Capacity Planning is currently a Beta release.
This article details how to set up each component and feature in FYI to run Capacity Planning reports. This article contains the following sections:
- Setting up the Capacity Planning Template
- Setting up the Job Views that will be used by the Custom Processes
- Setting up the Automation Custom Processes
- Setting up the Job Start Date and Job Estimated Hours in Client Jobs
Setting up the Capacity Planning Template
FYI will provide your practice with one or more Excel Spreadsheet Templates for Capacity Planning.
These need to be added as Spreadsheet Templates in your practices Knowledge.
- The information in the Employees worksheet needs to be set up with the weekly hours for the users who are assigned to Tasks in the Processes.
- The information in the Leave worksheet needs to be set up with the leave dates for the users who are assigned to Tasks in the Processes.
The weekly hours and the leave dates are used to calculate the time Available for the assigned users.
Preparation
- Decide which of your users will be used as an Assignee as part of the Capacity Planning.
- Determine the number of hours per week these users are available.
- Determine any leave dates that are relevant for these users.
Employees Worksheet
Set up the Employees worksheet with the weekly hours for your users. This can be set up for all users (for example, directly from your HR system) or just those that are assigned to the tasks in any Processes that will be used to run the report.
The Employees are also automatically populated so that, if you are creating a Capacity Report without a template, the users who are assigned to the Tasks are added to the Employees worksheet. If you are creating a Capacity Report and using a template that has an existing Employees worksheet, any users who are assigned to the Tasks that are not currently listed will be inserted at the first blank row in the Employees worksheet.
- Enter the Employee Name, exactly as it is held in FYI.
- Add the users' weekly hours.
You can add an adjusted weekly hours directly to the Actual Hours column.
Or, add the the full Weekly Hours and a value for Productivity to calculate the Actual Hours.
Note: The hours that are held in the Template can be added so this relates to the tasks involved in the Capacity Planning.
For example, if a user is full time but is usually only available half of their time for these tasks, you can enter the hours for that person to reflect this such as entering 20 for the Weekly Hours.
Leave Worksheet
The Leave worksheet holds the information about any Leave dates for your users.
Dates of any public holidays, or any other dates where all users are not available, also need to be recorded in the Leave worksheet.
This can be set up for all users (for example, directly from your HR system) or just those that are assigned to the tasks in any Processes that will be used to run the report.
The Leave should be entered with each day of leave as a separate entry. This ensures that the Leave is applied correctly for any time period that the Capacity Planning Report is run for.
- Enter the Employee Name, exactly as it is held in FYI.
- Enter the start Date of the leave.
- Enter the total number of Hours leave being taken from the start Date.
The following is an example of the Leave dates for the users including the Easter public holidays for all users.
There is no need to record any weekend dates in the Leave worksheet. The report is processed on a seven day cycle, therefore allocated time falling on a weekend is not an issue as most practices will run Capacity Planning at a monthly level. If, however, you want to run the Capacity Planning at a weekly level, you can add the dates for weekends in the Leave worksheet.
Do not make any other changes to the Template
It is important that, apart from the employee details and leave date details, all other settings in the Template must be left unchanged.
The spreadsheet for the Template uses advanced Excel functions (such as Pivot Tables). If any other changes are made to the spreadsheet Templates that have been provided by FYI, this can alter the way in which the Capacity Planning is calculated and displayed. The FYI Support team may not be able to assist you if changes made to the Template cause the Capacity Planning function to give incorrect results, or that stop the feature running correctly.
Setting up the Job Views that will be used by the Custom Processes
For each Process that will be used in the Capacity Planning, a Job View needs to be set up and saved and selected as the Filter in the Process. The Job View determines the client Jobs that drive the Process. For example, to run a Capacity Planning report for Jobs that are due in the next quarter, you would use a Job View that has the filter set for the Job Start Date between the dates that relate to the next quarter.
You can use existing Job Views, or create and save Views that are specifically for Capacity Planning.
When running the Capacity Planning Report you can select a different Job View and use a different View to the one that is set as the default. For example, if the default View is set to run the Process for a certain division for the next quarter, you can run the Capacity Planning on a View for Jobs with Start Dates further in the future, or for Jobs that relate to a different division. This allows you to run the report without having to make any changes to the Process which is also useful if the Process is also used outside of Capacity Planning.
Once the Processes have been set up, additional Views can be added as and when needed and used to run the Capacity Planning Reports.
Preparation
- Determine which Jobs the Capacity Planning needs to be run for.
Different Process can be incorporated into the same Capacity Planning report so a different view may be applicable to the same Process. - Determine the filters and selections that need to be set up in views to display these Jobs.
Setting up the Job Views
The Job Views are set up and saved in the usual way. Refer to Saving Changes to the View Layout, Modifying and Deleting Views.
As these views will be available in the view selector in Jobs lists, if the views are only applicable to Capacity Planning you can add this in the name of the view to distinguish it,
Setting up the Automation Custom Processes
The Automation Custom Processes that will be used for the Capacity Planning need to be set up by your practice. The Processes holds the steps for Tasks that will generate the Capacity Planning report. These can be stand-alone Tasks and also Tasks for any documents that are created (such as sending an email or creating a document, creating a meeting).
Each step needs to include a default Time allocation that is used to generate the Allocated time in the Capacity Planning Report.
The Processes could be ones that are used at other times (for example, a Process that sends out Checklists or BAS Reminders) or they could be Processes that are set up specifically for Capacity Planning.
For existing Processes, the only changes that would generally be needed to use them in Capacity Planning would be to add the Default Time Allocation for any of the Tasks in the Process.
When the Capacity Planning Report is run, you can select more than one Process and the results of all the selected Processes are combined. This allows you to separate what is added to the Processes not only for convenience, but also where different Views are used to retrieve the Jobs that trigger the Process.
It is important to note that when the Process is used to produce the Capacity Planning Report, any emails, documents or Tasks in the Steps are not created. They are used only to calculate the time allocations. However, if the same Process is run in the usual way, this will create any documents and Tasks.
Preparation
- Determine which Custom Process you need to set up.
- Determine any Process that are already set for your practice that can be used for Capacity Planning and check what updates are needed, such as to add the Default Time Allocation to all Tasks in the Processes.
- Determine all the Tasks that will be involved in what you want to run the Capacity Planning for. Each Task will be set up as a Step in the Process, or as a Task for an email or document that is created (such as a Word document, Phone Call, File Note, Meeting).
- Determine the Assignee for each step. These would usually be added as a role, such as Partner, Manager or as a Custom User Role.
- Determine the Due Date of each Task. This is relative to the start date of a Job.
- Determine if the Time for each Task would be "Fixed" regardless of the size of the client Job, or if this needs to be "Relative" (so for a large client the Task would take longer, and for a small client the Task would take less time).
- Determine the time that each step would take for an 'average' size client Job. Where relevant this can be calculated relative to the estimated total hours of a Job, so this needs to be entered as the default time that would be needed to do the Task for an average size client.
Selecting the View in Process
The Filter in the Process must be set as Job - View Filters and a Job View selected. The View that is selected in the process will be offered as the default when the Capacity Planning Report is run with that Process selected (but an alternative view can be selected at run time).
Adding the Steps to the Process
All Steps used for Capacity Planning need to have:
- A Task
The Task holds the Assignee and the Due Date. - The Time details to calculate the time to be allocated.
Adding Task Steps with the Assignee and Due Date
- For a Create Task this is entered as usual and the Assignee and Due Date selected.
- For Steps that create an email, document, Phone Call, File Note or Meeting, a Task must be added to the Step and the Assignee and Due Date selected in the Task.
The selection for Assignee in the Task determines the user against which the Allocated time is added in the Capacity Planning Report. You can select a specific person as the Assignee, or you can select "Partner", "Manager" or a Custom User Role to use the relative Partner, Manager or Custom User Role for the Job. If the Job does not have a Partner/Manager/Custom User Role, then this is picked up from the Client settings.
The setting for Due Date determines when the Task will be done, and therefore whether or not it falls within the time period for which the Capacity Planning is being run. The Due Date is relative to the Start Date of each of the Jobs that trigger the Process (as determined by the Job View that is selected when the Process runs)..
Setting the Default Time Allocation in Process Steps
Each Task Step in the Processes that will be used in Capacity Planning must include a Default Time Allocation.
The Time section in a Step is available for all Steps that create a Task or that create a document (such as Create Email, Word, Phone Call, File Note or Meeting).
The Time in the Steps is used in the Capacity Planning report to calculate the Allocated time for the Tasks for each of the assigned users.
Allocation
Allocation can be set as "Relative" or "Fixed".
Relative is used to calculate the time for the Task relative to the total estimated hours for a Job.
For any Allocations that are Relative, the total of the Default Times for all the Tasks in the Process is calculated. This is then compared to the Estimated Hours for the Job and any "Relative" times are then calculated and proportionately increased or decreased based on the total for the Job that us being considered. For example,
- The total of all Default Times in the Tasks in the Process is 10 hours.
- A Task has been set up as Relative, so it will allocate the time proportionate to the estimated total of the Job.
- The Default Time of this Task is 30 minutes (00:30).
- The Estimated Hours for one of the Jobs that triggered the Process is 30 hours. For this Job, the Time allocations for this Task will be increased by three times the Default Time. The time allocated for this Task, for this Job, will be 1 hour 30 minutes.
- The Estimated Hours for a different Job that triggered the Process is 2 hours. For this Job, the Time allocations will decrease and allocate it as one fifth of the Default Time. The time allocated for this Task, for this Job, will be 6 minutes.
Fixed would be used for an action or Task that would always be a certain length of time regardless of the size of the client. For example, a Step for a Meeting where the meeting would always be allocated 1 hour regardless of the size of the client and the Job Estimated Hours. The Time for the Task would be set up as Fixed.
Default Time
The Default Time is set as the estimated time that the action or Task would take for an 'average' size Job.
The Default Time is entered as hours and minutes. For example:
00:05 for 5 minutes
00:45 for 45 minutes
01:00 for 1 hour
01:30 for 1 hour and 30 minutes
Setting up the Job Start Date and Job Estimated Hours in Client Jobs
When a Capacity Planning Report is run, it uses the start date and the estimated hours in the Job.
- The start date of a Job determines if the Job and the task are relevant for the dates that the Capacity Planning Report is being run for.
- For any tasks that are set up in the Process with a Time allocation as "Relative", the estimated hours for a Job is used to allocate the time proportionate to the estimated total of the Job that triggered the Process in the Capacity Planning. Refer above to Setting the Default Time Allocation in Process Steps.
These are initially set as the standard fields "Start Date" and "Estimated" to use the values held in Xero Practice Manager.
Instead of using the values held in Xero Practice Manager, a Custom Field can be used for the Job Start Date and the Job Estimated Hours. The start date and estimated total hours can then be added to Jobs using the Custom Fields directly in FYI.
When these are set, the Capacity Planning reports will use the values held in the selected Custom Fields instead of the Start Date and Estimated Hours that are held in Xero Practice Manager. This allows these values to be entered directly as separate values specifically for the Capacity Planning instead of having to maintain the values in Xero Practice Manager.
To set up the Custom Fields for Job start date and Job estimated hours:
- An FYI Admin sets up the Custom Fields to use for your practice in Practice Settings - Custom Fields. Refer to Managing Custom Fields.
- The relevant Custom Fields are then selected for your practice in Practice Settings - Mappings. Refer to Managing Mappings.
- When the Custom Fields have been selected for these in the Practice Settings - Mappings, the Job Start Date and the Job Estimated Hours are then entered in FYI for each Job. Refer to Job Custom Fields.
The values held against the Jobs for these Custom Fields are then used in the Capacity Planning reports.
If a value is not entered for the Custom Field, the values held for Job Start Date and Job Estimated Hours in Xero Practice Manager are used.