Availability
Overview
The Workload tab is a vital component within the Birdview platform, located within the Resources module. Its purpose is to provide project managers and resource managers with a sophisticated and interactive tool for managing resource loading, including both named and unnamed resources. Whether your workflow demands automated or manual adjustments, the Workload screen offers flexible modes to cater to your specific requirements.
The primary uses of the Workload screen are:
- Automated workload distribution
- Manual workload adjustments
- Timeline flexibility
- Resource overview
- Overscheduling tracking
In this article
Important
- Projects of a treat-as-completed status are not included in the report.
- Activities of neither treat-as-completed nor treat-as-hold are visible in the report.
Permissions
The Workload tab is available for users with the "Access common reports" global permission included in their access level.
To see resources workload values, you need the "View all assignees" and "View all time entries" permissions in your project access level and/or the "View and manage members and assignees" + "View all time entries" permissions in the "Permissions for projects where a user is NOT a member of" section in your global access level.
Screen overview
The Workload tab consists of the following components:
Table with a Daily, Weekly and Monthly granularity
Header with a date range, granularity selector, filters, and controls, such as the Show and Export selectors
Workload indicator
The workload indicator consists of three elements:
- A color-coded bar (for example, yellow - corresponds to Partial allocation)
- A shade darker bar taking the length corresponding to the percentage of the user's actual workload; and
- Actual workload is represented as a numerical value in percent (for example, 25%).
Vacation marker
Vacation days, including public holidays, are marked with a black dot. To view the type of holiday, place your mouse on the cell:
Visibility options
Use Show on the toolbar to display/hide special types of objects/unnamed resources on the Workload tab. The following options are available:
- Draft projects
- Activities on hold
- Inactive activities1
- Activities without personal hours2
- Activities without dates3
- Completed tasks
- Unnamed resources
- Unassigned activities
Unassigned activities
While working on the Workload screen there may be need to review existing unassigned activities so that a user's potential workload can be utilized as completely as possible. The most common case: a resource has got a surplus of available hours4, so it is perfectly natural that the Workload screen should give an opportunity to look over the existing unassigned activities to see if some of them can be assigned to the resource.
When the view is enabled, the Workload screen is divided horizontally, with the bottom section giving a list of unassigned activities grouped by project.
To assign an unassigned activity to a user:
- Toggle on the Unassigned activities view under the Show menu (
).
- Make sure the user is visible in the upper part of the screen as it gets divided.
- Hover over the row of the unassigned activity to be assigned in the bottom part.
- As the drag-n-drop handle (
) appears next to the activity name, make a click on it and holding down the mouse button drag the activity onto the would-be assignee.
- As the user's row is activated by a surrounding rectangular frame, release the button to 'drop' the activity.
- After a while, it will appear among the user's assignments. At the same time it is removed from the unassigned activities list.
- Now they can be used in workload calculations.
Manual mode
The button is used to mark an activity with resource loading edited manually. Pressing the button disables the manual mode. See Workload - manual vs. automatic mode for more details.
Hours left
Workload offers a detailed picture of hours allocation, including hours left4. Hours left are displayed only for days that are either the current date (the current date column, see item 10 on the picture above) or future dates.
Actual hours
Time logs you enter on a particular day are referred to as actual hours4. If there are actual hours on the current date, it is indicated with a stopwatch icon , and the current date cell contains an additional info panel (viewable by placing the pointer on the cell), as follows:
- Actual hours vs. Scheduled hours - in case of scheduled hours4 (manual mode on), or
- Hours logged - in case of hours left (automatic mode on).
Important
The Actual hours value itself is not displayed in the cell and can only be viewed on the info panel.
Balance hours
Birdview calculates the difference between three types of hours (scheduled, left, and actual) and displays the balance whenever there is a mismatch (excess or shortage). By placing the mouse pointer on the balance hours4 box you get an info panel with an explanation. At the top, the calculation formula used is displayed:
Video tutorial