What are group utilization charts?
The charts show the utilization of your people groups. They appear on the People Planner when you use the Group By function.
Grouping lets you view your people in groups based on their role, team, employee relationship (employee or contractor), or people tags. By default, the group is set to "All". The groups contain people and placeholders.
The charts represent the utilization of these groups of people. That is, the percentage of the group's total capacity that has been assigned to both billable and non-billable.
With the group utilization charts, you can glance at your planner and quickly see the group utilization at a high level.
Why are group utilization charts useful?
Looking at your team's upcoming utilization — especially when plotted on a chart — will quickly show you how busy groups of people are and when they will become available again to take on new project work.
You will be able to identify bottlenecks early, both from a project and people’s perspective. If, for example, your group of JavaScript developers is constantly over-utilized, and you have more work for them in the pipeline, it’s probably time to go out and hire a third one or get a contractor in to help out. Equally, if you have a project coming up that requires a specifically skilled employee, and that employee is busy until the end of the year, you’ll need to move things around, up-skill or hire.
Having visibility over your utilization will help you make these decisions early, optimize the pipeline of upcoming work, and set client expectations.
❗ You can turn off these charts using the planner options found under
the toggle icon on the People Planner.
Understanding the charts
Overview
The charts show utilization for the entire group. The calculations use the sum of everyone's capacity and allocations:
workload / capacity * 100The charts include only the people and placeholders who you can see on the planner. This means that when you use the search and filter bar to narrow down your results, the charts adjust
Placeholders only contribute to workload, never to capacity
Time off subtracts from capacity. If someone has leave for a day, their contracted hours will be removed from capacity
The charts do not include actuals - only scheduled work
Reading the colors
Grey dotted line across each chart row - indicates the 100% utilization mark
Blue area (up to the dotted line) - represents the group's utilization. The height indicates how utilized the group is
If it sits on the dotted line, utilization is 100%
If it falls below the dotted line, the group is under-utilized
Red peaks above the dotted line - represents over-utilization
The maximum rate shown is 200% utilization
Gray area - represents no capacity in the group
When everyone in the group has time off (and placeholders don't have work allocated)
Green line - represents 0% utilization
When no work has been allocated but there is available capacity
Full red area - represents infinite utilization
When there is no capacity but work has been allocated
Calculations Example: Capacity, Workload, and Utilization
# Day 1 - Group under-utilized
Person 1:
Contracted hours = 8 hours
Hours scheduled = 4 hours
Person 2:
Contracted hours = 4 hours
Hours scheduled = 4 hours
Capacity: 8 + 4 = 12 hours
Workload: 4 + 4 = 8 hours
Utilization: 8 / 12 * 100 = 66.6%
# Day 2 - Group fully utilized
Person 1:
Contracted hours = 8 hours
Time off = 1 day (8 hours)
Hours scheduled = 0
Person 2:
Contracted hours = 4 hours
Hours scheduled = 4 hours
Capacity: 0 + 4 = 4 hours
Workload: 0 + 4 = 4 hours
Utilization: 4 / 4 * 100 = 100%
# Day 3 - Group over-utilized
Person 1:
Contracted hours = 8 hours
Hours scheduled = 4 hours
Person 2:
Contracted hours = 4 hours
Hours scheduled = 4 hours
Placeholder 1:
Contracted hours = 0 hours
Hours scheduled = 8 hours
Capacity: 8 + 4 + 0 = 12 hours
Workload: 4 + 4 + 8 = 16 hours
Utilization: 16 / 12 * 100 = 133.3%
Still have questions? We're happy to help!