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Shared Domains

Shared Domains

Owned by Abhi Doddi
Last updated: May 22, 2025

What are Shared Domains and how are they used?

Shared Domains is a mechanism for allocating the costs of Financial Domains (i.e. cost centers) that share resources and costs with other Financial Domains. There are special cases where multiple Financial Domains may share the same service or resource with their own specific allocation of that cost. This can be solved by using Shared Domains.

 

Figure 1

 

When looking at this particular View, we can see that App1 and App2 both share Shared Services. The question that arises is how exactly do we know what App1’s and App2’s portion of their Shared Services cost is? Depending on the use case, are two different ways to split these costs: by percentage or proportion.

Figure 2

 

“Parent” Domain: Refers to the domains that have shared costs allocated to them, metaphorically acting as parents in the allocation heirarchy.

“Grandparent” Domain: Refers to the highest part of the allocation heirarchy where every other domain under it may share some percentage or proportion of the overall cost.

 

  1. Percentage-based allocation: users can map preset percentages to a definite set of “parent” domains within a particular View. These represent a percentage of the total cost between a set of Financial Domains that share a resource.

A definite set is a fixed number of “parent” domains that share a particular resource. This means that a user wanting to allocate a particular resource to an unchanging number of domains can do so by assigning them percentages. These percentages are assigned to “parent” domains 

 

NOTE: The sum of the all percentages mapped must less than or equal to 100%.

NOTE: Percentage based allocation is only available within a definite set of Financial Domains. So users must choose predetermined domains to assign percentages to.

 

Percentages are assigned to domains at the “parent” level where their subsequent children share the costs. 

For example: In Figure 2, App1, App2, App3, and App4 all share resources in a definite set. When configuring, the user may assign each a percentage of the cost that they are allotted. For example, App1 = 25%, App2 = 15%, App3 = 30%, and App4 = 30%. This means that each of these Apps share a percentage of the overall cost amongst multiple “parent” domains.

 

 

Figure 3

 

 

Figure 4

 

  1. Proportion-based allocation: users can map Shared Domains by proportion where the number of domains may be fixed (definite set) or unfixed (dynamic set).

 

A dynamic set is an unfixed number of domains that share a particular resource. This means that users configuring shared domains with domains that may or may not exist yet may do so with a dynamic set. This can be configured at the “grandparent” level (i.e. one level above the “parent” level), where any domains that should be shared proportionately can do so under that particular “grandparent” domain.

For example: In Figure 3, the Company is the “grandparent” level domain where any children within it share a proportion of the cost based on their utilization. In this case, Business Unit (BU) 1,2,3 all have costs of $25 each. BU1’s proportion is $25 / ( 25 + 25 + 25) = 33%, this is the same for BU2 and BU3. However, since this is a dynamic set, any newly added domains under the “grandparent” changes the proportion based on the utilization of the newly added ones. In this case, if we add BU4, the proportion of BU1 goes from 33% to 25%.

 

The formula: (Single Business Unit cost / sum of all of Business Unit costs)

A definite set with proportion allocation can also be configured and is simply a fixed number of domains that share a particular cost based on their utilization. They can simply be chosen beforehand and the subsequent costs will automatically be allocated based on their utilization.

 

How to create a Shared Domain?

 

  1. In order to create a Shared Domain, a user must first have a Financial Domain View and Financial Domain configured. To do so, please refer to here (Financial Domain Views) and here (Financial Domains).

  2. Once they have been configured, you can direct to the Shared Domain page (Governance tab -> Shared Domain). Here, the default page will be whichever View has been configured first.

 

In this case, the page defaults to the Project View’s Shared Domains. The user can switch into any other Views where they may want to create, remove, update those Shared Domains.

 

 

  1. Once inside the chosen View, users can see a list of its configured Shared Domains. From here, users can create, update, or delete Shared Domains within this View. 

  2. To create a Shared Domain, users can click on the multidirectional arrow icon at the top right which looks like the icon below.

 

 

  1. This should open an Add Shared Domain page where a user can add different financial domains.

  1. First assign the Shared Domain a name. Then to find the aggregate cost of the Shared Domain itself, find and move the resources whose cost should be distributed into the Selected table. Then save it.

 

  1. To configure the Shared Domain by allocating its cost to domains that may share this cost, click on the More button (three dots)  of the chosen Shared Domain. 

 

 

 

To distribute the allocated resources amongst domains, click on the Domain Allocation button.

 

 

Then choose the allocation type (percentage or proportion) and click Next.

If percentage is chosen, then the user is only allowed to choose from a Definite Set of Parent Domains to assign percentages to.

 

 

Once the Parent Domains are chosen, click Next

 

 

Finally, here the users can assign the percentages to each domain and apply them by clicking Apply.

If proportion is chosen, then the user can choose between either a Definite Set of Parent Domains or a Dynamic Set with a Grandparent Domain.