Covering approved leave
Leave appears in the week before anyone books over it, and capacity drops for exactly the days affected.
Resource planning
Plan the coming weeks with the people you actually have.
Bookings sit beside capacity, leave and holidays, and beside the project forecasts they feed. Try a change as a scenario, see what it does to capacity and cost, and apply it only when it is right.
Plans: Team planning, leave and utilization on Studio and Scale. What-if scenarios: one at a time on Studio, multiple on Scale.
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Week planner · Kite team
| Person | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tom LindqvistSenior designer | Kite3.5hMeridian2hKite motion3h, moving to Sam Ito 5.5h of 8h | Kite3.5hMeridian2hKite motion3h, moving to Sam Ito 5.5h of 8h | Kite3.5hMeridian2hKite motion3h, moving to Sam Ito 5.5h of 8h | Kite3.5hMeridian2hKite motion3h, moving to Sam Ito 5.5h of 8h | Kite3.5hMeridian2hKite motion3h, moving to Sam Ito 5.5h of 8h | 27.5h of 40h |
| Ana SousaBrand designer | Leave | Leave | Kite3.5hFieldnote2h 5.5h of 6h | Kite3.5hFieldnote2h 5.5h of 6h | Not working | 11h of 12h 12h approved leave |
| Grace WhitfieldStrategist | Kite2hMeridian4h 6h of 8h | Kite2hMeridian4h 6h of 8h | Kite2hMeridian4h 6h of 8h | Kite2hMeridian4h 6h of 8h | Kite2hMeridian4h 6h of 8h | 30h of 40h |
| Sam ItoMotion designer, freelance | Not working | Fieldnote3hKite motion5h, proposed 8h of 8h | Fieldnote3hKite motion5h, proposed 8h of 8h | Fieldnote3hKite motion5h, proposed 8h of 8h | Not working | 24h of 24h |
Tom Lindqvist
Senior designer
27.5h of 40h
Kite17.5hMeridian10hKite motion15h, moving to Sam ItoAna Sousa
Brand designer
11h of 12h
12h approved leave
Kite7hFieldnote4hGrace Whitfield
Strategist
30h of 40h
Kite10hMeridian20hSam Ito
Motion designer, freelance
24h of 24h
Fieldnote9hKite motion15h, proposed
Proposed, not applied
Move motion principles to Sam Ito
30h of Kite work moves from Tom Lindqvist at $90 an hour to Sam Ito at $70 an hour.
| Measure | Live plan | If applied |
|---|---|---|
| Kite forecast cost-$600 over the remaining work | $40,000 | $39,400 |
| Projected marginTarget 40% | 33.33% | 34.33% |
| Tom Lindqvist, this week | 42.5h of 40h | 27.5h of 40h |
| Sam Ito, this week | 9h of 24h | 24h of 24h |
Nothing in the live plan or the project forecast changes until the change is applied.
Sample week for the Kite team at Northline Studio, a fictional studio. Switch between the live plan and the proposed change to compare them.
How it works
From capacity to a committed plan
Capacity
Each person’s working days and hours, minus approved leave and studio holidays, with any overlap counted once.
Bookings
Confirmed or tentative bookings by person or placeholder role, for a project and phase, in hours per day.
Scenarios
Draft changes against the live plan. If the live plan changes underneath a scenario, it is flagged as stale and checked again before it can be applied.
Impact
Each scenario shows its effect on capacity and on the project’s forecast cost before anything is committed.
Utilization
Billable utilization and billable share are reported as two separate measures, so neither is mistaken for the other.
In practice
Where it makes a difference
Staffing a change request
Plan the extra work as a scenario linked to the change request, so its cost and timing are known before the client decides.
A role you have not hired yet
Book a placeholder role with its own cost rate and see whether the next hire is covered by the work already planned.
Moving work to a specialist
Moving 30h of motion work on Kite from Tom Lindqvist to Sam Ito lowers the forecast cost by $600 and lifts the projected margin from 33.33% to 34.33%, before anything is changed.
Limits
What it does not do
Stated plainly, so you can decide with the whole picture.
- Bookings never create time entries. Time is still recorded by the people doing the work.
- There is no automatic scheduling. Studioflow shows the effect of a change; people decide who does what.
- On phones, planning opens as a day or week agenda you can edit. Precise dragging is never the only way to change a booking.
- Leave reasons are kept private. The planner shows the absence, not the reason for it.
Questions
Common questions
Does a scenario change live bookings?
No. Scenarios are drafts. Live bookings and project forecasts change only when a scenario is applied, and a stale scenario is checked against the current plan first.
How is capacity calculated?
Scheduled working hours minus approved leave and non-working holidays, counting a day once when leave and a holiday overlap.
What is the difference between utilization and billable share?
Billable utilization: Billable logged hours divided by available capacity. N/A when capacity is zero. Provisional time is labeled. Billable share: Billable logged hours divided by total logged hours. A separate metric from utilization.
Can I plan for people who have not joined yet?
Yes, with placeholder roles that carry their own cost rate, billing rate and weekly hours.
Who can see the planner?
People whose role includes planning access. Cost figures in plans and scenarios follow the same internal cost permission as the rest of the product.
A clearer picture of the work. A stronger studio.
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