Live data and scenarios

Live data is your organisation as it is today: the people, teams, projects, salaries and allocations every screen shows by default. A scenario is a separate workspace where you can hire, move people, change pay or restructure teams without changing live data. When a scenario is approved and merged, its changes become live.

You can run several scenarios at once, such as a hiring plan and a restructure, and they won't affect each other or live data.

You need access to scenarios to create one. Ask your Flowstate admin.

How to plan in a scenario: Scenarios. Budget proposals work differently: see Workforce budgets.

How a scenario works

• A new scenario starts as a view of live data. It only keeps the changes you make.
• Records you haven't changed keep following live data, so they stay up to date while the scenario is open.
• Costs are worked out the same way as live costs, on live data with your changes on top. See How costs are calculated.

To create one, select Create New Scenario and choose Plan Draft. Then choose a type (Budget Planning, Headcount Planning, Restructure or Other) and who can see it: Private (only you) or Open (visible to organization). You can also create one from any screen with Plan a scenario in the top bar. Your scenarios are listed under My scenarios in the sidebar. See Create a scenario.

Team budgets aren't created here. Use a budget run instead of the Budget Proposal option: each team gets its budget when the run is sent to team managers. See Start a budget run.

Scenario statuses

Status	What it means
Draft	Being worked on. Every new scenario starts here.
In Review	Submitted for review. The side panel shows Submitted for review.
Merged	Approved, with its changes applied to live data.
Archived	Put away and hidden from your list. Archiving can't be undone.

Review and merge a scenario

1. The scenario's owner selects Submit for Review, and can name reviewers. If nobody is named, everyone who can merge scenarios is told.
2. If it needs more work, the person who submitted it can select Withdraw to move it back to Draft.
3. A reviewer selects Approve & Merge, or selects Reject and gives a Reason. A rejected scenario goes back to Draft, marked Changes requested.

You can't approve your own scenario. If reviewers were named, only they can approve it. People who can merge scenarios can also merge a draft straight away with Merge into Baseline, which skips review.

What merging does

Merging applies the scenario's changes to live data in one go:

• Records you added are created.
• Records you removed are removed.
• Records you changed are updated, but only the fields you changed.

Before you merge:

• Check for recent live changes. If someone changed the same field in live data after you changed it in the scenario, the scenario's value replaces theirs. Budget proposals are checked for this. See Workforce budgets.
• You can undo a merge. Revert Merge undoes it and puts the scenario back to Draft.
• Deleting a scenario is permanent. Archive it instead if you might need it again.

For your technical team

An AI assistant connected through the MCP server can make changes in a scenario for you, and developers can work with scenarios too. See Scenarios for developers.