The Business Planner is designed to simplify strategic planning by distilling company or departmental vision into a concise two-page document. The Business Planner helps leadership teams align on the organization’s direction by answering critical questions, which are divided into two main sections: Vision and Plan. A third section, SWOT, is for brainstorming and documenting Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Strengths.
Enable Permission to Access
To ensure certain Roles have access to the Business Planner, enable the permission in Administration >> Manage Roles >> and click Edit on the Role you’d like to enable this feature for. Scroll down to the “Access Permissions” section and toggle on “Create/Edit Business Planners” in the Meetings & Projects section. Select “Save Role” at the bottom, and you’re good to go.
Editing the Company Business Planner
Navigate to Performance > Business Planner and click the title of the “Company Business Planner“.
The Business Planner consists of three sections arranged in tabs: Vision, Plan, and SWOT. On the first tab, Vision, you will notice the Company Mission are already filled out; they pull from your Company Settings and can only be edited in Administration > Company Settings. All other items on Business Planner are editable. Edit each section by selecting the edit icon in the top right of each box. Save by selecting the ✅ or discard changes using the ❌. Text entered on the SWOT tab saves automatically.
Note: Existing Business Planners auto save anytime you update a section and save it; there is no option to save the entire plan.
Many fields in each section are simple text fields, but others are interconnected to other parts of the application. Here’s a list of those special fields:
- 3-Year Vision and 1-Year Plan > Long Term Goals: Add existing Initiatives to your plan (click in the box), or create new ones (select +Add Initiative).
- Rocks > Rocks for the Quarter: Add existing Projects to your plan (click in the box), or create new ones (select +Add Project).
- Issues List: Create issues and add them to the meetings in which they should be discussed (select +Add Issue).
Archiving a Business Planner
When updates to the Business Planner are needed (usually quarterly), users can archive the existing plan to preserve the work previously done and then move on to making updates. To archive a Business Planner, just click the Archive button below the plan title and then select OK to confirm.
Archived versions of the Business Planner can be accessed by selecting the Archive tab on the right side of the plan.
Create a New Business Planner
Creating a New Business Planner is just the same as editing an existing one, but with one important addition: saving the new plan. To create a new plan, select “+New Plan” from the main Business Planner page. Enter the title of your new plan then select “Create Plan”. Once created, you can edit your new plan, and it will autosave.
Embed a Business Planner in Meeting
From a particular meeting’s settings, scroll towards the bottom and toggle “Business Planner.” Select the Business Planner from the list of non-historical Business Planners and give that agenda item a name and dedicated number of minutes. The name defaults to “Business Planner” but you can re-name it in each meeting, if you choose.
Once in your meeting, you’ll see that agenda item. When you get to that agenda item, you’ll see your Business Planner embedded in your meeting, just like in the Business Planner tool.
Up Next: Meeting Overview
