Plan your ChangePlan configuration

Who this is for: Admins and project leads setting up ChangePlan for a new organisation

Use this guide to decide how ChangePlan should be configured for your organisation before your onboarding. When you're done, send your choices to the ChangePlan team and we'll set the system up for you.

Before you start

Bringing in ChangePlan changes how people do their jobs, so involve the people who'll use it in deciding how it's set up. Read this guide first, then gather your team's input on anything where opinions or needs differ.

Every choice here maps to a tab on the Settings page, which only admins can see (click Settings in the left menu). Your admins are shown these tabs in their onboarding training.

1. General settings (Settings > General settings)

Company logo: shown on system emails, such as pulse checks and feedback surveys, and on PDF and PowerPoint exports. It's added as a link to your logo image.

Date format: international (DD/MM/YY) or United States (MM/DD/YY). Everyone in your organisation uses the same format, so agree on one across countries.

Portfolio name: ChangePlan groups work in three levels: enterprise, portfolios and initiatives. You can rename the Portfolio level to match your terminology, such as program, focus area or strategic pillar.

Hashtags and initiative types: two optional fields for grouping initiatives in ways other than by portfolio. Hashtags (formerly Function) is multi-select, for tags or labels. Initiative types (formerly project type) is single-select. Both can be turned on here, appear as columns and filters on the Initiatives page and in reports, and are filled in on Edit initiative. Unless you have a specific need, we don't recommend using them at first; you can turn them on later.

Activity burden heatmap sensitivity: the Activity Burden Heatmap shows how much time people spend away from regular work because of change activities, such as meetings, training, presentations and coaching. Because organisations tolerate this differently, you can set the hour thresholds at which the heatmap changes colour.

2. Checklist and change phases (Settings > Initiative)

Checklist items are the deliverables your team completes on every initiative. There are 10 by default, and you can add or remove items. Each checklist item can have a start date, due date, progress percentage, estimated time, actual time and one or more owners.

Change phases are the stages of the stakeholder change journey, shown on the Kanban view of an initiative's activities. There are five by default and you can rename them. If you use fewer phases, leave one or more blank.

Each pulse check is tied to the change phase it checks on, so keep phases close to the defaults. Activities don't have to have a change phase, but an activity needs one if you want to send a pulse check with it.

3. Impacts (Settings > Impacts)

Impact types let you summarise the kinds of change each initiative brings. The defaults are Customers, Organizational, Structural, Technological and Environment, and there's no maximum. Only the type name shows in the list when someone adds an impact; its description shows on hover, so everyone understands the types the same way. For example:

Organizational: affects structure, culture and strategy, including leadership, communication and business objectives.

Structural: changes hierarchy, reporting lines and responsibilities.

Technological: introduces or changes technology, systems or tools.

Impact level helper text explains what High, Medium and Low impact mean in your organisation. It shows on hover so everyone rates impacts consistently.

4. Risk categories and activity types (Settings > Initiative)

Risk categories: some change teams track the change management risks on each initiative, shown in a table on the initiative's risks. This lets you report on how each risk was managed.

There are 7 risk categories by default. You can rename, add or remove them, with no minimum or maximum.

Activity types: activities are the interventions that move people through the change journey. When someone clicks + Add activity, they choose a type from three fixed categories: Communication, Learning and Custom.

The categories can't be changed, but you can add your own activity types for everyone to use. All types are listed alphabetically. Users can also type a one-off custom activity type on a single initiative; it isn't added to the shared list.

5. Org chart (Settings > Org chart)

A single list of your people is one of the biggest benefits of ChangePlan: you can see what's happening for each group across every initiative. Choose how to bring in your org chart:

Enter it by hand: add top-level and nested org groups on the Org chart tab. Best for smaller organisations.

Import it from Excel: use the import template on the Org chart tab.

Sync it from your HR system or Active Directory: set up an automated feed so your org chart stays current.

You can name your org chart levels. We recommend simple names such as Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. ChangePlan supports up to 11 levels, though most organisations use 3 to 5.

Setting up your org chart is one of the most important onboarding steps, and the ChangePlan team will help you choose the best approach.

6. Key dates (Settings > Key dates)

List dates and blackout periods that should appear on everyone's timelines, such as year-end or peak trading. Each has a description, start date and end date. If you mark one as a blackout period, users are warned when they schedule an activity in it.

7. Assessment (Settings > Assessment)

Pulse check questions: readiness questions match your change phases, one per phase. You can reword them for the whole organisation, but not per initiative, so results can be compared across projects. ChangePlan also tracks three adoption measures, by default Uptake, Proficiency and Usage outcome. You can rename them and change their questions.

Pulse check results are gathered automatically and shown on the Reports page.

Change Canvas: the canvas gives an overview of each initiative. Its sections can hold text, images, links and files, and you can turn sections on or off and rename them.

On an initiative, people add content to a section with its edit button.

Change effort assessment: a high-level assessment of how much change management effort an initiative needs, so you can right-size your resources. The first six questions cover the scale of the change.

The next six cover how easily people can absorb the change.

Each question has five answers on a Likert scale. You can reword the questions and answers, but not change how many there are. If you already use your own assessment, map your questions onto ChangePlan's, replacing or merging questions as needed. If you have more than 12 questions, merge some together.