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Placeholder Metrics Calculations: Workload, Financials, Utilization

Understanding the how placeholder hours contributes to key metrics

Updated this week

Since Placeholders are not real people, there are certain assumptions built into the calculations of workload, financials and utilization.


Workload/ Effort Calculation

Past scheduled placeholder hours default to 0 in Total

Placeholder hours represent unmet demand in Runn. Only placeholder hours scheduled on today and dates after today will be included in metric calculations. Any scheduled placeholder hours prior to today will default to 0 in Project Dashboards, Reports and Insights.

This is under the assumption that the work was not completed, as it was never transferred to a real person.

Example

The assignments run from Aug 21st to Sep 4th. The Scheduled hour per day is 1 hour.

The Total Hours change depending on when I generate the report or open the Project Dashboard:

Day of Today

Total Hours

Explanation

Aug 20th

11 hours

All placeholder hours are in the future. All hours will be counted.

Aug 27th

7 hours

The scheduled hours before today (Aug 21st to Aug 26th) are in the past and will not be counted i.e. default to 0.

Only future placeholder hours (Aug 27th to Sep 4th) will be counted:

1 hour per day * 7 working days = 7 hours

⚠️ Note

Past placeholder hours will still be visible on the Planners and Charts, but those hours are default to 0 in Project Dashboard, Reports and Insights.


Financials Calcuation

Placeholder Rates & Project Revenue

Placeholder assignments take their charge-out rate from the role rate of the project they are on. They are the same as normal assignments.

For example, if you add a Developer to Project A and the Developer Project Rate is $150, then the placeholder will have a rate of $150 too.

Project Revenue in the future will include placeholder hours added to the Project.

Placeholder Costs & Project Cost

You can set a custom hourly or daily cost for each placeholder or use the default hourly role cost. This will help you estimate the Project Cost. Once the work is transferred to a person, the cost will based on the person's cost to business set in the contract.

Placeholders have a cost to the project but not to the business as a whole.

Financials associated with Past placeholder assignments will default to 0

Since Past placeholder hours default to 0 in Total hours, all the associated rates and costs will also default to 0.

Placeholder does not contribute to Business Cost

As placeholders are only attached to projects, they do not add to Business Costs (or overall business capacity), regardless of their status. The business cost for all placeholders is $0.


Capacity and Utilization Calculation

Placeholder does not have capacity

Placeholders are not real people, as a result, they don't have capacity and do not affect the capacity of your business.


As seen in the Capacity vs Workload Chart, the placeholder assignment only affects the workload (blue bars), and the capacity is unaffected (purple background).

Placeholders does not have Utilization individually, but contributes to overall Utilization

Since Placeholders do not have capacity, they also do not have Utilization associated with them individually. In the example below, the Utilization for the placeholder is N/A even though there are Total Hours added to it:

The placeholders will, however, affect the overall Utilization in Reports, Project Dashboard and Insights.💡💡

Utilization is calculated by Total Hours / (Contract Capacity - Time Off)

In the example below, when Placeholders are also included in the Utilization Report, the Total utilization % increases from 40% to 43%, because the Total Hours of the placeholders are also included.

💡 Pro Tip

Use the Person Type filter to include or exclude Placeholders from the overall utilization calculation.

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