Planful User Management Guide

• Model type: hybrid
• Description: Planful uses a combination of predefined role-based access (Administrator, Power User, Standard User, Read-Only) and granular dimension-level security. Dimension security restricts which financial entities, cost centers, accounts, or scenarios a user can see or edit, layered on top of the role assignment.
• Custom roles: No
• Custom roles plan: Not documented
• Granularity: Role level (coarse) plus dimension-level security (fine-grained: entity, cost center, account, scenario, and budget template access can each be individually scoped per user).

1. Log in as an Administrator.
2. Navigate to Administration > User Management.
3. Click 'Add User' or 'New User'.
4. Enter required fields: First Name, Last Name, Email Address, and assign a User Role.
5. Configure dimension-level security (entities, cost centers, scenarios) as needed.
6. Set the user's default landing page if desired.
7. Click 'Save'. The user receives an email invitation to set their password (if SSO is not enforced).

Required fields: First Name, Last Name, Email Address, User Role

Watch out for:

• If SSO is enforced, the user must exist in the IdP before they can log in; creating the user in Planful alone is insufficient.
• Dimension-level security must be explicitly configured after role assignment; a new user with no dimension access will see no data even with a valid role.
• Email address must match the IdP identity exactly when SSO is in use; mismatches cause login failures.
• There is no self-service user registration; all users must be created by an Administrator.

• Can delete users: No
• Delete/deactivate behavior: Planful does not permanently delete user accounts. Users can only be deactivated (disabled), which prevents login but retains the user record and all associated audit history, data entries, and report ownership in the system.

1. Log in as an Administrator.
2. Navigate to Administration > User Management.
3. Locate the user by searching or browsing the user list.
4. Open the user record.
5. Change the user's status to 'Inactive' or toggle the active/inactive control.
6. Save the change. The user is immediately prevented from logging in.

Watch out for:

• Deactivated users still appear in user lists and historical audit logs; they are not removed from the system.
• If the deactivated user owned scheduled reports or automated exports, those schedules may stop running and must be reassigned manually.
• There is no bulk deactivation UI documented; deactivation must be done one user at a time through the admin console.
• Reactivating a previously deactivated user restores their prior role and dimension security settings, which may be undesirable if their access scope has changed.

• Where to check usage: Administration > User Management (review Active user count against contracted seat total; no built-in license utilization dashboard is publicly documented).
• How to identify unused seats: Administrators can review the 'Last Login' date column in User Management to identify users who have not logged in recently. No automated idle-user report is publicly documented.
• Billing notes: Planful uses custom enterprise contracts with named-user licensing. Seat counts and role-type allocations are defined at contract time. Adding users beyond contracted counts requires a contract amendment. Pricing is not publicly listed.

Planful's permission model is a two-layer system: a coarse role assignment (Administrator, Power User, Standard User, Read-Only) combined with granular dimension-level security scoped to entities, cost centers, accounts, and scenarios.

This means provisioning a single user correctly requires both a role assignment and an explicit dimension configuration - a new user with no dimension access sees no data even with a valid role.

Bulk permission updates are not well-supported in the UI, so organizations with frequent role changes or large user populations absorb that overhead entirely in admin time. License hygiene adds another layer: identifying unused seats requires manually reviewing the Last Login column in User Management, as no automated idle-user report is publicly documented.

G2 reviewers flag the user administration interface as unintuitive, with meaningful onboarding time required for new admins. Dimension-level security configuration draws consistent criticism for complexity, particularly in organizations with many cost centers or entities.

The absence of bulk user management tools - for both provisioning and permission updates - is a recurring theme in community feedback.

Common complaints:

• Users report that dimension-level security configuration is complex and time-consuming, especially for organizations with many cost centers or entities.
• Reviewers on G2 note that the user administration interface is not intuitive and requires significant onboarding time for new admins.
• Some users report that there is no automated notification when a user's last-login date indicates inactivity, making license hygiene a manual process.
• Community feedback indicates that bulk user management capabilities are limited compared to enterprise expectations, particularly around bulk permission updates.
• Users note that SCIM provisioning is not clearly documented or readily available, making automated lifecycle management dependent on manual admin steps or custom IdP workflows.

Every app in a finance team's stack carries some provisioning overhead, but Planful's combination of manual-only workflows, two-layer permissions, and unconfirmed SCIM availability places it at the higher end of that cost. Teams with stable, small user populations and a dedicated Planful admin will find the manual process manageable.

Teams running frequent onboarding cycles, managing large numbers of dimension-scoped users, or operating without a dedicated admin should factor the recurring manual effort into their operational planning.

If automated provisioning is a hard requirement, direct engagement with the Planful account team to confirm SCIM availability under your contract is a necessary first step before committing to an IdP integration strategy.

Bottom line

Planful's manual user management is functional but operationally expensive at scale. The two-layer permission model - role plus dimension security - means every provisioning action requires deliberate configuration, and there is no shortcut for bulk updates or automated lifecycle management through publicly documented tooling.

For finance teams where Planful is a core system with regular user turnover, the administrative burden is real and should be staffed accordingly. SCIM availability is unconfirmed in public documentation; until that changes, manual admin steps remain the only documented path for user lifecycle management.