What is the difference between capacity planning and resource allocation?
Capacity planning works out how many hours your team has, and resource allocation decides which person spends those hours on which project. Capacity comes first: working days minus leave and holidays. Allocation then books that time against client work. PeopleMuster does both on one grid, with leave and holidays marked and every day banded Under, Partial, Full or Over.
People use the two terms as if they meant the same thing. They answer different questions, on different timescales, and mixing them up is how teams end up overbooked.
Capacity is supply. It asks how many working hours each person has in a period. Take the working days, multiply by the standard day, then remove approved leave and company holidays. A developer with 20 working days at 8 hours has 160 hours. Three days of leave bring that down to 136.
Allocation is demand meeting supply. It asks who works on which project, on which days, and for how many hours. A good allocation fills capacity without spilling over it, and leaves room for the work nobody scheduled.
Capacity usually answers a monthly or quarterly question. Can we take on the new client in March? Do we need another designer next quarter? Allocation answers a weekly one: who is on the checkout rebuild on Tuesday, and who covers when the lead is off?
Order matters. Allocate before you know capacity and the plan looks full on paper while three people are on leave. That overbooking only shows when a deadline slips.
PeopleMuster puts both on the same grid. Each row is a person and each column a day, with planned hours in every cell and a monthly total per person. Approved leave shows as an L and company holidays as an H, so capacity is already net of time off when you start booking.
Bands keep the grid readable. Each day is marked Under, Partial, Full or Over against the expected working day. A team on a shorter standard day gets bands that move with it. Switch between week and month, filter to billable work, and group by people or by projects.
Timesheets close the loop. People log what they actually worked by project, so you can set the plan beside the hours that really happened and adjust next month's allocation.
Related questions
Is resource allocation part of capacity planning?
They are two steps of one process. Capacity planning measures the hours available, and resource allocation assigns them to projects and people. Most teams run capacity monthly and allocation weekly.
Which comes first, capacity planning or resource allocation?
Capacity planning. You need the hours left after leave and holidays before you can book them. Allocating first overbooks anyone with time off in the period.
How do I calculate team capacity for a month?
Multiply each person's working days by their standard day, then subtract approved leave and holidays. At 20 days of 8 hours with 3 days of leave, one person has 136 hours. Add the people together for the team.
Can PeopleMuster show the allocation plan by project?
Yes. The grid groups by people or by projects, and switches between a timeline view and a data table. A billable filter narrows it to client work.