Overview of Utilization Report

Quick Access: Company Portfolio > Reports > New Report > Utilization Report

Forecast's Utilization Report is an extensive, comprehensive standard report that focuses on resource utilization. Only Admins, Controllers, and Coordinators can view the Utilization report.

The company portfolio page (company name tab) is accessible, by default, by everyone but Collaborators. 

This article will cover:

• Understanding the Utilization Report
• Understanding how billable time is calculated
• Project allocations vs tasks (Agile only)
• Breakdown of Utilization Report
• Managing the data displayed

Understanding the Utilization report

• The utilization report provides a detailed breakdown of each resource utilization for a given period. 
• The period could be in months (option, Period) or for the entire year (option, Month by Month).
• The report draws data from the schedule people heatmap and the timesheets.
• That data is then calculated, added up, and presented in the report broken down into different categories that can be enabled/disabled from the eye icon.
• Planned time appears immediately on the report, however, actual time (hours registered by a team member on a task/project or on non-project time) will appear the day after.
• It is up to the project manager to decide what data will be displayed on the report at any time.
• It is possible to export the report as a CSV at any time.

Understanding how billable time & time tracking (Agile only) are calculated

One of the information provided in the Utilization report is billable time. Billable time in Forecast is derived only from billable projects. To that end, this section explains how the different billable time categories are calculated depending on the resource management setting that is chosen on the Forecast account. To learn more about the two resource management settings please visit Selecting your resource management strategy.

Billable time with assigning people to tasks (Waterfall)

• Actuals  Billable time - the sum of time registrations in the period.
• Planned Billable time - the sum of estimates on tasks in the period.
• Remaining Billable time - the sum of remaining time on tasks in the period.
• Forecasted billable time - Actuals  Billable time + Remaining Billable time.

Billable time & time tracking with project allocation (Agile)

• Actuals  Billable time - the sum of time registrations in the period.
• Planned Billable time - the sum of allocations in the period.
• Remaining Billable time - the sum of allocations in the remainder of the period starting from today.
• Forecasted billable time - Actuals Billable time + Remaining Billable time

Project allocations vs tasks (Agile only)

If the resource management setting on an account is set to Project Allocations then the report allows the users to view information both in regard to project allocations and tasks so that managers can view the information easier and compare the two. This is especially useful when it is necessary to review the actual hours (time registered) on tasks vs what the planned time on the allocation of the project, that the task belonged to, was. For example, an allocation can be created to last for an entire week (40 hours) but the hours spent on the actual tasks might differ. The report makes it easier to view that information and helps with planning more accurately for the future by allowing the user to view both project allocation and task information.

The data points, which are exclusive to project allocation, that shows this information in the report can be found in the eye icon and they are:

• • Planned allocations vs Tasks - This will indicate what the planned hours on a project allocation are vs planned hours (estimate) on tasks of that project by the assignee.
  • Remaining Allocations vs Tasks - This will show the remaining time on allocations vs tasks by taking into account all future planned allocation time vs all future planned task time. Both billable and non-billable.

Note: It is possible to view the calculations of each of these data points by hovering over the cursor of the mouse on each header. A tooltip will appear which shows how the calculation is made. 

Breakdown of Utilization Report

The report itself is broken down into three components. Those are:

• General Settings
• Gauge meter and Graph chart
• Details Table

Each of these components can assist with delivering an extensive utilization report of the company's resources. Below we go over these components. 

General Settings

The general settings of the report give anyone with access to the report the ability to ensure that the information displayed on that report is correct. There are multiple settings, those are:

Gauge meter and Graph chart

Right below all of the options resides the gauge meter and graph chart. Both will display the data that is chosen from the dropdown button just above the gauge meter. There are two options available:

• Billable Utilization will show the billable utilization for the period that the report is looking into. Meaning that the report will look at the billable time registered by team members during that period and will present the information. It is important to keep in mind however that the gauge meter and the graph chart will not depict the same information.
  • While the graph chart will show the historic values of billable utilization, the gauge meter will show whether or not the billable utilization for the period that the report is looking into has reached the company's goal, gone over it, or underperformed. The goal percentage for the gauge meter can be set from the Admin panels' 'Details' tab. To learn how to do so please see Configuring your Company Account and the section about resource management.
• Resource Utilization will show how much, percentage-wise, the resources were utilized for the period that the report is looking into. 
  
  • For the resource utilization data, the gauge meter will show the total resource utilization whereas the graph chart will show the historic data.

Details Table

Just below the graph is the details table. The details table will present all of the data that has been enabled for display in the report. The way that the details table is structured is as follows:

• First layer will show the resources totals for the period that the report is looking into and for the categories (data) that have been enabled through the eye icon.
• Nested layer goes into more detail by presenting the numbers per allocation. This means that the nested layer will show exactly where and for how long a resource was assigned during the period that the report is looking into.

Managing the data displayed

The data that is displayed on the project portfolio report may vary as one project manager might be interested in actuals while another might be interested in forecasted information. To that end, it is possible to decide what data is displayed through the eye icon feature.

To disable/enable information from the report

1. Click on the Company Portfolio (Company name).
2. Click on Reports
3. Click on an existing Utilization Report or, for a new report, click on New Reports and select Utilization Report.
4. Click on the eye icon.
5. Select any of the available options or just any of their nested options.

It is important to note that the data which is chosen for display from the eye icon will also be brought over into the CSV export of the report.