Create Your Plan

Getting a plan built in Cascade is quick and painless. You can add a plan from anywhere inside the workspace. 

• Click from the top-right of any of the pages, and select Add plan.

• From Plans and Teams > All plans, and click Create new plan.

• You can also create a plan for your team - Navigate to Plans and teams > All teams page, and select your Team, and in the Teams Home Page, click Add new plan. 

Name and Description:

Enter a relevant title in the Plan name. Keep the title concise as there's a 50 character limitation and use the Description box to provide additional context.

Use the Description field if you need to summarize the plan details or enter the Mission, Vision and Value statements. You can add Headlines and paragraphs, and use the rich text editor to

• align the content left, right or center,

• add ordered or unordered bullets to display details,

• highlight them in bold, italics or underline format.

You can also embed the videos (copy-paste) directly or click the (Link) icon to add links to its source.

This detail will surface on the Planner page. If you wish to edit the plan name or description, click the three dots against the Plan name and click Plan Settings to do so. You can also do an inline edit of these from the Plan's sidebar in the Plan Alignment page or the Plan tab in the Focus area page - click the plan to view it from the sidebar and click the Pencil icon to edit.

Tags:

This is available only for Essentials and Enterprise+ tiers. You'll just see No tag in the list, if you have not created any. Create types to define the category of your work from Admin > Strategy Model. See Add Goal Tags: Advance Strategy Model Customization for details.

If types are created for plans, you can choose them from the list at the time of adding a new plan or later from the Plan settings.

You can apply only one Type to a plan at a time. If you wish to change the type set, click the three dots against the Plan name and click Plan Settings to do so.

Custom field template:

This is available only for Essentials and Enterprise+ tiers. Add a Custom field template from the list if you need the plan to have custom fields that you've defined. You'll see a list of those only when you've already added them. You can add custom fields from Admin > Custom fields. See Create Templates and Custom Fields.

Remember that the custom fields configured in a template, when applied to a plan, will be attached to all the entities in that plan, and cannot be restricted. i.e., if you've configured custom fields for objectives and measures in a template and then applied it to a plan, all the objectives and measures in that plan will display this field, and you cannot restrict this to a specific objective or measure.

You can apply only one custom field template to a plan at a time. If you wish to change the template added, click the three dots against the Plan name and click the Plan Settings to do so.

If you've different custom fields created in different templates but want all those to be applied to a single plan, then create all those relevant custom fields in one template and then select that template to the relevant plan.

Assign to a team:

If there're no teams added in your workspace, then click Add team and create the team. If you already have teams added, then choose one from the list to which you need to assign this plan. Once assigned, all the team members will have a default edit access to the plan unless you change it from the Share modal.

For more details, see How to Assign a Team to a Plan?

If you click the Add new plan from the Teams Home page, then in the Add new plan window, your 'Team Name' would be auto-displayed.

When access is given at a team level, then

• the team owner automatically inherits ownership of the plan,

• all the members of that team inherit the default view or edit access that you assign the team,

• if the team has a can view access, but the team members own or collaborate on goals, then they'll still be able to edit the goals they work on.

• within a team, viewers get default view access, while admins get default edit access,

• a team assigned to a plan at the time of its creation will automatically inherit view access,

• a team member once removed from that team, will no longer the access that's assigned to the team. However, if the team member owns or collaborates on a goal in the plan or given exclusive view/edit access, then they'll still retain that access to the plan, irrespective of they being removed from the team.

Parent plan:

If this is the first plan that you're creating or do not want this plan to be aligned to any other plan, you need not choose any plan here. But, if you already have a plan under which this new plan needs to be aligned, then choose that Parent plan from the list. Once a parent plan is chosen, you can see the alignment from the Alignment page. Also, the alignment score of a plan increases if there are shared focus areas between the direct parent and child plans.

Assigning a parent plan is important as it gives a clear visibility on how the plans and teams are aligned and how do they contribute towards the company's vision. 

Privacy settings:

This is available only for Essentials and Enterprise+ tiers. Determine the privacy settings for your new plan. By default, when a plan is created, it is set up as a "public" plan i.e., it has an "can edit" access to all members of a workspace.

A plan can either be set as a 

• public plan, i.e., setting up either "can edit" or "can view" for all the members of the workspace.

• or, private plan, i.e., setting up "no access" to the plan to maintain absolute privacy. For example, the plan has sensitive company information that you don’t want everyone to get access to but you still want to align the plan with the greater corporate objective on Cascade, or has confidential initiatives that need the highest level of privacy such as restructuring, cost-cutting and merge and acquisitions. This is available in Essentials and Enterprise+ tiers.

And to make a plan private, you have to just enable no access from the permissions drop-down. This plan will then not be available to anyone even for viewing in that workspace. However, an admin, owners and collaborators of the plan, will inherit the view and edit access, by default.

If you wish to share your private plan, then you can invite those people or teams by typing in their names or mail addresses, or type the name of the teams, and click Share. These people and the team members will then have access to this private plan.

Apart from this high-level access, you can enable access permissions at a user level too. Except for those with admin privileges, you can restrict the permissions of the owners and collaborators on a plan from the Share modal.

• When you set everybody in the workspace to have view or no access, then expand the Owners and collaborators section,

  • assign can edit access to if you wish them to edit both the plan and the goals they own,

  • or assign them can view access if you wish them to just edit their goals and not the other parts of the plan.

• Even if you're an owner or collaborator of an objective, you'll not be able to edit its success criteria (measures, actions or projects) when you've can view access assigned.

• When the owners or collaborators are assigned after the plan access is set to can view, then they'll automatically inherit only view access to the plan. However, they'll be able to edit the goals they work on.

Refer to the Plan Privacy article for more details on these settings.

Click Save, and your plan is now created. In the Planner page, you can start strategizing.

Your Strategy Model structures the Planner in the perfect way to start strategizing, so you can get started right away and just focus on the substance of your plan.

	You can edit the Plan Name by clicking into the text box. Click the star icon to mark it as favorite. If you did not assign the plan to a team while its creation, you can do so now by clicking Assign to Team. Click View alignment to view the plan's alignment in the organization from the Alignment page. You'll see this plan highlighted. If you did not choose a parent plan, then this plan will be displayed unaligned. Click Plan settings to edit the plan (name/description/parent plan/team). Please note that you cannot view/edit the plan date or its owner. In case of Essentials and Essentials and Enterprise++ tiers, you can also add types and apply templates with custom fields to the entities defined in this plan. Click Delete to delete the plan. Only the plan owners, admins, and those with edit permissions can delete. You need to first delete the objectives and its associated success criteria before deleting the plan. Remember that once deleted, there is no way of restoring the plan and its details. Click Share to share the plan. Type the mail addresses, and give them view-edit access. By default, admins inherit the edit access and the viewers inherit the view access. See Access and Permissions for more information.
	If you did not assign the plan to a team while its creation, you can do so now by clicking Assign to Team. See How to Assign a Team to a Plan? for details.
Plan Details Area
	Click Add focus area to either add a new focus area by entering the text and click +Create or choose to add an existing focus area from the list.
	Apply date filters to choose time horizons or custom dates to create new goals in that period and display only those goals in that time period. Select Hide completed option to filter goals whose progress completion is equal to or greater than 100%. See Time Horizons and Plans to know more.
	Enter the name of the focus area and choose a type in case of an Essentials and Essentials and Enterprise++ tier. If you want to change the name later or add some description, click Edit from the three dots against it. Click the three dots to explore them from the Plans and teams > All focus areas page, or remove the focus area from the plan. Note that if this has objectives under it, then only after deleting those, can the focus area be removed from the plan. You can expand or collapse the focus areas.
	Click Add objective to add the objectives, the outcome you wish for. Once you add an objective, you can click the + (plus) icon, and select the relevant entity to add Nested objectives, Projects, Actions, Measures, and Contributing objectives.  You just enter the names for Projects, Actions and Measures and add those inline. However, when you click New objective, you can add a new objective that'll be the success criteria for the parent objective - these are the "nested objectives", and when you click Add Existing objective, you need to search for an already existing objective, and add them - these are the "contributing objectives".

Now that you've decided on all the needed information for creating a plan, you can now go ahead in creating the success criteria, tracking mechanism, and so on. Go through the articles in this section to learn those in detail.

FAQs

Where can I enter the mission statement and values?

Earlier, we had a Plan Principles area in the Planner page where the vision, mission, and the values were defined. However, you can add these now in the Teams pages for your whole company. Navigate to Plans and Teams > Teams page, and add the vision, mission and values.

Or, use the Description text box in the Plan settings window to enter those details with the rich text editor.

How to see changes made on a plan?

While you cannot see the changes made on a plan, you'll be able to track the changes or look at the audit trail of the goals from the Activity tab of their goal hub.

Click the icon in the sidebar of a goal to view its goal hub.

Can I change the plan owner?

No. But,

• If a plan is assigned to a team, and you change the team owner, then they'll automatically inherit the plan ownership. 

• If there is no team assigned to a plan, then the plan owner would be the one who created it and you'll not be able to change them.

How to approve plans?

Right now, you'll not be able to approve or endorse plans.

What is Planslation?

Planslation is the process of translating existing strategic goals, plans, or documents into a stronger and more streamlined structure within Cascade, so they become agile, dynamic, and executable.
There are a few key steps required to ensure that your existing documentation is structurally sound so that we can map it to a Cascade framework, import it into the system, and bring it to life! Reach out to us and we can guide you with the steps.

Can I create a private plan within a public plan?

No, but you can restrict access to goals within a plan making it partially private. Alternately, the best practice in this case would be to have the public plan as parent to a new plan and make it private. See Plan Permissions for details.

Can I apply different strategy frameworks to different plans in a workspace?

No, you cannot apply different frameworks to different plans. Once a framework is applied, all your plans in your workspace will be set up in that same framework.

Is there a sample plan template that I can use?

Yes, our Template library has a wide range of templates based on different verticals, strategy frameworks from which you can get inspired. If you do not have an account with us, clicking on Use template will let you create an account and workspace in "New Experience" with that template imported. If you already have an account, then this action will let you create a new workspace to get the template imported. If you're already logged into a workspace, then clicking on Use template will directly import that template to your workspace.

On import, you'll see the relevant plan in the Planner page, and you can get started right away.

Can I customize or rename the different constituents of the plan?

Yes, if you've admin permissions and are on a premium tier, you can customize the names of the constituents of the plan. For example, you can rename Objectives as Outcomes and see the change reflect across the workspace. For more details, see Flexible Strategy Model.

Why should we assign a parent plan?

Assigning a parent plan is important as it gives a clear visibility on how the plans and teams are aligned and how do they contribute towards the company's vision.

Can I clone or duplicate a plan?

No, you cannot clone or duplicate a plan as of now.

Where can I get a quick view on the items assigned to me?

The work that's assigned to you via actions or measures, and are due shortly are displayed under the My upcoming work section in your Home page.

Can I rename a plan?

Yes, if you're an admin or someone with edit permissions, you can rename the plan from the Plan settings accessed from the three dots against the plan name in the Planner page.

What is a parent plan and can plans be separate and not linked to a parent plan?

A top-level plan in your workspace is the parent plan. Yes, plans can be separate and cannot be under a parent plan. If they do not have a parent plan assigned, these plans would show up as unaligned in the Alignment page.

How to archive a plan? 

Right now, you cannot archive a plan. Though you cannot archive old plans at this point in time, our team is working to introduce more flexibility in strategy planning very soon.

How to delete a plan?

If you're an Admin or someone with can edit permissions on a plan, then click the three dots against the plan name, and click Delete. But you'll need to first delete all the objectives and the focus areas from that plan and only then will you be able to delete a plan.

However, if you wish to delete a plan with its goals, then you can reach out to our Support team and they'll delete the plans for you. Just remember that deleting a plan with all its components as such is permanent and impacts any downstream references to the plan contents (e.g. reports and dashboards) and there is no self-serve rollback mechanism or no plans to introduce undo/restore capability for the foreseeable future.

Can two teams have a same plan?

No, plans cannot be shared between teams. However, you can add different team members as owners and collaborators across any number of entities in different plans.

How do I export a plan?

You cannot export plans at this point in time.

Can I add multiple types to the same plan?

No, you cannot choose multiple types for the same plan.

Can I share plans with persons outside of my workspace?

Not at this point. You can only share your plan with the members in your workspace. You'll need to have admin privileges or edit permissions on a plan to share them.