Parallax Expands Capacity and Utilization Planning Capabilities to Account for Holidays and Paid Time Off 

Digital services shops are often guilty of a costly and frustrating mistake: overestimating peoples’ availability. Especially when it comes to holidays and time off, which have traditionally been tough to track in resource plans. Managers inadvertently overbook their teams with projects that their schedules can’t accommodate — or reporting looks skewed because people are taking (well-deserved) time off 😵.

At Parallax, we understand the pressure resource planners and managers are under to create achievable plans aligned to available resources, and we know accurate data is required to get it right. And now, within our platform, users can improve their resource planning process with access to a more accurate, more intuitive capacity and utilization view that automatically accounts for holidays and paid time off. Take a look at what’s new: 

• Better time off visibility: The Parallax resource planning tool (project shaper) allows for direct editing of time off in employee scheduling. Users can now improve their resource planning process with a complete view of employee schedules and available capacity. 
• Improved capacity forecasting: Parallax users can improve their capacity forecasting with a more accurate view of schedules and availability – including for part-time and non-traditional work schedules. 
• Updated alerts: Employee availability in the Parallax schedules is now calculated by subtracting time off and holidays from the base schedule, and alert thresholds have been updated to reflect the total available billable capacity. This will allow resource managers to keep billable capacity in line with project assignments and to see potential conflicts ahead of time. 

So what? Why capability and utilization planning matters

Resource planners and project managers don’t always have full visibility into what an employee’s schedule is – and therefore, what their capacity and availability is to take on new (or more) work. It’s a missing link that makes planning peoples’ time a pretty tough exercise. Two of the biggest factors commonly missed from this view are time off and variable schedules. Managers are left to manually calculate these hours out, which is a tedious process and prone to human error. 

New views in Parallax show a more accurate view into an individual’s capacity and utilization targets so that managers can 1) ensure they have the right staff in place to execute the work 2) hit their milestones for the project and 3) not burnout any team members. It’s a big win-win for both resource planners and billable team members and a solution to a long-standing issue in digital services and resource planning. Learn more about capacity and utilization by visiting support.getparallax.com.

Questions? Let’s chat 

We love best practices around capacity planning and utilization reporting at Parallax, and we want to make it as easy and accurate as possible for our customers, too. When schedules are always influx and teams are constantly changing, having the right information in hand to better support your teams and better plan for your projects is a huge help. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you want help reviewing this new capacity planning in Parallax or if you have questions on how we approach capacity and utilization planning.