23.6 Release Note

In this release, we are excited to introduce the new Manage page, which aims to provide a seamless experience for tracking your planning, budgeting, and performance. Here are the key features:

• Consolidated Planning Experience: We have transformed marketing plan execution by offering flexible top-down and bottom-up planning in a consolidated, customizable visualization. This empowers you to automate expenses, gain a quick overview of spending status, and plan campaigns and expense groups in different currencies.
• Enhanced Manage Page User Interface (UI): The Manage page UI has been redesigned to offer a comprehensive view of the entire plan on a single page, making management more effortless. You can now customize the UI according to your preferences, such as turning columns on and off, viewing budgets by month, quarter, or year, and quickly identifying any remaining spending.
• Performance Mode: With the introduction of Performance Mode on the Manage page, you can now compare the return on investment (ROI), profit, and forecasted performance of your campaigns with other marketing campaigns and channels. This contextual analysis enables informed decision-making.
• Streamlined Planning: You can now indicate planned versus committed spend for campaigns and expense groups, supporting best practice workflows and enhancing automation for expenses and purchase orders (POs).
• Slide-out Drawers: We have added new slide-out drawers on the Manage page, providing a consolidated view of the campaign, expense group, and expense details in one place. This streamlined interface improves efficiency and accessibility.

Previously, executing marketing plans was challenging due to fragmented strategic documentation, scattered budget and expense management, and disparate performance metrics. The lack of consolidation and continuity hindered visibility, collaboration, and efficiency. There was no unified, standardized marketing planning process to address these issues.

However, with our latest release, we have made usability enhancements to Planful for Marketing, delivering a standardized planning process for marketers. The new UI improvements aim to consolidate budgeting, goals, campaigns, channels, expense groups, expenses, and performance metrics into a single screen. This comprehensive visibility and collaboration will facilitate smoother plan execution and efficient measurement, empowering better decision-making.

Learn more about the Manage page here.

Here is the list of hotfixes:

• Replaced the KB link with a new Document360 link.
• Enhanced the functionality to read data sent via automation from different sheets within the same document.
• Implemented the capability to generate Campaign UIDs through campaign automated import.
• Added a filter for campaign/expense group status.
• Enabled the ability to select multiple expenses, create an expense group from them, and automatically assign the expenses to the expense group.
• Resolved an issue where the source was not being set correctly for campaigns/expense groups created via automation.
• Fixed a problem where users were unable to decrease the parent allocation to a value lower than the sum of child allocations.

Customers now have the flexibility to create Campaigns and Expense Groups using a currency that differs from their budget currency. Once a campaign is saved, users can navigate to the Campaign Drawer, access the Details tab, and modify the currency of the Budget field as needed.

Question: How can I access the new functionality in this release?

Answer: To access the new functionality, simply contact Planful Support at support@planful.com and provide them with your company name, and budget name, and specify if you want all future budgets to opt-in. They will assist you in enabling the new functionality.

Question: I want to preview the status at the campaign level before enabling it for my live budget. What can I do?

Answer: To preview the campaign-level status without affecting your live budget, duplicate your existing budget. Then, request Planful Support to activate the new functionality for the duplicated budget. This allows you to experiment and familiarize yourself with the changes in a separate environment. When you are ready, you can have Planful Support enable the new functionality for your live budget.

Question: How should I represent a campaign that is partially planned and partially committed?

Answer: If you have a campaign with a combination of planned and committed elements, you can create "child" representations under the main campaign. For example, if you have signed contracts with vendors for a portion of the campaign, create expense groups under the main campaign and set their status to "committed." Alternatively, for a planned campaign with specific committed events, create child campaigns with their own budgets and set their status as "committed." This way, you can see the committed subset of the budget while keeping the unspent remainder as "planned."

Question: What changes occur when I opt into the new functionality?

Answer: Opting into the new functionality brings several noticeable changes:

• The Manage page interface offers new viewing options.
  • You can customize the displayed rows and columns.
  • Show or hide relevant timeframes.
  • Switch between chart and table view.
  • Totals are easily accessible with a single click.
• The Manage page includes a new performance tab for campaigns with designated key metrics.
• Details for goals, campaigns, and expense groups appear as "drawers" sliding out from the right, allowing simultaneous viewing of the underlying page.
• All campaigns and expense groups default to the planned status.
• All expenses are shown as "actual" spending, with previous "planned" expenses displayed as 0 and "committed" expenses reflecting their committed amounts.
• Campaign and expense group type lists are merged and unused types are automatically cleaned up.

Question: I noticed Planned and Committed amounts in the past months. How did this happen?

Answer: When transitioning to the new functionality, all campaigns and expense groups were set to the planned status (or committed if updated). This includes past campaigns and expense groups. If you see Planned, Committed, or over budget amounts in previous months or quarters, it's because these campaigns and expense groups had budgets assigned for those periods, and the actual spending did not align with the budgeted amounts.

Below are the ways to reconcile the Planned and Committed amounts in the past months:

1. Double-click to true up the amount: You can double-click on the green/orange available amounts, whether you are on the Manage page or a detail drawer. This action allows you to "true up" your budget and set it equal to your actual spending. If the number was green (available), that amount will be freed up and returned to your top-level budget. If the number was orange (over budget), money will be taken from your top-level budget to cover the overage.
2. Drag and drop the amount forward in time: If a campaign or expense group has an available (green) budget in the past, it doesn't matter if it's Planned or Committed. You can drag and drop that amount to a future time frame within the same campaign or expense group. For example, if you notice that a campaign was under budget in February, you can drag that available amount forward to July. By doing this, the budget for February will be adjusted to match your actual spending, and the budget for July will increase by the difference.
3. Drag and drop Planned amounts to another campaign or expense group: Planned amounts are flexible and can be dragged and dropped to other campaigns and expense groups. If you want to eliminate Planned amounts in the past, you can drag and drop these amounts to other campaigns or expense groups. This can be done to cover any overages or to increase the budget for other campaigns and expense groups in your plan.

By utilizing these options, you can reconcile the Planned and Committed amounts in the past, ensuring that your budget aligns with the actual spending and making adjustments as needed.