There are multiple options to change the time allocation table in Metric.ai. Let’s go through all of the options:
Checkboxes
With checkboxes, you can enable or disable a particular type of resource output.
Logged — turn on/off time already logged by employees.
For example, let’s turn on only logged time with grouping by project to see for which project and how many hours an employee has worked:
In a tooltip, you can see employee Carmen Parker has worked on the Ford, Cook and Duncan project. On September 5, there are 8 hours logged from 10.5 hours allocated.
Logged time is visualized with a solid rectangle of a particular color (the color split is defined by Group By option).
The Allocated checkbox turns on or off the visualization of allocated hours:
Logged time is visualized with a hatched rectangle of a particular color (color split is defined by Group By option):
The Capacity checkbox turns on or off the output of the real capacity of your employees. Capacity is visualized as a number in the bottom right corner of each rectangle representing a day:
Sorting
There are 3 ways to sort an employee list in Planning.
- Name — alphabetical sorting by employee name:
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Most Available—showing first employees with the least amount of time allocated for selected time range:
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Closest-Available Date—showing first employees whose availability for any work (not booked at all or booked partially) is closest:
Group By
The Group By option controls the way the allocated time will be displayed in the planning table. Here are clarifications about Group By options:
- Group By Employee will show the total allocated time for a particular employee. It’s a good option if you want to see the total booked time of a specific employee.
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Group By Project will show the booked time in each day and split it by project. It’s a good option if you want to clearly see on which projects an employee is supposed to work.
For example, Betty Cooke is booked for 2 projects on Thursday:
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Group By Task will show the granularity of a task level. It’s a good option if you want to observe the exact tasks on which an employee is going to work.
Each task has a different color inside the employee’s day rectangle.
Column
The column option gives the ability to change the scale of observable time in the table. For example, if you are planning the week, each column should represent a day. If you are scheduling weeks of work, make each column a week. For long-term resource allocation, the monthly view is the best. Each column is one month.
Layout
A layout defines the height of each colored rectangle inside a day. By default, the layout is stacked, which visually gives an understanding of size for each allocation according to the Group By option.
If you want to see any time allocation as a rectangle and you don’t care about its size, choose a Fixed layout. With the fixed layout, a task for 8 hours and a task for 2 hours will appear as same-sized rectangles in different colors. With a stacked layout, 8 hours allocation will be bigger than 2 hours allocation.
