Axsium recently made a big announcement regarding Planara, our labor planning and analytics solution. This Planara update includes many new features and enhancements, including eight new API integrations we’ve established with UKG Pro Workforce Management. Let me tell you, these integrations are going to have a huge impact.
UKG Pro Workforce Management users can now take advantage of the full Planara experience. This means more accurate chainwide labor budgets and more alignment between Finance and Operations. It also means more accelerated and iterative labor planning processes, and more in-depth and timely analysis of labor performance.
Axsium has a long history of seamlessly integrating with UKG to help our mutual customers get the most out of their WFM system. For nearly a decade, Opus, our industry-leading labor modeling software, has enabled full integration of location-specific labor standards with UKG.
Planara now expands and enhances our UKG integrations, helping UKG users to seamlessly experience Axsium’s best-in-class labor planning and analytics platform. This functionality unlocks numerous benefits, but I’m going to focus on three key advantages over traditional forms of labor budgeting.
“A Single Source of Truth will Set You Free”
It’s all too common for companies to manage their labor budgets in a slew of spreadsheets. The same data and configurations reside in multiple models that become incredibly burdensome to maintain. Planara already centralizes key top-down and bottom-up planning data and assumptions in a single platform. But managing this becomes more seamless and easier to execute with our new UKG API-based integrations.
For example, Planara can now consume the most up-to-date business structure from UKG Pro Workforce Management. That means whenever you have effective-dated reorganizations, add new locations, or change your job or department structure in UKG, they can be updated in Planara with a click of the button.
This single source of truth means the days of building labor budgets in a silo and maintaining redundant data are over. The days of better, more timely decision-making are here to stay!
“Timeliness is Next to Godliness”
For most organizations, last minute requests are part and parcel with labor budgeting. But budget models tend to be rigid, so pivoting on the fly to try out new methods or align to new metrics isn’t easy.
Planara already streamlines the labor planning process, enabling users to proactively configure multiple sets of business rules for flexible what-if scenarios. With the new UKG Pro Workforce Management integrations, our customers can accelerate this process even more.
Planara can now incorporate the latest forecast, actual, and earned business metrics into labor plans via near-real-time API integration. Last minute requests aren’t likely to stop, but you can rise to the challenge and react nimbly with Planara. And you can incorporate the latest volume and labor data. Leadership will have greater confidence in your results and marvel at the amazing turnaround times you can provide.
“Less Process, More Insights”
The best part of my job is interacting with Axsium’s customers and digging deeper into their labor planning challenges and requirements. For the vast majority, the bulk of their labor planning process is dedicated to administrative overhead.
I have a simple formula to explain the problem with this situation. The time you spend on the mechanics is time you aren’t using to analyze, contextualize, and fine tune the resulting plans.
Planara already helps fast-track analysis with a wide range of embedded PowerBI reporting and dashboards. But with our new API integrations, this analysis can now happen even faster.
For example, Planara can now streamline the monthly labor re-forecasting process. It does this by automating the updates of prior period actual performance and the current period forecasts from UKG Pro Workforce Management.
This helps users more rapidly review performance trends, incorporate the latest projections, and evaluate what the updates mean for the company’s full-year goals. As one of our customers recently told me, Planara makes labor planning “less about the process and more about the insights.”
Planning like a (UKG) Pro with Planara
I’m always happy to talk to people about the huge value Planara can bring to their labor budgeting process. And when the new API integration with UKG Pro Workforce became a reality, I knew I had to share a few of the benefits that are now fully available to UKG and Planara users.
Planara doesn’t just make your labor budgeting process easy. It aligns your Finance and Operations teams and helps you analyze your labor planning more accurately. Planara accelerates your decision-making, helping you to adapt quickly to the changing realities on the ground. And now UKG users can experience the full impact Planara can have on your business.
Want to learn more about Planara? Get in touch with our team to talk about what Planara can do for you!