Reuse Plans and Payout Rules

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Identify the steps to copy commission plans and payout rules.
  
• List the considerations for duplicating plan components.
  

Introduction

The Spiff Designer platform is designed to simplify and manage complex sales commission plans. It offers a range of tools and features tailored for flexibility and precision in handling sales data, creating payout rules, and generating commission calculations. The Plans and Data tabs provide a structured and efficient way to design, manage, and execute commission strategies in Spiff Designer.

The platform enables the reuse of components within these tabs. For example, as a sales manager setting up a new commission plan, you often find that much of the data, rules, and calculations you need already exist. Instead of building everything from scratch, you can simply copy these elements, saving time and effort.

However, managing commissions can be a complex process, and duplicating elements comes with its own set of rules and implications. Each type of element—be it a plan, payout rule, or calculation—can behave differently when you copy them. To reuse components effectively, it’s crucial to understand what happens during duplication, the considerations involved, and the specific steps to get it right. This ensures a seamless workflow while maintaining the accuracy and integrity of your commission plans.

In this module, you discover how to duplicate existing commission plans, payout rules, and strategies, helping you to tailor them to your unique business needs.

Copy Plans

In this module, we assume you're a Spiff administrator with the proper permissions to manage data. If you’re not an administrator for Spiff, that’s OK. Read along to learn how your admin would take the steps in a production org. Don't try to follow these steps in your Trailhead Playground. Spiff isn't available on the Trailhead Playground.

Imagine you set up a new commission plan that’s similar to an existing one—perhaps for a new team, a different region, or a slightly adjusted incentive structure. You can save significant time and effort by copying an existing plan, instead of creating one from scratch.

When you copy a plan, you duplicate all the associated rules as well. Explore how to do it step by step.

1. In Spiff Designer, navigate to the Plans tab.
   
2. Hover over the name of the plan you want to copy.
   
3. Click that appears next to the plan name to open the menu of options.
   
4. Select Copy Plan.
   

You’ve successfully duplicated a plan with a Copy suffix appended to its name.

Considerations

Remember these points when copying a plan.

• When you copy a plan, Spiff retains the original name and appends a Copy suffix at the end. To rename it, double-click the plan's name or click and select Rename Plan.
  
• Reps are not duplicated with the plan. You assign the appropriate reps to the newly copied plan manually.
  
• The duplicated plan rules retain the original plan’s calculations and logic. Modifying the logic in the duplicated plan also affects the original plan because they share the same underlying rules.
  
• Folders or elements nested under the original plan are not replicated. Copying only duplicates the plan, and not the nested items.
  

Copy Payout Rules

Payout Rules are the engine room of Spiff Designer—they power your plans with formulas, calculations, and tables. A great feature of payout rules is that you can share them across multiple plans, saving you the hassle of creating a new rule for every plan. For example, if you have a payout rule that calculates bonuses based on sales revenue, you can easily share this rule across plans for different teams or regions without recreating it each time.

In Spiff Designer, while there isn’t a direct option to copy a payout rule, sharing payout rules across plans is straightforward. Here’s how it’s done.

1. Navigate to the plan where you want to add the existing payout rule.
   
2. Click + New Payout Rule.
   
3. In the input field, type the exact name of the payout rule you wish to share from another plan.
   

You’ve now linked the payout rule to the current plan, and applied the rule’s calculations.

Considerations

Remember these points when copying a plan.

• Shared payout rules automatically apply the payout amount to the plan.
  
• There are two ways to delete a shared rule: Choose Delete Permanently to remove the rule from all the plans and select Remove from Plan to unlink it from the current plan.
  

The Spiff Designer platform simplifies the management of complex sales commission plans by helping you reuse and duplicate components efficiently.

In this unit, you explored the nuances of copying plans and sharing payout rules. This saves time and maintains the accuracy of your commission strategies. In the next unit, you learn how to copy and reuse datasheets, worksheets, and associated components.