Overview
An allocation reserves a number of hours per day for one person over a date range, without a monday item behind it. Use it for work that never becomes an item but still takes time: support duty, presales, onboarding, training, recurring meetings.
Every allocation is booked against either a category that an admin defined (for example Support) or a board. It appears as a bar in the person's row of the Resource Scheduler and counts in their workload, so the load indicators and forecasts show the real picture.
Set Up Categories First
Categories are created by an App Admin in Settings → Allocation Categories. Each one has a name and a colour; the colour is used for the bars of every allocation in that category. See Settings for the steps.
Without any category you can still book an allocation against a board. The allocation dialog tells you when no category exists yet, and gives admins a link straight to the Settings tab.
Add an Allocation
- On the scheduler, click an empty cell in a person's row — or drag across several cells to pick a date range.
- Choose Add allocation in the menu.
- Fill in the dialog and click Create.
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Person | Who the time is booked for. Pre-filled with the row you clicked. |
| Booked against | Category or Board. Categories are shown as chips with their colour; boards are the ones on the scheduler you are looking at. |
| Title (optional) | Shown on the bar instead of the category or board name, for example On-call week. Up to 255 characters. |
| Hours per day | Between 0.5 and 24. The hint below the field shows the person's daily capacity. |
| Start date / End date | Pre-filled from the cell or range you picked. A one-day allocation has the same start and end. |
| Colour (optional) | Click Set colour override to give this one allocation its own colour. Otherwise it follows its category — change the category colour later and the bar follows. |
| Note (optional) | Free text, shown when someone opens the allocation. |
The line at the bottom of the dialog shows the total: working days × hours per day. It counts Monday to Friday as a quick estimate. The workload itself is more precise — see How allocations count in workload.
Bulk allocation
To book the same thing for several people — a team training day, a company event — click Bulk allocation in the scheduler's filter bar. Search for people to add them one by one, or click Add all visible on scheduler to take everyone currently shown as a row. The rest of the dialog is the same as for a single allocation.
- One allocation is created per person, up to 200 people at a time.
- It is all or nothing: if the allocation cannot be created for one of the people, none is created and the dialog tells you why.
- Each created allocation can afterwards be moved, edited or deleted on its own.
Allocations on the Scheduler
An allocation is drawn in the person's row next to their items. To keep it apart from items and leave it has a light fill in its colour with a dashed outline, a small A marker, its title (or category / board name) and the hours per day, for example Support · 4h/day.
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| See details | Click the bar. The popup shows the person, the category or board, dates, hours per day, total hours, the note and who created it. |
| Edit | Click the bar, then Edit. Everything can be changed, including the person. |
| Move | Drag the bar left or right to shift its dates, or up or down to another person's row. |
| Change length | Drag either edge of the bar. Not available in the Year (Monthly) view, the same as for items. |
| Delete | Click the bar, then Delete and confirm. |
| Hide / show | Use the Allocations toggle next to Leaves and Holidays in the filter bar. It is on by default and remembered in this browser. |
A move or resize is saved straight away. If it cannot be saved — for example you may not plan for the person you dropped it on — the bar jumps back and a message explains why.
Group-by modes
- Users and Teams with Users — allocations follow the person's row. Someone who belongs to several selected teams shows the allocation under each of them.
- Teams — rows are whole teams, so there is no person row to put an allocation on. Allocations are not shown in this mode; switch to Teams with Users to see them.
My Work shows your own allocations in your row, and you can add one from there the same way.
The scheduler's Export to Excel lists allocations next to the items of each day, as [Allocation] Name (4h/d).
How Allocations Count in Workload
An allocation adds its hours per day to the person's scheduled hours, on top of their items. The workload indicator in each day cell includes it, and the capacity popup shows how much of the day is allocations (Allocations: 12h for the period and a small 4h alloc. tag on each day).
| Day | What the allocation adds |
|---|---|
| Working day | The full hours per day. Working days come from the person's capacity scheme, so a part-timer's day off adds nothing. |
| Weekend / non-working day | Nothing. |
| Holiday | Nothing. The hours are not moved to another day. |
| Full-day leave | Nothing. The hours are not moved to another day. |
| Half-day or partial-hours leave | The full hours per day. An allocation is a fixed commitment, so it is not shrunk; if it no longer fits, the day shows as overloaded. |
- Not capped by capacity. An 8h allocation on a day that already has 4h of items shows 12h. Overload colours are how you spot it.
- Original Estimate mode counts every working day of the allocation, past days included.
- Remaining Estimate and Availability modes count from today on, the same way they treat items. Past days show a dash.
- Number of Items mode does not count allocations — they are not items.
- If every working day of an allocation falls on a holiday or full-day leave, those days are marked as a conflict, because the booking has nowhere to land.
In reports
Allocations are part of the two forecast reports:
- Utilization Forecast — allocation hours are included in each person's scheduled hours. Grouped by board, an allocation booked on a board adds to that board, and all category allocations appear together under Allocations.
- Board Resources Forecast — allocations booked on a board add to that board's row. Category allocations are not listed, because they belong to no board.
Planned vs Actual and the timesheet progress views do not include allocations: they compare planned item hours with logged time, and time is not logged against an allocation.
Who Can Do What
| Action | Who |
|---|---|
| See allocations | Everyone who can see the person on the scheduler. |
| Add, move, edit, delete | Users who may plan for that person. If you are not allowed, the change is refused with a message and nothing is saved. |
| Any change at all | Not available to Read-only users: they see the bars and the details, without Add, Edit, Delete, drag or resize. |
| Manage categories | App Admins, in Settings. |