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. 

• (Mandatory) Enter the Plan name.
• 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 data 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.
• (Mandatory, and available only for Essentials and Enterprise+ tiers)Type - You'll just see No type 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 Types: 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!
• Click Add team if you wish to add your team
• (Available only for 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.

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.

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

For a free comprehensive course on building a strategic plan in Cascade, click here.

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/parent plan/team). Please note that you cannot view/edit the plan date or its owner. In case of 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. 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 or choose to add an existing focus area from the library.
	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 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! 

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!

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 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 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!