Contribution (write-back) overview#

Most of Reportworq sends information out: a report becomes a PDF, an Excel file, or a slide deck, and it lands in an inbox or a folder. Contribution runs the other way. It hands people an input form, collects what they enter, and writes those values back into a planning system.

The target is a real plan, not a mailbox. Collected numbers post back to an IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) cube, a SQL table, or a Workday Adaptive model, so the loop closes where the plan actually lives.

The mental model#

Three ideas carry the whole feature:

• A campaign is the object an author builds. It defines the input forms, who fills them, who approves them, the notifications sent along the way, and the export that pushes collected data to a target system.
• An input form is what a contributor sees. It is an Excel-based form rendered in the browser: input cells to type into, checkboxes and dropdowns to pick from, and validation that flags problems before submission. A planning toolbar above the grid carries the input tools and bulk operators, and a collapsible Details dock on the right holds the workflow status, history, and per-cell validation. See Fill in and submit a form.
• An export is what moves data out of the campaign. A campaign holds the values contributors enter in its own runtime. Nothing reaches the planning system until an export runs, gathers the collected values, and writes them to the configured target: a Planning Analytics cube, a database table, or a file. An export runs on a trigger (commonly when a form is approved), on a schedule, or by hand from the campaign dashboard.

A campaign is built on the same report machinery as any other Reportworq job, source worksheets, parameters, and optional bursting, so an author who can build a report can build a campaign. The difference is that the worksheets carry contribution formulas that turn plain cells into editable, validated inputs.

Contribution and data collection are not the same process#

Data collection is a separate Reportworq feature for collecting input workbooks, and a campaign does not run through it. Both write to planning systems, both are covered by the same license, and they are documented next to each other for that reason, but they are two distinct processes that do not blend today. They differ at every step of a round.

Data collection stands on its own merits. Sending a workbook out and letting an inbox collect it back is still the right answer when contributors work offline, when the round is small enough that assignments and approvals are overhead, or when an existing workbook already carries its write-back formulas. Reach for a campaign when you want assigned ownership, in-form validation, approvals, and a dashboard that shows who has not submitted. See Data collection processing.

How a cycle runs#

1. An author builds a campaign: designs the form worksheets, generates and assigns forms, sets notifications, and configures the export target. See Author a contribution campaign.
2. Generate Forms turns the definition into concrete forms, one for every output the report definition would produce. A definition that repeats per value, whether through a parameter set to One report per item or through burst sets, fans into many forms, for example one budget form per cost center, so each contributor sees only their slice. A definition that produces a single report produces a single form.
3. Before the round opens to real people, the author measures and sizes it: how much memory a form costs, how many contributors a server carries, and whether the experience holds up under load. See Scale and size a contribution campaign.
4. Contributors fill their forms in My Input Forms, clear any validation errors, and submit. See Fill in and submit a form.
5. If approvals are on, an approver reviews each submitted form and approves or rejects it. One approval closes a form, regardless of how many approvers are assigned.
6. An export pushes the collected data to the target system, on a trigger (for example on approval, or on a schedule) or run by hand from the dashboard.

Who does what#

Contribution is not a separate account type. Anyone who can sign in, a User, an Author, or an Administrator, can be assigned as a contributor or approver on a Contribution-licensed installation, and My Input Forms simply appears in their side rail alongside everything else they already see.

When to use contribution#

Reach for a campaign when you need to gather data from people and put it back into a plan: a budget submission round, a headcount input round, a driver-based forecast, or any cycle where owners enter numbers you then consolidate. If you only need to send a report out, a standard report job is the right object, not a campaign.

Write-back requires the licensed Contribution capability, which includes Data Collection, to post data to a target. Without it you can still author campaigns and collect input, but the export cannot write to the plan. See Data collection processing.

Going deeper. The formulas that define input cells, validation, and controls live in the form worksheets. See Contribution functions.