# What is Plan?

**Plan** is an Enterprise and Corporate Performance Management (EPM & CPM) solution built directly into **Microsoft Fabric**. It enables organizations to create, manage, and analyze plans—such as budgets, forecasts, and scenarios—within the same governed platform used for data, analytics, and AI. 

Plan brings together three integrated capabilities in a single unified suite: 

1. **Planning Applications** 
2. **PowerTable** for data management and data applications 
3. **Intelligence** for integrated reporting and insights 

By planning natively in Fabric, Plan eliminates the need for separate planning systems and spreadsheet-driven workflows. Organizations can unify **goals, plans**, and **actuals** on shared semantic models, enabling a shift from manual planning to **continuous & autonomous decision-making.**  

Plan completes a **full circle, future-ready data foundation** by unifying historical data, real-time signals, and forward-looking projections in a single environment that is **AI agent–ready by design**. 

### What Plan Enables 

Plan allows organizations to: 

* Perform **enterprise planning, scenario modelling, and what-if analysis**  
* Model and integrate **budgets and forecasts**  
* Automatically **write planning results back to Fabric SQL**  
* Unify **goals, plans, and actuals** on a shared semantic model  
* Manage **forward-looking reference data**  
* Perform **variance reporting and analysis**  
* Operate entirely within a **single, governed Fabric environment** 

### Why Plan in Fabric 

Traditional enterprise planning typically relies on multiple tools: 

* BI platforms for reporting on historical data 
* Separate planning or CPM tools for forecasts and budgets 
* Spreadsheets for modelling and scenario analysis 

This fragmented approach introduces data silos, manual reconciliation, delayed insights, and governance challenges. 

Plan addresses these challenges by bringing planning directly into Fabric. 

Historical data, real-time signals, and future projections are combined in one platform, using consistent definitions and governed access. 

### Unified Data Foundation 

Plan is built on Fabric semantic models, ensuring that planning and analytics share the same trusted business logic. 

With Plan, organizations can combine: 

* **Historical data** from Fabric analytics 
* **Real-time** or **refreshed operational data** 
* **Future projections and assumptions** 

Because plans are stored and governed in Fabric, they remain aligned with enterprise reporting and downstream analytics. 

### Designed for Business Users and the Enterprise 

Plan is designed to be accessible to business users while meeting enterprise requirements. 

**For business users:** 

* Native experience inside Fabric 
* **No code / low code** interactions 
* Familiar **Excel-like interface** 

 

**For enterprises:** 

* Centralized governance 
* Security and access controls 
* Scalability for large planning models 
* Alignment with Fabric administration and compliance standards 

 

This balance enables finance teams and business stakeholders to participate directly in planning without heavy IT dependency. 

### Core Components of Plan 

Plan consists of four primary components that support end-to-end planning workflows. 

### Planning Sheets 

Planning Sheets are used for budgeting, forecasting, and scenario modelling. They allow users to define assumptions, inputs, and calculated outcomes in a familiar, spreadsheet‑like experience. 

### PowerTable Sheets 

PowerTable Sheets enable structured planning at scale. They support large, dimensional planning models aligned with Fabric data structures and semantic models. 

### Intelligence Sheets 

Intelligence Sheets provide analytical insights and AI‑assisted reasoning over planning data. They help users understand variances, trends, and forward‑looking implications. 

### InfoBridge 

InfoBridge connects and integrates data across systems, ensuring planning data stays aligned with Fabric workloads and source systems. 

Plan extends Microsoft Fabric beyond analytics into enterprise decision intelligence. By embedding planning directly into Fabric, organizations can unify data, analytics, and planning in a single platform, reducing manual effort, improving alignment, and enabling proactive, AI-assisted decision-making.