PeopleMuster

Moving capacity planning off a spreadsheet

A capacity planning spreadsheet is accurate on the day somebody updates it. PeopleMuster replaces it with a grid of hours per person per day that reads approved leave and company holidays straight from the HR record, so the plan stays true between updates.

Your capacity sheet has a row per person and a column per week. Somebody colours cells green, amber and red by hand, and there's a tab for each quarter. Three copies float around with dates in the file name, and nobody is sure which one the account team opened.

Every change is manual. A developer books a week off and the sheet only finds out if the approver remembers to edit it. A new starter joins and needs a row, a formula and the right colour rules copied down. Miss one step and the red cells stop meaning anything.

PeopleMuster keeps the same idea in a shared grid. Each person has a row, each day of the month has a cell, and each cell holds the planned hours. Bands replace your colour code: Under up to four hours, Partial up to seven, Full at eight, and Over past that.

You don't rebuild the sheet by hand. During setup we load your people and projects with you, and the CSV importer takes the rest in one row per person or per project. From then on, a new hire appears on the grid when they're added to the directory, because that's where the rows come from.

Why one record instead of two

A spreadsheet plan is a copy of facts that live somewhere else. Leave sits in one system, holidays in another, and who works here in a third, so the sheet is out of date the moment any of them change. In PeopleMuster the capacity grid reads those facts from the same database it sits in. Approve a request and the days show as L on the grid. Add a company holiday and every row shows H. You plan on the record itself, so there's no copy to fall behind.

What is switched on

Resource allocation
Person by day of month, hours per cell, a monthly total per person and Under, Partial, Full and Over bands in place of hand-set colours.
Resource allocation
Switch between an allocation timeline and a data table, and group by people or by projects, so one grid answers both kinds of question.
Leave
An approved request marks those days as leave on the grid at once, with nobody copying dates across.
Holidays
The company calendar marks each holiday on every row, so no one plans eight hours on a day the office is closed.
Projects
Each project carries a billable or non-billable flag, and the grid filters on it to split client work from internal work.
Daily recap and timesheets
Logged hours per project sit in the same database as the plan, so planned and actual are one comparison.

What the week looks like

  1. Setup

    We load your people and projects with you. The CSV importer brings the rest across from the old workbook, one row per person or per project.

  2. Day one

    Planners set this month's hours on the grid. Monthly totals per person replace the SUM column, and the bands replace the colour code.

  3. Mid-week

    A designer's leave is approved. Those days turn to L on the grid before anyone thinks to mention it to the planner.

  4. Friday

    Your delivery lead groups the grid by project to see who is on each one, then filters to billable work only.

  5. Week two

    Your team logs hours per project in the daily recap, and utilisation reports show hours by project and department beside the plan.

  6. Month end

    You archive the old workbook. Roles decide who may edit allocations, and the activity log records every change with before and after values.

Questions people ask

Can I import my capacity planning Excel file?

Yes. During setup we load your people and projects with you, and the CSV importer takes one row per person or per project. Once they're in, you set planned hours on the grid by day, and the monthly totals fill themselves in.

What replaces the red, amber and green cells?

Four bands set by planned hours per day: Under from 0 to 4, Partial from 4 to 7, Full at 8 and Over past 8. They're worked out from the numbers, so a cell can't stay green after someone adds more hours.

Who can change the plan once it's shared?

Whoever your roles allow. Resource allocation is its own permission domain among 64 permissions, and every edit lands in the activity log with the old and new values, so a changed plan always has a name and a time beside it.

What does it cost to move off the spreadsheet?

PeopleMuster costs $3 per person per month with every module included, and there's no setup fee. Every new customer gets 14 days free with no card, and you can cancel any time.

Where to go next