The Guide has a patent pending on the template approach to defining the people that perform the work in your organization and the Systems that they use.  You enter data (fill out forms) that define the productivity algorithms (hours worked and non-productive time during the work hours) and true annual cost (compensation and other personnel costs) for your personnel categories.  You enter data (or choose pre-populated templates) that define the capacity algorithms (software and hardware demand limits) and true total cost of ownership (cash outlay in appropriate months, SW and HW investment, system integration, training and installation, maintenance, ongoing ops expense, operations personnel, and phased in productivity) of the Systems used by the personnel to when they perform the work.  The Guide creates Resources by combining the people that perform the work with the Systems they use.'

Tasks are the most granular work or process steps in your organization. Activities are made up of Task steps. Each Task is performed by a Resource. Each Task takes a specified time to complete (Duration) and occurs a specified number of times in a month (Volume).

Activities are the work functions performed in your organizations.  The steps involved in completing an Activity are defined as Tasks.  Activities have a volume that specifies how many times each Activity occurs in each month of the projection period.  Activities can be combined into Programs that enable Reports at the Program level.

Within the Business Driver component, you create relationships between your strategic planning parameter and the volume of your Activities.  For instance, in a product support organization, the installed base of the product "drives" the number of support calls received.

Modeling the Activities and Tasks for your organization creates a total demand for the resources assigned to perform the Tasks (Personnel and Systems).  This total demand flows back through the productivity (Personnel) and capacity (System) algorithms defined in the Personnel and System templates and produces the specific requirement for people and systems to perform the modeled work.

At this point, The Guide produces a series of Resource Reports that display the required headcount for each Personnel Category, and System Reports that reveal the demand placed against each System and the licenses and components required to meet the demand.

The Guide flows the projected Resource requirements back through the cost algorithms created in the Personnel and System templates.  A total budget is created.

At this point, The Guide produces a series of Budget Reports that display the budget required to perform the work as modeled in the Activities and Tasks. There are summarized/consolidated reports and very detailed reports that breakout each budget line.

The Guide sends the total budgets back to the Tasks where the Resource demand was created in the first place. The total budgets are divided into task costs based on the demand created by each Task.

At this point, The Guide produces a series of granular- to- summarized Reports that reveal the costs (Variable and Fully-Allocated) for each Task and Activity modeled.