This guide covers assigning team members to projects and managing resource utilization.
In order to fulfill obligations to clients, you assign team members to work on projects. A team member that is assigned to a project can bill time against that project. When a team member is assigned to a project, they are assigned to a specific role (e.g. Project Manager, Developer, Designer, etc.) for a period of time and an expected number of hours per week.
Team member assignments can be managed in the Project details screen (in the Team tab) and on the Assignments screen (where all assignments and projects can be viewed at once).
Assignments can be viewed and managed by leadership and project roles.
The simplest way to assign team members to projects is to navigate to the Team tab in the Project details screen, enter editing mode by clicking the pencil icon button in the top-left corner of the screen, and then click Add Team Member.
In the dialog that appears, select which team member, the role they are be assigned on the project, and the number of hours per week they are expected to work on the project. They'll appear on the Team View as a new assignment bar that spans the project's timeline.
When in editing mode, you can also drag the assignment bar to change the start and end dates of the assignment, or the entire bar to move the assignment to a different time period.
Assignments that are anchored to the project's start and end date will automatically be updated if the project's start or end date changes. Assignments that are not anchored will remain on the same dates.
To change the hours per week of an assignment, click the edit button on the row of the assignment you wish to edit. To change the team member or role, you'll need to remove the assignment and add a new one. This prevents corrupting reporting data for previous periods.
To unassign a team member from a project, click the Unassign User button in the editing dialog.
When a team member is assigned to a project, they can bill time against that project by navigating to the Timesheets screen and entering the hours they worked on the project for the week. See Time Tracking for more information.
You can assign a team member multiple times to the same project, for example if they are taking on different roles at different times during the project.
Note that a team member can enter time against a project for any number of hours, not just the number of hours per week specified in the assignment or during the assignment's duration.
Assignment placeholders are used to reserve a spot on a project for a role that is not yet filled. Placeholders are required to calculate key metrics like project coverage.
Placeholders can be created manually by navigating to the Team tab in the Project details screen, entering editing mode, and clicking Add Placeholder. Placeholders are automatically created when creating a project from a deal that uses either the Staffing or Timeline view for every role specified in the project plan.
Placeholders are similar to assignments in that they have a start and end date, an expected hours per week, and a duration. You can edit the timeline of a placeholder by dragging it's assignment bar, and you can change the expected hours per week and the placeholder role by clicking the edit button on the row of the placeholder. Unassigned placeholders are displayed in the Team View as a gray bar, indicating that there is a placeholder for an assignment.
To assign a team member to a placeholder, enter editing mode and click the Assign button on the placeholder row in the Team View and select which team member to assign. The placeholder will be replaced by the assignment in the Team View. When a team member is removed from a placeholder, the placeholder reappears.
Team members that have been assigned to a placeholder will show an icon next to the assigned role in the Team View.
It is common for a team member to be assigned at different time periods throughout a project that can't be represented as a single duration. For example, a strategic team member might only be active during the first two weeks of a project for discovery, and then again for the last two weeks of a project for launch. In this case, you can create two separate assignments, but you can also use Activity-based Assignments to specify which parts of the project they will be active for.
A placeholder or an assignment can specify which activities in the Project Plan they are assigned to, and the assignment timeline bar will automatically be set to the timeline of those activities. If the activity changes in the Project plan, the assignment or placeholder will automatically be updated to reflect that change.
Activity-based assignments are only available for projects using a Timeline-based project plan. When creating or editing an assignment or placeholder in a Timeline-based project, the dialog will show a segmented control to choose the assignment mode. You can choose Activity-based instead of Manual from the segmented control to enable this mode of assignment. You then select which activities the assignment or placeholder is assigned to by checking boxes next to the activity names.
An activity-based assignment or placeholder does not have a user-configurable start date or end date. It is only active during the duration of the activities it is assigned to, and the timeline bar cannot be dragged to change the dates. You can switch between activity-based and manual modes by clicking the segmented control again.
Note that even with activity-based assignments, a team member can bill time against a project at any time as long as they have an active assignment.
To make changes to any aspect of your assignments and placeholders, you must enter editing mode by clicking the pencil icon button in the top-left corner of the screen. Once you've made your changes, click the checkmark icon to save the changes. To revert changes, click the cancel icon. You can make as many changes as you like and save them all at once.
In addition to resource planning at the project level, you can manage your entire team and all projects from the Assignments view by navigating to Assignments in the main navigation sidebar.
This Gantt chart view operates in two modes: project and team. Use the project mode to identify gaps in a project's resource plan, and use team mode to understand each team member's utilization.
When viewing in project mode, every project is listed and you can see all assignments and open placeholders for that project. Each project rows shows the total and weekly coverage for the project.
When viewing in team mode, every billable team member is listed and you can see all assignments for those team members. Each team member row shows the total and weekly utilization for that team member, and identifies over and under utilization scenarios.
There are two key metrics when managing assignments and placeholders: coverage and utilization.
Coverage is the percentage of the project's resource plan that have been filled with assignments. A project is considered fully covered when all placeholders have been filled with assignments. If placeholders are not used for a project, coverage can't be calculated. Coverage is calculated on a per-week, per-project, per-project-week and total portfolio basis. When viewing project or total portfolio coverage, only the current and future weeks are used in the calculation. Historical data is not included in the calculation.
Utilization is the percentage of the team member's time that is spent on billable work. A team member is considered fully utilized when they are assigned for 40 hours a week. Utilization is calculated on a per-week, per-team-member, per-team-member-week and total staff utilization basis. When viewing team member or total staff utilization, only the current and future weeks are used in the calculation. Historical data is not included in the calculation.
