What-If Cost Estimates (WICE) are managed on the WICE screen. You can create group or individual estimates on this screen. The five most recently submitted What-If Cost Estimate requests will appear in the list.
Create a Group Estimate
To create an group estimate,
Navigate to the WICE screen at the Company Level.
Enter a description and click
. You have an option to leave it blank and fill it out together with the other details.
A Group Estimate has two section: request details and staffing matrix.
Once details are filled out, a report can be generated
Request Details
Fill out the applicable fields for the request details:
Context: Select Group. This determines if your estimate is an Individual or Group estimate
Description: Enter a unique description, such as the location(s) or policy of the assignment. This field is how the What-If Cost Estimate will be recorded and displayed.
Type: Choose a template to apply to the Estimate. This dropdown list is populated only with templates that are configured to be available for What-If Cost Estimates and displays the Alias of the template (editable on the What-If Cost Estimate tab of the Cost Estimate Template screen).
Policy: Choose an Assignment Policy to apply to the. External users will see the External Policy Name. Note: Although What-If Cost Estimates can be run with an applied Assignment Policy, What-If Cost Estimates details can never be transferred to a real assignment
Project: Choose a Project to associate the record to an existing project in the platform. The start and end dates will also auto-populate to the configured start and end dates in the Project record. You can still change the dates as necessary. Note: This option will be available after activating the system preference: Enable WICEs to be associated to a project record (EQEGRWIAPR)
From Location: Choose a supported tax authority. This includes Country, State (if applicable) and City.
To Location: Choose a supported tax authority. This includes Country, State (if applicable) and City.
Start Date: Enter the start date of the assignment for the assignee/s
End Date: Enter the end date of the assignment for the assignee/s
Family Builder icons: Indicate whether the potential assignees are married or single, how many total children the assignees have, and which members of the family will be accompanying the assignees on the assignment.
Work Time (for Host Country and Home Country): Note, the Values entered in the Work time in Host and Home field are used to help derive a host percentage which is then applied to the Months in Host calculation - see more details here. This Host % is then also used in the Equus Tax Engine for the “Include Home Work-time Cost”.
Click
. If there are additional calculation inputs, this will appear first before the staffing matrix.
Additional Custom Fields
The Custom Fields popup in What-If Cost Estimates (WICE) is configured via the Custom Field (Cost Estimate) settings. Any custom fields added to Cost Estimates will automatically appear as options in this new popup, enabling users to tailor the WICE experience with relevant, custom data points.
To add or remove fields from the popup, users can modify the visibility and required status for specific features using DDMO settings with the Override Level set to "Just This Page." This ensures that only relevant custom fields are shown, respecting the configuration for individual use cases.
Additionally, mentions of Custom Fields may need to be included on the Individual and Group WICE pages to align with updated functionality. Custom fields for WICEs are sourced from the COST_ESTIMATE_CF table, and DDMO settings ensure that:
Fields can be marked as Visible or Required.
Captions can be overridden for clarity.
Custom Field configurations respect page-specific overrides, maintaining consistency across WICE pages.
Staffing Matrix
Fill out the applicable fields for the staffing matrix. When staffing, users can add, delete, and copy records up to 25 records. The entries can be different per role depending on the coverage per company policy.
Report Currency: this dictates the currency of the Group Summary report; individual estimate reports are not impacted with this selection.
Role: Name of the resource roles included in the estimate
Headcount: The headcount field represents how many people are in a role. For instance, you may have an estimate with 5 people, but spread across 3 different roles. This field acts as a multiplier for each of the line items in both the individual estimate and Group Summary.
Policy: Choose an Assignment Policy. External users will see the External Policy Name.
From Location: Choose a supported tax authority. This includes Country, State (if applicable) & City.
Start Date: Enter the start date of the assignment for the assignee/s
End Date: Enter the end date of the assignment for the assignee/s
Annual Base Pay: Enter the salary grade of the assignee/s
Salary Grade: Enter the salary grade of the assignee/s
Work Time (for Host Country and Home Country): By default, the values can be different for each record staffed. See Work Pattern for more information.
Spouse Accompanying: Select if a spouse will be accompanying the assignee/s
Children Accompanying: Enter the number of children accompanying the assignee/s
Click
to return to the request details section.
Generate Reports
A Group Summary report together with Individual WICE estimates will be produced for each record that was staffed.
The naming conventions of both group and individual estimates are as follows:
Group - Description Entered - Group Summary
Individual - Description Entered - Role Name Entered
To generate the report, click
in the staffing matrix. If the What-If Cost Estimate is generated successfully, a PDF icon will appear containing the What-If Cost Estimate report. Click the icon to download the report. Click the PDF icon next to any successful What-If Cost Estimate to download it.
A red exclamation point will appear if there is an error
The Group Summary report contains:
Top Section of the report will show:
Project Name: Description in Group Request details
Report Currency
From Country
Start/Closing Date, Note, the start date is the earliest start date of the staffed records and closing date represents that furthest out end date.
Line item Section shows totals for each role that was staffed in the estimate. Each of the section names represent the line item section total. Each of the role names will appear with their corresponding totals.
Note, If the Prevent Report Output for Errors and Warnings check box in the what-if cost estimate template configuration screen is ticked, and there are individual what-if cost estimates that have line item errors, the group what-if cost estimate will fail. Furthermore, the What-If Cost Estimate Contains Errors standard quick workflow will send out a notification that the individual What-If Cost Estimate has failed due to line item errors.
View Reports
The most recently submitted What-If Cost Estimate requests will appear in a list on the screen. Click
to view a complete list of all What-If Cost Estimates.
Here you can:
Toggle between “My Estimates” and “All Estimates” to view only What-If Cost Estimates that you’ve requested or What-If Cost Estimates requested by all users.
Enter text in the Search box to filter the grid by Requestor or Description.
Things to Note
The Base Salary and Grade Fields are hidden in the request form for group estimate and will be filled out in the staffing matrix
The 'requires review' feature is not a supported feature on the group summary, so it is highly suggested this field is left unchecked on the template. Individual estimates can still be access and estimates posted, but users will be unable to view the group summary report.
Only internal users with the appropriate access will be able to access the CE wizard for each of the individual estimates produced from the group. Any changes captured in there, and saved will update the group summary. User should allow a few minutes for the updates to process before checking the group summary report.
You cannot access the wizard for the Group Summary Report.
Deleting the Group Estimate is not currently possible.
The company-level Group What-If Cost Estimate Import can be used to generate a Group WICE.