Comparing scenarios

Two scenarios. One screen. Every metric that differs, lined up next to each other so you can decide which one to merge — or whether neither is good enough.

The compare view exists because no scenario is interesting on its own. It is interesting against an alternative. "What if we hire here vs there", "what if we cut this team vs that one", "what does the conservative plan look like next to the aggressive one". Without a side-by-side, you are reading two reports and doing the diff in your head.

What you compare

The compare page (/scenarios/compare?a=<planId>&b=<planId>) shows:

• Overview metrics — employees, teams, projects, vacancies, contractors, total cost. For each, both scenarios display current → forecast with the delta.
• Change summary — total number of changes per scenario, broken down by entity type (employees, allocations, vacancies, teams, projects, AI agents).
• Project impact — which projects move, by how much, in each scenario.
• The change lists themselves — every change from each scenario, side-by-side, so you can see whether two scenarios are doing the same thing in different ways or diverging entirely.

Comparing against live

You can compare any scenario against the live baseline by selecting Base Plan as one side. Internally that uses the scenario's own forecast values to construct a synthetic "no changes" baseline — same shape, zero deltas. This is the version you want before merging anything: "what does the world look like with this scenario applied vs without".

Picking Base Plan on both sides is allowed but useless — the page will tell you so.

Picking the scenarios

If you arrive without a and b query params (or with only one), the page shows a picker. Search by name, filter by status, pick two. Both must be scenarios you can read.

What does not get compared

• Comments and approval history. That lives in Inbox and change review, not in the diff.
• Audit-level field history. The compare view shows current state, not the per-field timeline. For that, open the change list inside one scenario.

Why "Base Plan" matters

A common pattern: a manager creates a draft scenario to test an idea, leaves it for a week, then comes back. Live data has moved on — new hires, new projects, new allocations. Comparing against Base Plan tells them whether their scenario still makes sense given the new reality, or whether they need to refresh and start over.

TIP

For a single-scenario sanity check before merging, always run a Base Plan comparison. The deltas you see are exactly what will hit production data when you click merge.

Where to go next

• Scenarios workflow — create, edit, submit, merge.
• Inbox and change review — approve or reject pending scenarios.
• Scenarios API — list and read scenarios programmatically.