1. View your project's budget (if you created one)
From the Project Planner > Identify your project (Turn on the tentative toggle on the Planner to view tentative projects)
Click on the grey arrow to expand the project
If you have added a budget, the Project Planner now displays Total Hours / Role Budget Hours next to the role name on the Project, so you can keep track of whether your planning is within the budget you set.
If your project's budget method is phases or phases & roles, you can track the remaining budget per phase in the Project Dashboard.
2. Add Project Phases and Milestones
To ensure assignments are connected to phases, add your phases before allocating assignments.
Phases
Create phases to divide your project into different parts.
Hover over the Phases row and click-and-drag, or click and select the calendar view to choose start and end dates for your phases:
❗Phases in Runn are designed to support high-level resource planning. A person can only be assigned to work on one phase on a given day.
It is not recommended to use Phases for task management. Learn more about Project Phases.
Milestones
Click on the project timeline (the blue line) to add a milestone
You can select an icon for easy viewing, add the actual milestone and add notes.
If you are using this to denote when an invoice should be issued, consider adding the amount in the "Notes" section to make it easier to pull from the milestone report.
However, please note that those with no financial permissions can see all milestones.
🤩 Pro Tip: Use Project Templates
If your phases and/or milestones are the same for all projects, consider using Project Templates as a starting point.
3. Add placeholders or people to your projects
Depending on your role and your organization's internal rules, you may or may not have the permission to add people directly to your project. If you are not supposed to add people directly to your project, or you don't know who the best person is to fulfill the job, you should add the allocations to placeholders.
🫥 Add Placeholders
If you are not responsible for directly adding people to the projects, or if you don't have a specific person in mind to work on your project, or if you are just doing scenario planning, add placeholders to denote demand.
Click Add Person or Placeholder button at the bottom
Select the Role from the drop-down menu and click Add Selected
Alternatively, if you have already added the Roles on the Budget page, you can click on the grey + button in front of the role name on the project to add a placeholder default to that role:
Click Add Requirements to denote any specific requirements for the person to fulfill the job
👉 Learn more about adding placeholders to a project
🙋♂️ Assign People to your Project Directly
If you have the permission to add a person to a project, you can do so directly on the Project Planner.
Click Add Person or Placeholder
Find the people you want to schedule on the list. You can use the filter or search bar to filter the list
The person's default role is selected by default. Open the dropdown menu if you would like the person to work in a different project role. Click on the checkbox to select the people and click Add Selected
Repeat this until you have all your project team members added
👉 Learn more about adding people to a project
4. Schedule assignments
Assignments represent scheduled allocation in Runn.
Add assignments by clicking and dragging on the project timeline to set the start and end dates. You can also add assignments spanning specific dates by clicking the calendar icon in the quick editor.
A full-day work is added by default. Update the scheduled hours by updating either the Effort or Total Effort field -
If you know the effort required in Capacity % or hours per day/week, enter your input in the Effort field (e.g. I know this person needs to work 3 hours a day on this project)
If you know the Total number of hours or days required, enter your input in the Total Effort field (e.g. I know this person needs to work 100 hours across these 3 months)
⚡ Pro Tip: Clone assignments
If the assignment is the same for every placeholder or person, right-click on it and select Clone
Tracking Scheduled Hours against Budget
As you schedule your project, keep checking the hours you assigned against what you budgeted so you don't allocate over your budget:
5. Raise a resource request or transfer Placeholder to a Person (if you have added placeholders)
Raise a Resource Request
If you've added placeholders and don't have permission to add people directly to your project, you will need to raise a resource request.
From the placeholder, click the 3-dot icon > Select View Details
Ensure the required team, skills, tags or custom fields are completed. Click Edit Details to update the requirements if needed.
Click the Request button at the bottom of the side panel > Click Request [Role Name]
A yellow icon will appear next to the placeholder to indicate that a Request has been raised:
If your request is fulfilled, you will receive a notification and be able to see the person added to your project.
👉 Learn more about raising resource requests
Transfer Placeholder to a Person
If you have the permission to directly assign people to a project, use the Find Person button to easily transfer the assignment to the most suitable person:
A split screen will appear with a list of people filtered based on the requirements you indicated. Hover over the Transfer button to preview how this will impact the person's availability:
Adjust the filters if needed. When you find the right person, click Transfer to add the person to your project.
👉 Learn more about transferring placeholder assignments to a person.
6. Identify overallocation of project team members
Once the assignments are allocated to a person, be mindful of any red lines over their assignments- this means the person is over 100% utilization during that period:
Click on the person's name to view their full schedule and other projects they are allocated to:
Discuss with relevant stakeholders to determine which project takes priority.
If this person ends up not being able to take up your project, transfer the assignments to a placeholder.
7. Set Project to Confirmed
Once the Project is ready to go live, change the project status to confirmed:
From the Project Planner > Identify your project (Turn on the tentative toggle on the Planner to view tentative projects)
Click on the 3-dot icon next to the project name > Select Set Confirmed
Still have questions? We're happy to help!