan.