Reviewing your resource heatmap (People Schedule)

In Forecast, People Schedule depicts a visual representation of team member availability. It is an interactive Gantt chart that displays allocated project time or assigned tasks by team member, by project for a given time period. In People Schedule, resource utilization is calculated based on a team member's available working hours and the amount of project time allocated or tasks assigned to the team member. How the schedule works is directly related to your Resource Management setting as defined in the Admin panel. To learn more about the resource management settings available to determine which best fits your project and resource management style, see Selecting your resource management strategy.

This article covers

• Overview of People Schedule

• Heatmap behavior based on Resource Management setting

• Time tracking and People Schedule
• Managing time-off and integrations

Overview of People Schedule

There is a wealth of information and functionality within People Schedule as the page is designed to give you a clear and accurate overview of the time allocated or assigned to your team members, your team member utilization. How you interpret the data presented in the heatmap depends on the resource management setting in the Admin panel however there are some features that are consistent no matter which setting you've selected. 

General features

There are various features within the page that do not rely on the selected resource management setting. 

The heatmap calculates team member utilization based available working hours and the amount of project time allocated or tasks assigned to the team member and offers the option to view utilization either in hours or as a percentage. Toggle between Heatmap in % and Heatmap in hours depending on how you want to view the schedule at a given time.

Utilization is defined based on threshold values. The heatmap cells are shaded by the color corresponding to the value. The utilization modal rounds any time over 100h to the nearest whole hour value while the heatmap will display as the partial hour.

Apply one of the grouping options to view the schedule based on time allocated or tasks assigned to a particular role or department. Using Group by role or Group by department may help when reviewing your project pipeline.  A heavier distribution of project or task time for a particular role or a particular department may indicate gaps in resourcing or what roles you may need to hire for.

Easily manage project allocations or tasks using drag/drop. With drag/drop functionality you can quickly update project allocation or task dates, assign unassigned tasks or reassign allocation or tasks to different team members.

Adjust the view of the schedule to show team members who may not be allocated any hours, or who may be over or under allocated using the options available in the Eye menu. Using the Eye options is beneficial when looking for available resources for upcoming projects or to identify which team members may be overallocated project or task time.

Here you can also opt to toggle on or off the total utilization for your entire organization. 
If your resource management setting is Allocate people to projects, you will also have the option to toggle on or off the display of weekends. If your resource management setting is Assign people to tasks, you will also have the option to toggle on or off the display of Unassigned Tasks.

There are three filter options, Projects, People and Tasks each of which return differently depending on the filter criteria selected. Use 'Save filters' for those you use frequently or want to retain for future use. Saved filters are user specific and cannot be shared across team members.

By default, filters return data that matches the selected criteria, however depending on the criteria you choose, the options to 'Require All' or 'Exclude' may also be available.

Projects
Use Projects filter when you want to see the heatmap data filtered by project.
When applying a project filter, the list of team members will remain static as the filter is being applied on Projects, not on people. The data displayed for each team member will reflect the filter/s applied.
People
Use People filter when you want to see the heatmap data filtered by people.
When applying a people filter, the list of team members will update and reflect only the team members selected in the filter or those who match the criteria of the people filter applied.
Tasks
Use Tasks filter when you want to see the heatmap data filtered by tasks.
When applying a tasks filter, the list of team members will remain static as the filter is being applied on Tasks, not on people.  The data displayed for each team member will reflect the tasks filter/s applied.

Require All: Toggle on 'Require All' when making your selections. This may not be available for all filters, and is dependent upon a specific filter. The result will be data that is inclusive of the selections and selections must match all criteria selected to be returned by the filter.

Exclude: Toggle on 'Exclude' when making your selections.  The result will be data that is exclusive of the selections, meaning any criteria set using an Exclude filter will not be returned in the data results.

Heatmap behavior based on Resource Management setting

The resource management setting selected in your Admin panel directly impacts how your heatmap will behave. If your resource management setting is, Both project allocations and task assignments, please see Planning and monitoring resources with both project allocations and task assignments.

Allocate people to projects

If you selected 'Allocate people to projects' your heatmap will display team members based on how their time is allocated to projects.  Utilization will be displayed as calculation based on the available working hours for a team member as compared to the amount of their time that has been allocated to projects. 

Project allocations can be created for the entire duration of a project or for a portion of the project. By default, allocations will distribute evenly over the time period of the allocation, however you can manually apply an uneven distribution by day of week, if desired.

For periods where a resource has no working hours due to time-off, the heatmap will show as grey and hours on allocations in that period will be zeroed out.

Additionally, Pro and Plus customers can opt to set the allocation type choosing between soft allocations or hard allocations. To learn more about managing allocations, see Creating and editing allocations.

Allocate people to projects includes additional heatmap features such as Exclude Allocations and Use win probability.

• Exclude allocations. This setting is helpful when looking at  the different allocation types and your project pipeline. Soft allocations represent tentative time booked for a team member while hard allocations indicate actual project time assigned. 
• Win Probability. By using this setting you can calculate project allocations based on the chance of converting an opportunity to an actual running project. 
  
  • For example, an opportunity stage project has a win percentage of 50%. Toggling on 'Use win probability' will adjust utilization calculation of the team members allocated time to the project based on the win percentage.

Assign people to projects also enables the features and functionality of Capacity Planning for Plus customers. To learn more about using Capacity Planning, see About Capacity Planning (Plus only).

Assign people to tasks

If you selected 'Assign people to tasks' your heatmap will display team members based on how their time is assigned to tasks.  Utilization will be displayed as calculation based on the available working hours for a team member as compared to the amount of their time that has been assigned on tasks.

For periods where a resource has no working hours due to time-off, the system will attempt to distribute remaining time on unfinished tasks onto the days where the resource does have working hours. If this is not possible (i.e. the resource has time-off for the entire duration of the task) the heatmap will show red to reflect the potential risk / conflict.

This setting offers two additional options to customize your heatmap and how it calculates and displays utilization.

Heatmap based on Task Estimates

When toggling this setting, the heatmap utilization will be calculated over the entire length of the task.  Time registered against the task will not reflect the actual remaining time left to complete the task. This setting is useful for planning team time on tasks when time registrations are not required or maintained. The task estimate will continue to be included in the team member utilization until the task is completed and marked as Done Workflow status.

Tasks with multiple team members will evenly distribute the total estimated time across all assigned team members. Each team member's utilization will calculate based on this distribution. 

For example, a task assigned to 2 team members with 40h/week working hours will appear in the heatmap displaying the entire task estimate of 40h, however the individual team member's utilization will only consider 20h for each team member.

Heatmap based on Time Registrations & Remaining Task Estimates

When toggling this setting, the heatmap utilization will be calculated over the entire duration of the task and will account for any time registrations made to the task. Time registered on tasks reduces the remaining time left to complete the task and will calculate utilization as such.  

For example, a task estimated at 40h a week is assigned a team member with 40h/week working hours. The task will appear on the heatmap based on the task's start and end dates and display an even distribution over the 5 days. When time is registered to the task, the remaining time will recalculate and impact utilization by evenly distributing the remaining time on the task over remaining days the task is scheduled for. 

This setting is useful when time registrations are used and you need to see utilization based on the estimated work left to be completed on a task, rather than on the original task estimate.

Tasks assigned to more than one team member will impact utilization for all assigned team members and evenly distribute based on the task estimate, the duration of the task and the number of task assignees. 

For example, a task assigned to 2 team members scheduled for 40h will be evenly distributed across the 2 assigned team members and thus contribute as 20h in each team member's individual utilization. Time registered to this task does not reflect the reporting team member, rather the remaining time will recalculate and redistribute evenly, no matter if one team member is registering more time to the task than the other.

Time tracking and People Schedule

Having access to accurate resource availability is is key when monitoring resources. Knowing who is available or who is out of the office is crucial to the success of a project.

Syncing time-off between My Timesheets and People Schedule

Time-off is synchronized between My Timesheets and People Schedule.  This means, when a team member registers time-off in their timesheet, it automatically populates People Schedule. Time-off allocated in People Schedule automatically populates to the team member's timesheet. 

Check out, Announcing the synchronization of time-off between Timesheets and People Schedule, to learn more about this feature. 

Managing time-off and integrations

Accounts integrated with BambooHR do not have the option to register time-off in My Timesheets or in People Schedule. Time-off is reported in BambooHR and then synced to Forecast. Any changes to the time-off must also come from BambooHR. 

Both People Schedule and My Timesheets restrict the time-off options for all users, including Admins. In My Timesheets, New Time Entry will display a message advising on BambooHR. 

In People Schedule, there is not a warning redirecting users to BambooHR, however the Time Off Tab appears grayed out, not available for selection.