This article provides an overview of Plan Fields in OnePlan and explains how they serve as the foundation for capturing, organizing, and reporting on plan-level data.
What you will understand
What Plan Fields are, why they matter to your organization's planning processes, and how they connect to Plans, Plan Types, Areas, and Portfolio views.
Requirements
Before you begin, make sure you have:
- A OnePlan account with Administrator permissions
- Familiarity with OnePlan's plan structure, Plan Types, and Areas
What Are Plan Fields?
Plan Fields are customizable metadata fields that capture essential information about plans. They appear on the Plan Details page and throughout Portfolio views, allowing your organization to standardize how plan data is collected, organized, and reported.
Think of Plan Fields as the attributes that define your plans—status, owner, budget, timeline, priority, risk level, and any other information your organization needs to track. Whether you're managing a portfolio of strategic initiatives, tracking product development, or coordinating cross-functional projects, Plan Fields ensure everyone is capturing the same information in the same way.
A Foundational Building Block
Plan Fields don't exist in isolation. They are tightly integrated with other core OnePlan structures:
- Plans: Every plan is built from Plan Fields. They determine what information users see and enter.
- Plan Types: Different plan types can have different fields. An Initiative might track ROI and strategic alignment, while a Sprint tracks velocity and story points.
- Areas: Areas organize plans into logical sections, and Plan Fields control what's visible and filterable within each Area.
- Portfolio Views: Plan Fields power filtering, sorting, grouping, and column displays across all Portfolio views.
This integration means that when you configure Plan Fields thoughtfully, you create consistency and clarity across your entire planning environment.
Why Plan Fields Matter
Plan Fields are where governance meets flexibility. They allow you to:
Standardize Data Collection
By defining required fields, default values, and validation rules, you ensure that every plan captures the information your organization needs to make decisions, track progress, and report upward.
Enable Powerful Reporting and Filtering
Plan Fields make it possible to filter portfolios by status, owner, budget range, or any other attribute. They power dashboards, reports, and Portfolio views that help leaders understand what's happening across the organization at a glance.
Support Advanced Planning Scenarios
Beyond basic data entry, Plan Fields can:
- Perform calculations to roll up budgets, compute completion percentages, or track variances
- Apply conditional formatting to visually highlight risks, thresholds, or status changes
- Leverage AI to suggest values or generate content.
Create Relationships Between Plans
Using Lookup and Multi Lookup fields, you can link plans together, connecting initiatives to their supporting projects, or projects to their dependencies. These relationships make your planning structure navigable and traceable.
How Plan Fields Are Used
By Administrators
As an administrator, you configure Plan Fields to shape how your organization plans. You decide:
- Which fields exist and what they're called
- What types of data they capture (text, numbers, dates, choices, etc.)
- Which Plan Types use which fields
- Whether fields are required, read-only, or calculated
- How fields display (with conditional formatting or AI assistance)
Plan Fields are configured through the Plan Details form editor (accessed via Plan > Details > Form Editor > Plan Fields), giving you centralized control over your planning data model.
→ See Plan Fields - Guided Workflow - Create and Edit Plan Fields for the full configuration process.
By End Users
For end users, Plan Fields are simply the information they fill out when creating or updating plans. They see:
- Form fields on the Plan Details page
- Columns, filters, and groupings in Portfolio views
- Formatted values (colors, icons) that help them quickly understand status or priority
Users don't need to think about Plan Fields as a concept - they just interact with the data the fields collect. But behind the scenes, your field configuration ensures they're entering the right information in the right way.
What Plan Fields Enable
When configured effectively, Plan Fields enable:
✅ Consistency: Everyone captures the same data, in the same format, with the same validation rules
✅ Visibility: Leaders can filter, sort, and group plans to understand status, risk, and resource allocation
✅ Automation: Calculations, rollups, and AI reduce manual effort and ensure accuracy
✅ Insights: Conditional formatting and reporting turn raw data into actionable intelligence
✅ Traceability: Lookup fields create navigable relationships between related plans
✅ Flexibility: Different Plan Types can have different fields, supporting diverse planning methodologies
Key Capabilities
Plan Fields support a wide range of capabilities, from simple text entry to advanced AI-assisted behaviors:
Standard Field Types
Text, Number, Currency, Date, Choice, Multi Choice, User, Yes/No, Rich Text, Hyperlink, and Image fields cover most planning data needs.
→ See Plan Fields - Types of Plan Fields for a complete reference.
Calculations
Number and Currency fields can perform automatic calculations—rolling up budgets from child plans, computing percentages, or applying formulas.
→ See Manage Field Calculations.
Conditional Formatting
Apply visual styling (colors, icons, bold text) based on field values to draw attention to risks, thresholds, or status changes.
AI-Enabled Behaviors
Enable AI to suggest field values or generate content.
Relationships Between Plans
Lookup and Multi Lookup fields create navigable links between plans, enabling dependency tracking and hierarchical relationships.
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