Headcount Planner FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Headcount Planner.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Headcount Planner Overview.
Setup
Do I have to turn on features before they appear?
Yes, for the optional ones, and each starts off. AI Forecasting, Market Intelligence and Executive Reporting are switches under Admin › General Settings; the OKR Hub Integration, Recruiting Apps Integration and EPMS Integration switches are under Admin › Integration Settings (the OKR Hub and EPMS pages also need that app turned on for your business); and Enable Headcount Agent is under Admin › AI Configuration. Each switch hides its own pages and navigation items while off — the AI & Intelligence tab does not appear until AI Forecasting or Market Intelligence is on. Two switches on General Settings start on: Send deadline alerts and approval reminders, and Require identity verification before exporting salary & budget data (on for tenants set up after 8 September 2026; earlier tenants keep it off until an admin turns it on).
Who can access Headcount Planner and what can each role do?
Because the app exposes salary bands and compensation budgets, it is restricted to Manager, Admin, Super Admin, or a designated app admin. Regular employees cannot access it. Within that group, managers can create and manage plans, scenarios, budgets, and positions, but only in departments they manage. Admins and app admins can manage records across all departments and can also access the Admin tab for app-wide settings and AI model configuration. Admins can narrow who may create and edit plans, publish a budget, approve or reject positions, rebalance a scenario and edit salary benchmarks under Admin › General Settings › Permissions.
Do I need Job Board enabled for the recruiting handoff?
Yes. Create Job Posting on an approved position creates a Job Board posting directly, so Job Board must be turned on for your business. Until then, the position can still be approved and tracked inside Headcount Planner, but Create Job Posting is hidden until Job Board is turned on; an admin sees a link to turn it on in its place.
Permissions and access
Can managers edit positions outside their own department?
No. A manager can only create, edit, approve, reject, or delete positions in departments they manage — where they are the named department manager, or their own department. Admins and app admins can modify positions in any department. Plans are keyed to the department itself, so renaming a department in People keeps its plan and its manager’s access.
Why don’t I see the AI & Intelligence tab?
The tab appears only when at least one AI-related toggle is enabled and produces a visible action for your role. Go to Admin › General Settings and enable AI Forecasting, Market Intelligence, or both. If the toggles are on but the tab is still missing, confirm that you have Manager or above access.
Day-to-day
How does a plan go from draft to active?
A plan must be validated before it can be activated. Validate marks the plan as reviewed — it records who validated it and when, and does not check the plan’s figures — and then Activate makes it live. Activating a plan archives any other active plan.
What happens to other active plans when I activate a new one?
They are archived. Activating a plan archives any other active plan: each one becomes read-only, its undecided position requests leave approvers’ queues, and its owner is told (unless they activated the new plan themselves). Archiving cannot be undone.
How do I close or archive a plan?
Open the plan and choose Actions → Archive plan. The plan becomes read-only: positions on it can no longer be added, edited or decided, and its undecided position requests leave approvers’ queues. Job Board postings already created from it are not touched, and its owner is told if someone else archived it. Archiving cannot be undone.
How do I create a Job Board posting from an approved position?
Open the position and click Create Job Posting. The position must be Approved, must not already have a posting, and must be on a plan that is not completed or archived. A draft Job Board posting is created with the title, salary range, employment type, skills and hiring manager carried over; a Job Board admin or the posting’s recruiter publishes it. After the posting is created the position advances on its own — see the next question.
Does hiring status sync back from Job Board automatically?
Yes. A position with a Job Board posting follows it: it moves to In Progress when the first applicant arrives, and to Filled — recording the employee and the date — the moment the accepted candidate becomes an employee in People. Those steps show in the position’s timeline as performed by System. Start Hiring and Mark Filled remain for hires made outside Job Board, and for a posting that was closed without a hire the position stays open for you to cancel or reuse.
I edited an approved position and it went back to “Planned” — why?
Title, seniority, employment type, salary range, total compensation budget, signing bonus and equity are what an approver signs off on. Changing any of them on an approved position withdraws the approval: the position returns to Planned, the original approver is told what changed, and the hiring manager, reporting manager and requester are told it is awaiting approval again. Dates, description, skills, location and the manager pickers can be changed without this. The edit form warns you before you save, and the timeline records an Approval withdrawn entry naming the fields.
Why can’t I change a position’s title or pay any more?
Once a position has a Job Board posting — or is filled, rejected or cancelled — what the approver signed off is fixed: its title, seniority, employment type, salary range, total compensation budget, signing bonus and equity can no longer change. To hire for different terms, duplicate the position and send the copy for approval.
How do I withdraw a position request?
Open the position and click Withdraw request. It is offered while the position is still awaiting approval, to the person who asked for it and to anyone who manages positions in that department. The position is cancelled and leaves approvers’ queues.
My position was rejected — what now?
The position page shows who declined it, when and why. If you can add positions in that department, click Ask again (as a new request) to send a copy of it for approval; you can change the copy until it is decided. The declined position itself stays as it is, as a record of the decision.
Where else can I approve positions?
On the Manager Approvals dashboard (Home → Manager Approvals), under Headcount Requests, beside leave, timesheets and job offers. Each row shows the role, salary range, justification and how many of the department’s planned seats are already taken — including when a request is above the approved plan. Approving or rejecting there runs the same rules and notifications as approving inside the app. A reason is required to reject — there, on the position page and on the phone.
How are department budgets calculated?
The total budget for a department entry is: (planned headcount × budget per position) + (recruiting cost per hire × planned headcount) + (onboarding cost per hire × planned headcount). Recruiting and onboarding costs are optional. Totals roll up from budgets to the scenario and from the selected scenario to the plan.
How do I compare scenarios side by side?
Open the plan and navigate to its scenarios. The plan detail page shows a radar chart comparing all scenarios on budget, timeline, risk level, confidence, and ROI. Each plan can hold up to six scenario types — Conservative, Optimistic, Aggressive, Baseline, Cost Optimization, and Market Expansion — and you can mark one as the selected scenario.
How do I load sample data to explore the app?
Open Admin › Data Management and use the Load Sample Data card. Sample records are tagged, and Remove Sample Data deletes them without touching records your people made. Ready-made plans by industry are separate: open Planning › Sample Plans, open one and click Convert to Plan to create a draft plan of your own from it.
When something looks wrong
Why can’t I delete this plan?
A plan can only be deleted when it is in Draft or Archived status. Archive an active or completed plan first (Actions → Archive plan), then delete it. A plan with a Job Board posting raised from one of its positions cannot be deleted while that posting exists: delete a draft posting in Job Board first; a published posting can only be closed, so that plan stays archived.
I approved a position but it still shows “Planned” — what happened?
Check whether you may decide on it. To approve, you must be allowed by Who can approve or reject a planned position? and Who can create and edit workforce plans? (Admin › General Settings › Permissions), and manage or work in the position’s department unless you are an admin or app admin. Positions on a completed or archived plan cannot be decided at all. Also check the position’s timeline: if someone changed its title, seniority, employment type or compensation after approval, the approval was withdrawn and the entry says who changed what.
Why am I not getting notifications about overdue milestones?
The daily notification sweep sends alerts for overdue and upcoming milestones (due within 14 days), over-budget departments, and at-risk plans. Check four things: (1) Headcount Planner must be enabled for your business; (2) you must be the milestone’s owner or the plan’s creator; (3) your notification preferences for the Headcount Planner category must allow in-app or email delivery; (4) Send deadline alerts and approval reminders must be on in Admin › General Settings (it starts on). Overdue-milestone alerts repeat at most once per week and stop after 90 days past due.
I exported salary data and was asked to verify my identity — is that expected?
Yes, if Require identity verification before exporting salary & budget data is on in Admin › General Settings — it is on by default for tenants set up after 8 September 2026. This step-up verification applies to plan, budget, grid and position exports. Every export is also logged in the sensitive-data audit trail.
Licensing and limits
Does Headcount Planner require a licence?
Yes. The app requires a licence and is disabled by default. An administrator enables it per tenant from Admin → Apps → All Apps.
What is the planning horizon for a single plan?
Each plan covers one fiscal year. For multi-year planning, create separate annual or quarterly plans and compare them in the analytics dashboard. Quarterly plans require a quarter number (1–4).
Are there limits I should know about?
- Plan name: 255 characters.
- Estimated time to fill: 1–364 days per department budget entry (default is 30 days).
- Revenue growth assumption: between –100% and 500% per scenario.
- Budget constraint factor: between 0 and 5 per scenario.
- AI difficulty score: 0–100 per position.
- Over-budget threshold: a department budget is flagged when allocated spend exceeds the plan by more than 5%.
- Position urgency: a position is flagged urgent when its requisition target date is within 14 days.
- Market intelligence CSV import: maximum 10 MB per file, .csv format only.
- Activating a plan archives any other active plan.
- Grid export size: up to 20,000 employees per export; a larger roster is refused with a prompt to filter by department or status first, rather than truncated.
- Approval-material fields: title, seniority, employment type, salary range, total compensation budget, signing bonus and equity — changing any of them on an approved position withdraws the approval.
More help
- Headcount Planner Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Headcount Planner questions from these articles.