Capacity, allocations and utilisation
See each person's hours for every week, what is promised to projects and what is free. With SmartMy HRMS, leave and holidays are taken out. Utilisation and billable percentage come from the hours people actually log.
PLANSFrom Growth
The problem it solves
- You say yes to a new project and find out a week later that the two people it needs are already booked.
- A planner counts someone as free in a week they are on leave or the office is closed for a holiday.
- Nobody can say who is overloaded and who has room until the timesheets come in.
- Utilisation is worked out once a quarter in a spreadsheet, too late to act on.
How it works
- Set the entity's working hours a week (40 to start with). For part-timers, set their own Project Hours a Week on the user.
- Allocate people to projects under People > Allocations. Give the person, the project, From and Until, and either hours a week or a % of their capacity.
- Each night the Capacity rows are worked out per person and week: the last four weeks and the weeks ahead (8 to start with). Changing an allocation or deciding a leave request updates the weeks it touches at once.
- Open People > Capacity: a pivot of people down and weeks across, showing free hours. Over-allocated rows are red, with a filter to see only them.
- Look back with Reporting > Utilisation: past weeks by person, available hours against hours logged, with utilisation and billable percentage.
Everything it does
Capacity of a person
- Working Hours a Week per entity: 40 to start with
- Project Hours a Week on the user overrides it, for example 20 for a part-timer; empty uses the entity's
- Weeks run Monday to Sunday; an allocation that covers part of a week counts its working days, Monday to Friday
Allocations
- Person, project, From, Until and a note
- Allocated As: Hours a Week, or % of Capacity (50 % of a 40-hour week is 20 hours)
- Until cannot be before From; hours and percentages cannot be negative
- List and month calendar views; filter Now and Coming; group by person or project
- Every change is kept in the allocation's history
Capacity per person and week
- Capacity: their hours a week
- Leave and Holidays: with SmartMy HRMS, approved leave (half days as halves) and the holidays of their holiday calendar; a day counts once
- Available: capacity less leave
- Allocated: their allocations in that week
- Free: available less allocated; a negative number means over-allocated
- Logged and Billable: hours from their time entries that week, leaving out weeks sent back
- Utilisation %: logged hours divided by available hours; Billable %: billable hours divided by available hours
Views and reports
- Capacity: pivot by person and week (free hours), a list, and a bar graph of available against logged
- Filters: This Week and Coming, Past Weeks, Over-allocated; group by person or week
- Utilisation: past weeks grouped by person, as a graph, list or pivot
- Refresh on the Capacity list works the rows out now, for managers
- The Delivery dashboard has a tile for over-allocated people
Who uses it
Projects ManagerAllocates people to projects, checks who is free before taking on work, and reads utilisation.
Delivery headWatches the over-allocated filter and the dashboard tile, and moves people between projects.
Projects AdministratorSets the working hours a week and how many weeks ahead are worked out.
HR, with SmartMy HRMSApproves leave and keeps the holiday calendars; capacity follows by itself.
Where you use it
- Web: Projects > People > Capacity and Allocations, and Projects > Reporting > Utilisation (managers)
- The Delivery dashboard: over-allocated people
- Not in the phone app: capacity is planned on the web
What you control
Settings
- Working hours a week: 40 (Settings > Projects Capacity)
- Weeks ahead worked out each night: 8
- Project Hours a Week per person: empty, so the entity's hours apply
Works with
SmartMy HRMSApproved leave, half days and the holidays of each person's holiday calendar come off their available hours; a leave decision updates the weeks it covers.
Questions
Does capacity know about leave without SmartMy HRMS?
No. Without SmartMy HRMS there is no leave in the count, so available hours equal capacity. With it, approved leave and holidays come off by themselves.Can I allocate someone as a percentage?
Yes. Choose % of Capacity and enter, for example, 50. The hours follow the person's own hours a week, or the entity's.What counts as logged hours for utilisation?
Their time entries of the week, whether draft, submitted or approved. Weeks sent back are left out.Can team members see their own capacity?
The People and Reporting menus are for managers. Team members see their own hours in Time and on the My Work dashboard.Does a week of four working days work?
Allocations are spread over Monday to Friday. For a shorter week, lower the hours a week of the entity or of the person.Which plan has it?
Growth and Scale. Leave and holidays in the count need SmartMy HRMS.Related features
TIMEWeekly timesheets with approvalEach person's time for the week sits on one sheet, sent on Friday. The project manager or your approval chain approves it as a whole. Approved hours become the project's cost and what you bill.TIMETime entries with a timer and a weekly gridYour team keeps time on projects and tasks in the way that suits the work. Use a timer on the task, a weekly grid of projects and days, or a line in the list. Each entry is billable or not and lands on that person's weekly timesheet by itself.TIMETime checked against attendanceWith SmartMy HRMS, each submitted week is compared day by day with the person's attendance. It finds more hours than they worked, time on a day of leave or a holiday, or time on a day with no attendance. You choose to warn the approver or to block the week until it matches.PROJECTSClient projects with team, value and healthEvery project holds its client (or marks it internal), Entity, currency, value, dates and the team with their roles and dates. The project manager sets its health, On Track, At Risk or Off Track, with one line on why.CLIENTS, DASHBOARDS, APPS, AIDashboards: My Work, Delivery and MoneyThree ready dashboards open first in the Projects app. My Work is for everyone, and Delivery and Money are for managers. Every number counts only what the viewer may open, and a click shows the records behind it.MONEYProfitability per projectOne row per project with revenue, cost, margin and budget used, read from the project's budget ledger. Time is costed at each person's cost per hour, and filters show the projects losing money or over budget.
See your next project on it.
Tell us how many people keep time, how you bill your clients today (hours, fixed price, retainers) and what you use now. We will set up one of your real projects with you.