Overview
In this article, we will focus on the general navigation of the assignments view and the value of the Assignments view.
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Assignments provide you with the ability to manage your workload in depth by people or by projects. |
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| The color of cells gives you a quick visual representation of the project type and the project's health. The darker the shade of color, the closer the cell is to be 100% booked. | |
| While in Edit mode and clicking open a person or project in Assignments view, you are able to use the hour's spreader to spread your allocated hours either way. This makes for convenient and quick execution of planned allocations. | |
| While in Edit Mode, you can View and Edit an Employee's Time off | |
| Each user with permissions to this page and editing mode is able to allocate users and project hours. The value is still seen for those who are only able to view this page because one is able to view total planned hours and capacity trends. |
Assignments Navigation / View
There is a lot to unpack here, so buckle up. Know that in this article we are focusing on the general navigation and value whereas in later articles we will dive into the People and Project view.
Assignments provide you with the ability to manage your workload in depth by people or by projects. In this view, you will be able to make informed decisions and proactively resource your projects and people.
- Date Picker - Choose the Date range you'd like to filter by (see below)
- Assignments filters - Filter by Timeframe (weeks or Date Range), Department, Role, Employment Type, Billing Type, Stages, Status, Financial Model, Owner or Tags.
2.5 - Filters Drawer - Click the Filters Icon to change which Filters are applied. - Search by Employee name and Role*
- Exit the Assignments view page to return to the last viewed Page
- Change the View between People and Project view or Sort by Employee or Role
- Timeline by the selected view
- People or Project information with dropdown for additional detail
- Shaper Cells show Planned and Actual Hours and Percents
- Timeline Key acts as a Legend for the page.
- Reset the Timeline to show from the Assignments View start or Today
- Edit Mode Toggle - Click here to enter Edit Mode
- View Settings
Parallax Tip:
Within the Search Bar, you can use "or" to look up multiple employees and/or roles. You can use "or" multiple times to search for a few things at a time.
The default viewport starts with the current week on the far left and advances from there. To view more of your actual hours that are coming into parallax, you can adjust the start date view in the top left corner to a date that is a couple of weeks past.
Timeline and Color Key
The color of cells gives you a quick visual representation of the project type and the project's health. The darker the shade of color, the closer the cell is to be 100% booked.
Keep an eye out for red cells as those identify that you are over your available hours. A red alert bar will appear over the top of a cell when you are over your billable capacity.
Hours that have been planned show up in bold at the top of a cell. You can see the actual hours from your integrated timesheet appear below the planned hours. If the actual hours come in over what was planned, the actual hours will be red and bold.
Editing Capabilities
Hour Spreading capabilities
While in Edit mode and clicking open a person or project in Assignments view, you are able to use the hour's spreader to spread your allocated hours either way. This makes for convenient and quick execution of planned allocations.
The core of this function spreads by even hour allocations based on Day view. So if you are recording a project starting in the middle of the week or month mode and looking to replicate those hours in other weeks and months, your numbers might look off, because our logic will take the sum of the start and divide it among the full-time period.
Example:
You are sprints start on a Wednesday, so your project starts on a Wednesday. If you're working 8-hour days, the first week of the project your resource will work 24 hours. While planning you are looking to spread your over the next 8 weeks, when you use the spreading tool you see that each week is only amounting to 24 hours, rather than the preferred 40. That is because based on the first plan week rather than your 8-hour day view. You can correct this work from either the Week or Day view to reflect your 8-hour days.
Managing Time Off and Holidays
With our recently updated Time Off functionality, you can view all applicable Holidays and Time Off in a single line for each Employee, with our new Time Off roll-up. Each Cell in this new roll-up shows displays three separate things, where applicable:
- Holidays - The upper-left side of the cell will show any applicable Holidays that fall on that day, and are included in Allocations.
- Time Off - The lower-right side of the cell will show any Time Off requests or approvals that are included in Allocations for the Employee.
- Total Holidays/Time Off - In weeks/months where both Holidays and Time Off Requests are present, the center will display the sum of both Time Off and Holidays.
Plus, you can pop into Edit Mode to quickly add Time Off to an Employee's Allocations. You can select just one day or a range - and set the number of Time Off Hours that will apply to each day. Just do the following:
- Select "Edit Mode" and Click "Confirm" on the modal that appears.
- Open an Employee's Drawer and Click a Cell in the Time Off Rollup
- In the Add Time Off modal, use the Start and End Dates pickers to add a range of days
- Then add the desired Time Off hours to each day in the range*
- Then Click Save!
*Want to skip a day? No sweat - there's a "-" icon next to each date when you select hours. Click that icon to skip a given day or days.
The Value
The value is immediately seen as the planning capabilities. Each user with permissions to this page and editing mode is able to allocate users and project hours. The value is still seen for those who are only able to view this page because one is able to view total planned hours and capacity trends.
For a deeper dive into the people and project views of Assignments please see the following People and Project view articles.