A key challenge for project managers is balancing multiple projects while maximizing resource utilization and capacity management. Using multiple spreadsheets is one way to plan and manage resources. But relying on spreadsheets can become unmanageable or inaccurate, especially if spreadsheet data is not updated on a timely basis.

Tempo Planner goes well beyond spreadsheets. With Tempo Planner, project managers have the ability to view, plan and optimize resources all in one place – for multiple projects in real time.

Along with helping project managers to maximize resource planning, Tempo Planner provides valuable insights to team leads. The information in Tempo Planner can also help individual users better understand their projects and schedules.

Let’s take a look at two use cases that demonstrate how Tempo Planner and Tempo Timesheets can help project managers optimize resource utilization, gain visibility into planning, and help boost productivity.

Use Case 1: Plan and gain insights on your team’s work

One of the main insights project managers need to know is the availability and capacity of their resources across multiple teams.

Tempo Planner can help you optimize the availability of your resources by showing you the areas that are over- or under-utilized using data and real time information from the Resource Planning Overview page in Tempo Planner.

Using the Resource Planning Overview page, project managers and team leads can streamline the management of their teams and resources. You can find and filter resources by team, user, role, or even by generic resource to help planning future projects. Meanwhile, individual team members can gain insights into their own daily work schedules from viewing their own information in Tempo Planner.

Project managers, team leads can also use Tempo Planner to turn Jira issues and projects into executable planning timelines.

Here’s how it works:

1. From the Resource Planning Overview page, click on the box to plan time for a resource.
2. Drag and drop Jira issues from the side panel
3. Create a plan using the Import from Jira feature

In addition, by using the Reports module, team leads can query in multiple ways to see the big picture view of resources and work. Reports, which are available in every Tempo app, can be exported.

If your team uses both Tempo Planner and Tempo Timesheets, it’s possible to view the Plan vs Actual report to further monitor project progress as well make decisions about the project including adjusting resources when necessary.

Use Case 2: Plan for Future Customer Projects

Project managers are typically balancing and planning multiple projects as well as managing cross-project resources. In order to effectively plan resources for future projects, project managers need visibility into the availability of their resources.

Before committing to a future project, project managers need insight as to whether they have enough resources to complete the work.

From information on the Resource Planning Overview page, project managers can see whether they have sufficient resources for another customer project.

This view allows project managers to:

• Gain visibility into current resource availability – with real time information
• Determine which team members are available for another project
• Plan time for the project and reserve the needed resource

Then, by coordinating information from the Resource Planning Overview page with the Planned Time Report, the project manager can see how much time has been planned and invested for the upcoming project.

Because Tempo apps integrate with each other, project managers and team leads can use the information in Tempo Planner and Tempo Timesheets together for planning, viewing and tracking time, and simplifying the planning process.

Tempo acts as a single enterprise-wide source of truth with real time visibility into each resource instead of relying on multiple spreadsheets.

If you want to start improving your ability to track employee time, create benchmarks for productivity, and ultimately begin resource planning and capacity management with the mindset of a data scientist, look no further than Tempo. With Tempo Timesheets and Tempo Planner, we make it easy to track time and to create a solid record of team productivity, resource requirements, and time-based budgeting. With this information in hand — and with new features on the way — you can get smarter and more accurate about your capacity for the next amazing project on the horizon.