Planning Activities

For easy understanding, we would like to explain the term Path and its meaning in the context of hierarchies.

A path in a hierarchy is the direct way from the root element to a child element at the lowest level. The following image shows several paths:

The image shows two paths along the red links, both starting from Plan A, one to Tactic LA, the second to Tactic SN. Of course, any other connection between Plan A and any other tactic is also a path.

Also note that paths share their ways down the hierarchy. The following graphic shows a part of the hierarchy with three paths:

The paths share the way via Campaign Q and Program FT. This is relevant for actions you perform on Campaign Q and Program FT, since these actions affect all three paths.

Within a hierarchy, a distinction is made between ancestors and descendants. It is important to define the starting point first, in this picture it is Program FT.

The upstream activities in the path are ancestors (Plan A, Campaign Q), the downstream activities are descendants (in preceding image the three tactics).
The term Parent may be used for the first ancestor, the first descendant is a child.

Each activity has the following properties:

• Name

• In-Market period with start and end date. The dates are not bound to a fiscal year.

• Activity type: Setting an Activity type defines the following:

  • Under which parent your activity can be created.

  • Which other attributes are displayed for the activity and which of them are required.

  • Whether workflows are associated with the activity, and if so, which ones.

  Note that the activity type cannot be changed after creation.

When you plan your marketing activities, the budgets for funding those activities may not yet be set. If you already have an estimate in mind for how much an activity will cost, you can use the Estimated Costs feature to enter the cost estimate directly in the details of that activity. This allows you to keep a record of your cost estimates in Uptempo, making it easy to reference them when the budget is finalized. Any Estimated Costs amounts you enter are only for your reference: they are not included in your financial planning under the Budgets or Investments sections, and the value is not evaluated by the Analytics functions.

To record a cost estimate for an activity, follow these steps:

1. In the activity hierarchy, click the activity to which you want to add a cost estimate.

   The activity's Details panel opens.

2. Click the Budget tab, then click the Estimated Costs section to expand it:

   

   Note:

   • If the activity you are viewing has activities in the hierarchy below it (child activities), these will be displayed in the expanded view. Any cost estimates set on those activities will also be displayed, along with a roll-up total that you can use to inform the total estimated cost for the parent activity you're viewing.

   • You can click on the name of any child activity shown to go directly to the Budget tab for that activity.

   • The Estimated Costs section is not expandable if you're viewing an activity that has no child activities, and you're using the total amount input format (instead of quarterly amounts).

3. Optional: All cost estimates have a default date range (typically, the in-market dates for the activity). To edit the date range, click the Edit the date range button in the Estimated Costs section, then use the date picker to select the start and end dates.

4. Enter the cost estimate amount in the Estimated Costs section. You will see either a single input field, or multiple input fields, depending on whether your Uptempo instance is configured for total or quarterly estimated cost amounts:

   Total Amounts (Single Input Field)

   If your Uptempo instance is set up to use the Total Estimated Costs format, you specify a single amount for the full date range.

   Enter the amount into the single total input field:

   

   Quarterly Amounts (Multiple Input Fields)

   If your Uptempo instance is set up to use the Quarterly Estimated Costs format, you specify separate amounts for each quarter in the date range.

   Enter the amounts into each of the quarterly input fields:

   

   If the date range covers more than one year, each of the years in the date range will also be shown. Click a year to switch to the input fields for that year.

   

   Note: 

   The system will always display the input fields for all four quarters. If any quarter is outside the specified date range, the corresponding input field will be disabled:

   

   All cost estimate amounts you enter are saved automatically.

5. You have successfully recorded a cost estimate for an activity.

To better compare and finetune estimated costs within the hierarchy, you can also use the Summary View. See Finetuning Estimated Costs for information of the different use cases.

When planning, you need to consider how you will finance your activities. To get an overview of the financial scope in your activity planning, you can link the activity to one or more categories, sub-categories, line items or placeholders in the hierarchy of the Investment tab.
Note that linking activity and investment is subject to certain rules, for more information see Rules for Linking Investments.
If the link is successful, the sum of the monthly plan columns will be displayed as the total planned investments amount. If you link multiple planned investments, you will also get the total amount of all links.

When planning marketing activities, you may have tangible results in mind. However, it is not easy to demonstrate the connection between these expected results and potential revenue generation and, therefore challenging to justify the required investment. Impact modeling allows you to project expected revenue from marketing activities based on your demand-generation goals. This process is essential in maturing marketing teams from being spend-oriented to result-driven.

To find out which revenue your marketing activities will generate, you can provide performance plan data as a first guide, for example, number of inquiries that should be generated by an activity. Your system administrator also maintains conversion rates, velocity and average deal sizes for your company's sales & marketing funnel. Based on this information, Uptempo calculates when the activity should generate what revenue. 

For more information see Planned Impact

In your company, activities can be linked to defined processes: the planning of an activity, for example a campaign, may have to go through an approval process. Or with the creation of a tactic, the creation of an asset is directly necessary, for example a digital ad for different channels. The creation goes through a defined process and can therefore be mapped in a workflow.

Your system administrator also manages the connection to workflow types for the activity types. A linked workflow can be started for each activity. The start of a workflow is either triggered automatically when the activity is created or manually by you. Which variant is chosen depends on the settings that your system administrator manages.

When a workflow is started for an activity, the activity and the workflow exchange data: Data of the activity can be displayed in the workflow and vice versa. Which data this is, is determined accordingly for the respective use case during setup. If you have any questions, please contact your system administrator.

For more information see Synchronizing Data.