Managing Capacity

This article shows how to view and manage resource capacity in ResourceFirst, using the Capacity tab.

What is Capacity?

Resource Capacity represents their maximum capacity to do work in a given day. It does NOT represent their availability, unless they are not assigned to any work. Capacity minus Demand is Availability.

It is best to set a resource’s capacity at 1 FTE (Full time equivalent), assuming that some of that capacity will be used for general level-of-effort work or overhead work. If you prefer to discretely forecast level-of-effort or overhead work, you can create annual “bucket” projects to which you would assign people, separate from their actual projects.

It is NOT recommended to reduce everyone’s capacity to .80 to allow for such work, as it becomes difficult to manage.

Managing Capacity

The Resource Capacity page shows all the resources included in the current data load (via the main global funnel filter) and contains the total capacity for project work in each period for each resource. By default, this is expressed in full time equivalent (FTE) units (though there is a checkbox in the global funnel filter to show units in hours).  A “1.0” for an interval means the resource is full time. A half time resource would have 0.5 in the interval.

Note that if you create a new resource, their capacity is automatically filled in. If they were created mid-month, they would have only partial capacity for that month. Thus, if you allocate the newly created resource for a full FTE for the current month, it would show them as over-allocated.

To enter/modify a capacity level, click on the cell desired, enter the number and hit Enter. Note that you can also click the lower right corner of a cell and drag that value to multiple cells.

Don’t forget to click Save in the upper right.

Along the upper right you’ll find:

• A “Clear Filters” button (funnel icon) to clear any column filters
• A view selector dropdown to select from any Capacity view that’s been set up via Administration–>Views.
• An Edit Views icon to create your own custom view
• The Save button
• An export button to export the capacity to a CSV file.

Note: When a resource is terminated, remember to zero their capacity beyond the Date Terminated to ensure ongoing correct historical reporting.