How to Create a Report
The following instructions are based on the Report view, available for Placker users. To learn the basics of this mode, please refer to this article.
And to add capacity planning widgets to your reports. For this it will be required to open edit mode in the reports. This is described in this article.
Capacity Planning
Capacity planning is the process of determining the resources needed to accomplish tasks within a project. It is crucial for effective project management as it helps in setting realistic milestones and meeting project deadlines consistently.
By understanding the capacity of your team and balancing it with the works to be done, teams can optimize productivity, allocate resources more effectively, and maintain a healthy work-life balance for the team.
Insights
How much effort is planned for each team member?
Based on the cards that are assigned to each team member, how many work is planned for each member? Generate a bar chart to show how much remaining effort is assigned for each user based on the cards assigned to the team members and the allocated effort.
How is the workload planned in time?
Based on the assigned cards, how is the planned effort split over time? This can be done by showing a stacked bar chart table where bars are stacked based on the planned end date of the cards, showing how the planned effort adds up for each team member.
You can change the configuration of this widget to visualize the widget using a line chart, and using the number of cards assigned to each member. This is shown below.
Or show the results in a pivot table to better understand (sub) totals on a row or column level also. This table is shown in the picture below.
Are members over or under allocated?
Based on the card assignment and the set plan start and end date, it is possible to show the workload in Full Time Equivalent (FTE).
The FTE value is calculated by looking at the effort that is planned for a time period and divides it by the available capacity. It shows how many people are needed when they would work full time on the task.
In the below table, all resources are allocated for less then one FTE, meaning that everyone should have enough capacity to pick up some more work (if they are available for the full capacity).
Any value above 1 for a single team member means that they are over allocated and more effort is planned than available. Action is needed in this case to prevent cases where a member is not able to deliver tasks due to not having enough time available.
How many full time team members are needed to finish the work?
You can use the FTE calculations show the split in different ways, in the example below the FTE is calculated for all the cards on the boards. Alternatively, you can split the table by label, list or any custom attribute that you have on the board.
In this case, based on the planned work, a bit over 1 resource is needed in February, exactly one is needed in March and less then one is needed in April. Maybe you can spread the workload a bit to only have one team member working on this project?
How to set up your board
Plan your cards
Set a planned start date and a plan end date on your cards to plan them in time. Based on the planned dates in Trello, Placker will calculate the duration and the effort of the card automatically. This makes it easier for you to get started with effort based on timelines.
Assign members to cards
Use member assignments to add owners to the cards, Placker can use these member assignments to generate the workload widgets mentioned in this page.
Setup your board calendar
The workload calculations use the calendar settings on your board to calculate the available capacity and effort between start and end date. The default settings assume an 8 hour work day starting at 9AM. Go to your board settings to change this when you would like to use a different calendar. [Link to calendar settings on the board]
Track progress automatically
Setup your board to track your cards to completed automatically, when you do this you can improve your capacity reporting. For example by removing the completed cards from the reports. [Link to progress tracking ]
Track plan, actual and remaining effort
When you track both the planned and actual effort in Placker, it is possible to report on the remaining effort in the report. This way when a card has an planned effort of 4 days and 2 days are already used, it will report 2 days remaining in the widgets.
How to set up your report
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to add these widgets to your report:
Pivot table or stacked bar/line charts
Open a Report view (Click on the "Reports" tab in the menu).
Add a pivot table, stacked bar or stacked line widget widget.
Choose the "Workload" option as column attribute
Choose the "Workload" option as the value attribute
Set the display as value the way you like the values to be displayed.
In case cards can be assigned to more then one member and you would like to split the effort across members, set Split member effort to 'Yes'.
In case you would like to only show a subset of cards, consider adding filters or sorting options based on your preferences.
Bar or line chart
Open a Report view (Click on the "Reports" tab in the menu).
Add a bar chart or line chart widget.
Choose the "Member" option as the group attribute.
Choose the "Effort" or "Remaining Effort" option as the value attribute
Set the display as value the way you like the values to be displayed.
In case cards can be assigned to more then one member and you would like to split the effort across members, set Split member effort to 'Yes'.
In case you would like to only show a subset of cards, consider adding filters or sorting options based on your preferences.
Remember to regularly update and review your card dates so that the report reflects the most up-to-date data.
If you have any questions, reach out to us in the chat.