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Allocations, Capacity and Utilisation

Resource planning puts people on projects for a period and sets that load against the hours they actually have. The Resourcing tab shows, week by week, who is over-allocated, who has room, and how each person's utilisation compares with their target, so you can see a clash before you promise the work.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Projects & Time:

  • Projects & Time — the console: the Resourcing tab, and each project's Team section
  • Resource Allocations — who is booked on which project, when and for how many hours, confirmed or tentative
  • Absence — approved and recorded time off

Admin Panel → Projects & Time:

  • Projects & Time — the same console for project managers

Confirmed and tentative

  • Confirmed allocations consume capacity and are what over-allocation is judged on.
  • Tentative allocations are shown under the confirmed figure and warn when they would over-allocate if confirmed, but never count against capacity. Use them for pipeline work.

Over-allocation is always a warning, never a refusal: you may know the person is doing overtime that week.

Allocating someone

  1. Open Projects & Time, choose the company and go to Resourcing, or open a project and go to Team.
  2. Click Allocate someone.
  3. Choose the Person and the Project (filled in when you start from a project's Team section).
  4. Set From and To, and the Type: Confirmed or Tentative.
  5. Choose the Measure: Hours per week, Hours in total or % of their capacity, and enter the Amount.
  6. Leave Billable work ticked for client work, add Notes if useful, and click Allocate.

If the allocation pushes someone over capacity, the confirmation message says so as a warning. People see the projects they are allocated to at the top of their project list on My Time & Expenses.

Reading the plan

Set Weeks from and Show (4, 8, 12 or 26 weeks). Then:

  • Confirmed load against capacity: one row per person and one cell per week, reading confirmed hours / hours available. Red is over capacity; tentative hours appear underneath as "+N tentative". The last columns give Load and Forecast utilisation against the person's target.
  • Over-allocated: a red list naming each person and week that is over.
  • Utilisation: for the recent period, each person's capacity, booked, billable hours, utilisation and target, with Capacity from saying where the capacity figure came from. It counts approved and invoiced time only.
  • Utilisation by month: choose From month and To month and click Show utilisation for billable hours against capacity per person per month.
  • Allocations in this window: every allocation with Edit and Remove.
  • Time off and People: approved leave in the window, and the resource register.

Recording time off on someone's behalf

People request time off themselves on My Time & Expenses. For leave already taken or agreed elsewhere, or more than 90 days back, click Record time off on the Resourcing tab, choose the Person, Kind of time off, First day, Last day and Length, and save. It is recorded as approved by you and comes off their capacity. Days that already have time booked are refused, because leave and work never overlap.

What goes wrong

  • "Choose the person and project, an end date and how much.": all four are required.
  • "Allocation must be between 1% and 200%." or "That is more hours than there are in the date range.": check the measure and amount.
  • "An allocation can span at most two years - split longer engagements."
  • A person is "not in the register": capacity is assumed at 37.5 hours a week. Add them under People.
  • Resource planning is not installed on this system.: the projects schema patch has not been applied; ask the hosting administrator.

Worked example

A delivery lead is staffing a twelve-week build. They open Resourcing, show 12 weeks, and allocate two developers confirmed at 30 hours a week and a designer tentatively at 50% of capacity for the first four weeks. The grid shows one developer at 52.5 / 37.5 in week three because of another project, and the Over-allocated list names that week. They move the developer's other allocation by a week, and the cell turns back from red.

Recommendations

  • Confirm only what is signed; keep pipeline work tentative.
  • Record leave in the system, or the plan promises hours people do not have.
  • Review the grid weekly with the next four to eight weeks in view.
  • Fix "assumed" capacity by setting weekly hours in the register.