Departmental Planning – Runway Help Center

What to expect

Runway makes departmental planning easy by allowing you to add relevant drivers, databases, charts and plans within pages.

You can filter data by department, and give team members limited access to the information that’s relevant to them. They can modify plans to see the implications, and play with the model without impacting your Main Scenario.

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It should take around 10 minutes to create a custom view for each department.

Before we begin

For most departmental planning workflows, we recommend:

Starting with one department, and creating a dedicated page for them. You can use pages to compiling the specific drivers, database tables, charts, and plans the departmental lead will need. You can also include text or videos to guide them.

Duplicating the page for every other department: adjust database filters as needed.

Giving departmental leads access to these pages. Read more about roles and permissions here.

Creating a dedicated page

Say you’re the model owner, or the Admin. Let's see how you can set up a page to help your Head of Marketing track spend vs. budget, and experiment with the levers that impact their work.

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While there are commonalities across customers, each use case may be a bit different. With Runway, you can configure your use case based on your specific needs.

Create a new page for Marketing by clicking + next to the Pages section in your main nav.

Enter a name for your page. You can also select an icon.

Adding drivers to your page

Let’s add all the info your Head of Marketing will need to play with your model.

Start with a blank page → enter / → select Driver table.

To use this table to list all operating expenses for the Marketing department, click anywhere in the new block, and select the drivers you want to add.

You can further customize your table:

Click the pill displaying date range, on top right, to customize the time series you see on the block.

Click the block name to modify it.

To compare budgeted vs. forecasted values, click the Customize menu on top right → click Compare → and select a Snapshot for comparison. (Read more about BvA and Snapshots here.)

You can also compare scenarios by clicking the Customize menu on top right → selecting a Scenario for comparison (Read more about Scenario Comparison here.)

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In this case, opex drivers are present in the Dept Opex Build model. If you’re forecasting directly out of a database containing opex drivers, you can add them to your page as a Database table.

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Grouping drivers strategically within your models makes it easier to add drivers to a Page—just select the group and you’re done. (If drivers aren’t grouped logically, you end up scrolling through a list to add the ones you want.)

Next, let’s pull relevant drivers from Mid Market Build revenue model.

Start by creating a new Driver table in your Marketing page.

In the menu that pops up to add drivers, enter the model’s name → go to Full Funnel → and select Add all drivers. Your funnel will be populated.

You can drag and drop rows to adjust the order, if needed. Or click the star icon next to a driver’s name to mark it as a KPI.

You can also add a Database table for employees:

Start by pulling in data from the People database.

Click the ‘Team’ column, and click Hide in block in the menu that opens up.

Next, click Add Filter at the top of the block, and add a rule to filter by ‘Marketing’ department to hide unnecessary rows.

You can also add rules for Termination Date and Start Date to filter for current employees.

Adding plans to your page

Let’s add important business context about future plans. Once done, your Marketing Head can easily adjust plan timelines or assumptions using our drag-and-drop interface.

In a new block, create a Plan timeline. Plans show the real-time impact of any changes on all your metrics.

By default, all events and assumptions with a future start date will be shown in your Plan timeline.

Click Add filter and add a rule to filter for Marketing plans. This will lock the view, and restrict access to other departmental plans. (See the article on Plans for details.)

Modifying your plans

You can pull in relevant KPIs from different parts of your Runway instance, and display them as charts.

We recommend placing your charts block next to the Plan timeline so you can easily see how changes made to plans affect your KPIs.

Let’s start by adding Driver charts to your page.

Click anywhere in the new block to add the relevant drivers.

Click Customize on top right to modify chart options or date range.

Just click to grab a plan, and drag it along to timeline to adjust it. Your charts will update in real-time to show the impact.

Collaborating with your team

To invite your Head of Marketing to your new page:

Click the icon featuring your initial on top right. Then, click Settings.

In the modal, go to the Users section and add their email. You can also modify their role before inviting them.

Click Invite to add them as a team member in Runway.

To give them access to the P&L model, Mid Market Build model, and Marketing page, navigate to these pages → click Share on top right → adjust permissions as needed → and click Add.

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See the roles and permissions article for details.

FAQ

How do changes made in a page make their way into the main forecast?

By default, only Admins can merge changes into the main scenario.

Even if a department lead has access to the main scenario, their plans will be moved to a draft state. They can save their changes as a new scenario, and share it with the model owner for merging.

What’s the right level of access for team members?

This varies, and can be a bit nuanced. We recommend reading through the roles and permissions article before adding team members.

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