A finance team shows us an Excel pivot. It comes straight from the Workday ledger. It shows allocated cost going out of each source cost center, split by sector and company. Their question is simple: can we see the same view in Workday Adaptive Planning?
It sounds like a quick report build. It is not. Before we build any report, we check one thing first. Where does this data actually live?
How the allocation flows
In this setup, the allocation runs across both Adaptive and Workday.
Users enter survey data in an Adaptive cube. Calc sheets turn it into percentage splits by sector and company. A source mapping sheet picks up SG&A expense at each source cost center. A journal model then creates the entries.
The journal has two sides. The OUT side sits on the source cost centers. The IN side sits on the target departments. The model tags sector and company on the IN side only. On the OUT side, sector is blank.
For plan and budget, the journal stays inside Adaptive.
For actuals, Adaptive sends the journal to Workday every month. Workday posts it and tags each line with source cost center, sector, and company. That tagging happens inside Workday. Workday then sends back only the IN side at the target department level. The source cost center detail never comes back to Adaptive.
What we test
We do not answer from the design document alone. We test it in the tenant.
We build a matrix report with both target departments and source cost centers, for actuals. Target departments show data. Every source cost center row shows zero.
We open the source mapping sheet and the journal model sheet directly. For actuals, the source cost centers are zero. For budget, the amounts are there, but sector is blank.
We switch the matrix report to the budget version. The source cost center rows still show zero, even though the sheets have the data. In this model, those accounts are internal to the modeled sheets, so the matrix report does not pick them up.
Why it cannot work today
Three things work together.
For actuals, Workday owns the source cost center tagging, and that detail does not flow back.
For plan, the journal model does not tag sector on the OUT side.
And the modeled sheet accounts that hold the OUT amounts are internal to the sheet, so standard reports do not show them.
What does work
The IN side works well. A report with target departments as rows and sector by company as columns, on actuals, gives the receiver view. It ties to the same total as the Excel pivot. It is the same money, seen from the other end.
Options we put on the table
Keep the source view in Workday. The Excel pivot stays as the audit tool for the OUT side, and Adaptive covers the IN side. No extra work.
Use Workday Prism Analytics. Bring the allocation journal lines with source cost center, sector, and company into Prism and build the report there. No change to the Adaptive model.
Build a new integration into Adaptive. Load source-level OUT data with sector and company from Workday. This means design, build, testing, and model changes, so it is a separate piece of work.
What we learn
A report question is often a data flow question. When we trace where the data is created, where it is tagged, and what comes back, the answer becomes clear. Here, the honest answer is “not in the current design”, along with three clear options. That helps the client more than a report that looks right but shows the wrong numbers.