Use Cases

These walkthroughs cover the most common problems teams solve with the Resource Planning plugin during their first week. Each use case uses your own boards and team members, with exact navigation paths and button names so you can follow along step by step.

Use Case 1: Balance Your Team's Workload Across Projects

The Problem

Your team members are assigned to multiple project boards, and you have no easy way to tell who is overloaded and who has room for more work. One person ends up with 10 hours of scheduled tasks on an 8-hour day while another sits at 50% capacity. Deadlines slip because work is unevenly distributed.

What You'll Use

• Resource Scheduler — Gantt-like calendar showing all items on a board, grouped by assignee
• Workload overlay — color-coded capacity bars showing utilization (the percentage of available capacity used by scheduled work) per person per day
• Workspace View Scheduler — a single view that combines multiple boards on one scheduler
• Capacity & Utilization Overview — numerical breakdown of each team member's capacity usage

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

1. Open your first project board in monday.com and launch the Resource Scheduler from the Board View.
2. Click the Workload toggle in the toolbar to enable the workload overlay. Capacity bars appear beneath each team member's row, color-coded by day.
3. Scan for Red days (over-allocated at >120%). If a team member shows red on specific dates, they have more scheduled hours than their daily capacity allows.
4. Drag an over-allocated task bar from the overloaded team member's row to a team member who shows Green (0–100% utilization) or Yellow (101–120%) on those dates. The plugin reassigns the item and updates workload indicators instantly.
5. Open your second project board and repeat the check. Confirm the person you just assigned work to is not already at capacity on that board.
6. For a combined view, open the Workspace View and add both project boards to the scheduler using the board picker in the toolbar. You can now see all team members across all boards in a single scheduler view.
7. Open Workspace View > Reports and run a Capacity & Utilization Overview for both boards. Review the percentage breakdown per team member to confirm the workload is balanced.

Measurable Outcome

Now you can see each team member's daily and weekly utilization at a glance. After rebalancing, your team should be in the 85–95% utilization range — busy but not overloaded. You can repeat this check any time new tasks are added or priorities shift, and it takes less than five minutes.

Use Case 2: Track Time and Bill Clients Accurately

The Problem

You need to know exactly how many hours your team spends on each project so you can bill clients accurately, but people forget to track time, log hours in different places, or enter approximate numbers at the end of the week. You end up under-billing or over-billing, and you cannot produce a clean hours report for your client.

What You'll Use

• Time Tracking (timer & manual entry) — log worklogs against specific board items
• Work Log Audit Trail — filterable report of all worklogs across boards, exportable to CSV
• Resource Scheduler task tooltip — quick access to log worklogs without leaving the scheduler

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

1. Open your project board and launch the Resource Scheduler from the Board View.
2. Click on any task bar to open the task tooltip. Select "Log Work" to open the worklog form.
3. Enter the hours worked, select the date, and optionally add a description of what was done (e.g., "Client feedback revisions — round 2"). Click Save. This creates a worklog tied to that item.
4. Alternatively, open Workspace View > Time Tracking and click "+ Worklog". Search for the item, enter hours, date, and an optional description, then click Save.
5. At the end of the week, open Workspace View > Reports and select Work Log Audit Trail.
6. Filter the report by board (select your client's project board), date range (this week), and optionally by team member.
7. Review the table of worklogs. Each row shows the team member, item name, date, hours, and description.
8. Click Export to generate a CSV file you can attach to your client invoice or share with your finance team.

Measurable Outcome

Now you have an itemized, exportable record of every hour your team spent on the project. You can produce a client-ready hours report in under a minute, broken down by task, person, and date. This eliminates guesswork from billing and gives clients transparent proof of the work delivered.

Use Case 3: Set Up Timesheet Approval for Your Team

The Problem

Your team logs worklogs throughout the week, but nobody reviews them before they go to payroll or client billing. Mistakes slip through — hours logged on weekends, duplicate entries, or worklogs against the wrong items. You need a review-and-approve step so that only verified worklogs are used for payroll and invoicing.

What You'll Use

• Timesheet Approval — weekly or monthly review cycle where team members submit worklogs and approvers accept or reject them
• Approvals tab — centralized view for all pending timesheet and leave requests
• Work Log Audit Trail — export worklogs with approval status for payroll

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

Part A: Team Members Submit Timesheets

1. Each team member opens Workspace View > Timesheet.
2. The timesheet grid shows every worklog they logged during the current period (e.g., the past week), organized by item and day.
3. The team member reviews their entries, corrects any mistakes (wrong date, wrong hours), and clicks Submit for Approval.
4. The timesheet status changes to "Pending" and appears in the approver's queue.

Part B: You Review and Approve

1. Open Workspace View > Approvals. You see a list of submitted timesheets with each person's name, the period covered, and total hours.
2. Click on a submitted timesheet to expand the detail view. Review the daily breakdown — check for unusual entries such as hours logged on weekends or public holidays, or entries that exceed the person's daily capacity.
3. If everything looks correct, click Approve. The timesheet status changes to "Approved".
4. If something looks wrong, click Reject and add a comment explaining what needs to be fixed (e.g., "Please verify the 8 hours logged on Saturday — our standard capacity is 0h on weekends"). The team member receives a notification, corrects the entry, and resubmits.

Part C: Export Approved Worklogs for Payroll

1. At the end of the pay period, open Workspace View > Reports and select Work Log Audit Trail.
2. Set the date range to cover the full pay period and filter to show only approved timesheets.
3. Click Export. The CSV file includes columns for approval status, approver, person, date, board, item, time spent, and comments.
4. Hand the file to your payroll or finance team. Only reviewed, approved worklogs are included.

Measurable Outcome

Now every worklog goes through a review cycle before it reaches payroll. This reduces billing errors, catches data-entry mistakes early, and gives you a complete audit trail of who approved what and when. The approval workflow adds less than 10 minutes per week for a team of 10.

Use Case 4: Get a Cross-Project Overview for Leadership

The Problem

You oversee multiple project boards across different teams, and you need a single view that shows where all your people are allocated. Before quarterly reviews or headcount discussions, you spend hours manually compiling utilization numbers from separate boards. You need a way to spot overcommitted individuals, identify available capacity, and produce executive-ready reports — all without switching between boards one by one.

What You'll Use

• Workspace View Scheduler — combines multiple boards into one scheduler view
• Capacity & Utilization Overview — shows utilization percentages per team member across selected boards
• Time-Off & Absence Summary — shows upcoming approved leave that will affect capacity
• CSV Export — generates spreadsheet-compatible files for executive presentations

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

1. Open the Workspace View and click Scheduler in the app sidebar.
2. Use the board picker in the toolbar to add all the project boards you want to monitor (e.g., your engineering board, your design board, your marketing board, and your operations board).
3. The scheduler now displays every team member across all selected boards. You can see at a glance who is assigned to what. Enable the Workload toggle to reveal who is overcommitted.
4. Look for team members with a high item count across boards — this is a signal of potential overcommitment even if individual boards look manageable.
5. Navigate to Workspace View > Reports and run a Capacity & Utilization Overview for all your boards. Review the utilization percentage for each person. Identify anyone consistently above 100% or below 60%.
6. Run a Time-Off & Absence Summary for the upcoming month. Check for approved leave that overlaps with critical project milestones. Flag conflicts with the relevant team leads.
7. Click Export on the Utilization report. Use the CSV file in Excel or Google Sheets to build charts for your quarterly business review or headcount planning presentation.

Measurable Outcome

Now you have a single dashboard that shows resource allocation across your entire organization. You can produce a data-driven utilization report for leadership in under five minutes, proactively flag capacity risks before they become missed deadlines, and make headcount decisions based on real utilization data instead of gut feelings.

Use Case 5: Manage Holidays, Leave, and Capacity for a Distributed Team

The Problem

Your team is spread across multiple countries or regions, each with different public holidays. When you plan a sprint, you forget that half your team is off for a regional holiday, and the workload falls on the remaining members. Leave requests come in through chat or email with no central record, and you have no way to see how much vacation each person has left. You need a system that automatically factors holidays and leave into your capacity planning.

What You'll Use

• Holiday Calendars — region-specific calendars with public holidays that automatically reduce capacity to zero on those days
• Leave Types & Allocation — configurable leave categories with allocation (the number of leave days assigned to a user per year) and carry-over rules
• Leave Requests & Approval — team members submit leave requests; approvers accept or reject them
• Work Capacity Schemes — define daily working hours per user (e.g., 8h/day, 6h/day for part-time)
• Time-Off & Absence Summary — see leave usage across the team

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

Step 1: Set Up Holiday Calendars by Region

1. Open Workspace View > Settings > Holiday Calendars and click + Create Calendar.
2. Name the calendar after the region (e.g., "US Holidays" or "Germany Holidays").
3. Select a country to pre-populate the calendar with public holidays for the current and next year.
4. Optionally add custom company-specific days off (e.g., "Company All-Hands Day") by clicking + Add Holiday and entering the name and date.
5. Assign team members to the calendar using the user picker. Each person should be assigned to the calendar that matches their location, or set one calendar as the default schema for all users.
6. Repeat for each region your team operates in. A team member in Germany sees German holidays on the scheduler; a team member in the US sees US holidays. Capacity automatically drops to zero on those days.

Step 2: Configure Leave Types

1. Go to Settings > Leave Types. Create the leave types your company uses. Common examples:
   • Vacation — 20 days/year allocation, with up to 5 days carry-over to the next year
   • Sick Leave — no fixed allocation (as needed)
   • Personal Day — 3 days/year allocation
   • Unpaid Leave — no allocation limit
2. For each leave type with a fixed allocation, set the default days per year. You can override this per user later if needed (e.g., senior employees with 25 vacation days instead of 20).
3. For Vacation, enable accumulation and set the carry-over maximum to match your HR policy (e.g., 5 days).

Step 3: Process Leave Requests

1. Team members submit leave requests from the Leave Management view by clicking + Request Leave, selecting the leave type, entering the dates, and choosing their approver.
2. You receive the request in Workspace View > Approvals.
3. Review the request: check the person's remaining leave balance, check for conflicts with project deadlines on the scheduler, and check whether other team members are already off on those dates.
4. Click Approve or Reject (with a comment if rejecting). Approved leave immediately appears on the Resource Scheduler and sets the person's capacity to zero on those days.
5. Run a Time-Off & Absence Summary to see leave usage across the team. This helps you spot if multiple people are planning to be out during the same sprint.

Step 4: Adjust Capacity for Part-Time or Flexible Schedules

1. Go to Settings > Work Capacity Schemes and click + Create Scheme.
2. Define the working hours per day of the week. For a standard full-time schedule, set Monday–Friday to 8 hours and Saturday–Sunday to 0 hours.
3. For part-time team members, create a separate scheme (e.g., "Part-Time 6h") with 6 hours on Monday–Friday.
4. Assign each team member to the appropriate capacity scheme. The scheduler and workload overlay will now use the correct daily hours when calculating utilization.

Measurable Outcome

Now your scheduler automatically reflects regional holidays, approved leave, and individual capacity schemes. When you plan a sprint, you see the real available hours per person per day — no surprises from forgotten holidays or unapproved absences. Leave balances are tracked centrally, and you can produce a leave report showing exactly how many days each person has used and how many remain.