Your incentive programmes in Optio are organised as plans and subplans. A plan is the top-level container (for example, "2026 Long Term Incentives"); subplans live inside a plan and define the actual instrument, settlement type, and behaviour applied to each grant (for example, "2026 Options" and "2026 PSUs").
The Plans & Subplans page in Customer Admin is where you set them up and keep them current — directly, on your own terms. From a single table you can create new plans, configure subplans, export the whole structure for audit, and open the awards and Award Agreements that belong under each subplan.
Worth knowing: plans and subplans can also be created as part of other flows in Optio — for example, they're created automatically when tranches are imported under names that don't yet exist. The Plans & Subplans page is the place to set up the shell of a plan before any awards are added, and to configure existing plans and subplans afterwards. It's also where you generate Award Agreements (and 7P Acceptance documents).
Before you start
- Plan basics ready. Have the plan name, start date, end date and the total number of instruments in the plan ready before you create it.
- A clear picture of each subplan. You'll need the instrument type (Options, RSU, PSU, etc.), settlement type (Equity or Cash), and any settings such as performance-based vesting or whether the subplan should be hidden from employees.
Open Plans & Subplans
Go to Plans & instruments → Plans & subplans in the left navigation.
The page opens on the full table of plans for your company. Each row is a plan; each plan can be expanded to reveal its subplans underneath.
Find a plan or change what you see
- Search. Type into the search bar at the top of the table to filter by plan name.
- Expand a plan. Click the chevron on the left of a plan row to reveal its subplans. Expanded plans stay expanded as you scroll.
- Choose your columns. Click Columns in the top right to toggle which columns are shown. Available columns include the basics (Name, Instrument, Awards, Documents, Start date, End date, Ticker, Pool size, Equity plan type, Settlement type) and behaviour flags such as Performance, Hide for Employee, Use FV for SocSec and Excluded from Financial Reporting.
Create a new plan
- Click + New Plan in the top right of the page.
- A guided wizard opens. On the first step, Plan Information, fill in:
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| Plan name | A short, recognisable name for the plan. |
| Plan start | The first day of the plan, in DD/MM/YYYY format. |
| Plan end | The last day of the plan. |
| Number of instruments in the plan | The total pool of instruments authorised for the plan. |
-
(Optional) Toggle Default termination rules on if you want to define what happens to instruments when an employee is terminated under this plan. The available default behaviours are Employee keeps all vested instruments and Employee loses all instruments. For the full setup, see Setting termination rules in the Optio portal.
- Click Continue to Subplans to set up the subplans that will live under this plan.
- Follow the next steps in the wizard to add one or more subplans (see Subplan settings explained below), then save.
Tip: the plan only saves once you've completed the wizard. Use Cancel at any step to back out without creating anything.
Add a subplan to an existing plan
If a plan already exists and you need to add another subplan to it:
- Hover over the plan row and click + New Subplan on the right.
- Fill in the subplan form (see below).
- Click Save.
Edit a plan or subplan
- Edit a plan: hover the plan row and click the pencil icon. The plan edit form opens with the existing values pre-filled.
- Edit a subplan: hover the subplan row and click the pencil icon. The subplan edit form opens with the existing values pre-filled.
Subplan settings explained
Each subplan has the following fields:
| Field | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Subplan name | The name shown across the system and in exports. |
| Equity plan type (optional) | Categorises the subplan (e.g. ESOP, RSU programme). |
| Instrument type | The underlying instrument (Options, RSU, PSU, Shares, Phantom, etc.). Drives a lot of downstream behaviour. |
| Settlement type | How awards settle when exercised or vested — Equity or Cash. |
| Tickers (optional) | The ticker the subplan uses for share price lookups. |
In addition, several toggles control how the subplan behaves:
| Toggle | What it does |
|---|---|
| Performance | Marks the subplan as performance-based. Use this for awards whose vesting depends on a performance condition (e.g. PSUs). |
| Use fair value for social security provision | Tells the Financial Reporting engine to use fair value (rather than intrinsic value) when calculating the social security provision for this subplan. |
| Hide for employees | Prevents participants from seeing this subplan and the awards under it in their participant portal. Use sparingly, typically for internal or pre-announce subplans. |
| Hide from financial reporting (archived) | Marks the subplan as archived: it is excluded from Financial Reporting outputs and reports. Use when a subplan is no longer in active use but its data must be preserved. |
Export your Plans & Subplans
Click Download in the top right of the page to export the full structure as an .xlsx file. The export includes plan and subplan fields and is useful for audit, reconciliation, or sharing the plan setup with colleagues offline.
See the awards under a subplan
Each subplan row has an Awards column showing the number of awards that belong to it. Click the number to open the awards table pre-filtered to that subplan — handy when you want to inspect what's been granted without leaving Plans & Subplans behind.
The awards table opens in a new tab so you can keep your place on Plans & Subplans.
Manage Award Agreements
Each subplan also has its own Award Agreement templates and generated documents. From the subplan's three-dot menu, choose Award agreements to open the template and document view for that subplan.
Delete a plan
Deleting a plan is a destructive, cascading action — every subplan, award, tranche and transaction beneath it goes with it.
- Hover the plan row and click the trash icon.
- The confirmation dialog appears:
- "Do you want to delete this plan?"
- "This action will also delete all associated subplans, awards, tranches and transactions. This action cannot be reversed."
- Type the plan name exactly into the Confirm deletion field to enable the Delete button.
- Click Delete.
If you're unsure, click Cancel at any point. Nothing changes until you confirm.
Frequently asked questions
Can I have multiple subplans under one plan? Yes — and this is the typical setup. One plan, multiple subplans by country, role, instrument variant or performance condition.
Can I move awards between plans or subplans? Yes — moving awards across subplans is done from the Tranches view, not from Plans & Subplans. Open the tranche you want to move and reassign it to the target subplan there.
What happens to Financial Reporting outputs when I archive a subplan? Hide from financial reporting (archived) excludes the subplan from Financial Reporting outputs going forward. Existing reports that have already been generated are not retroactively changed.
Do I need a separate subplan per language? No. Language matching happens at the Award Agreement level — a single subplan can have agreement templates in multiple languages.
Related articles
- Setting termination rules in the Optio portal — define what happens to vested and unvested instruments when an employee is terminated.