Discover the Planning Module – your key to streamlined management. Read in this article how this module optimises scheduling, maximises resource usage, and helps you plan for the future. With Teamleader Focus’ established Planning Module, your coordination becomes very easy, ensuring your team's time is used efficiently and your tasks are well-organised and adaptable. Let's dive into the planning process!




Do you prefer to watch our instructive video first? You can do so right here:


Benefits

The Teamleader Focus Planning can help you improve your way of working:

  • Check capacity:
    • Efficiently identify available personnel and resources to optimally use your valuable time
    • Assigning the right team member to each task becomes a walk in the park because you have real-time insights into your employees’ availability and capacity. 
  • Scheduling: accurately schedule tasks in the near future but also in the distant future.
    Note: Our planning module differs from our calendar module, as the planning only offers an overview in which you can plan and reschedule tasks. You can’t see at what time a certain task is planned.
  • Flexibility: always adapt your schedule when unexpected changes arise. This helps keep your work on track without overworking your team. 


What

You can find Planning in the navigation on the left. 

  • Here you will find a weekly overview of all your colleagues/employees.
  • If you click on Assignees in the top left-hand corner you have the option to filter by people, but also by teams.
  • If you click on the cogwheel at the top, you can set your planning preferences.
    • You can choose to display weekends or not by turning the slider ‘Show weekends’ off or on
    • You can also select what info you want to see displayed on a planning card. The title of the task will always be the title of the planning card, but when you view a task in the planning you can define which information you see below the name of the task. There are three options, but note that this meta data will only be displayed if the planned time is 2 hours or more: 
      • Customer name
      • Project title
      • Work type

  • If you are clicking/scrolling through the planning, you can always return to the current date by clicking on Today.

  • In addition, you can adjust the visible time period of the planning by zooming in and out on the plus and minus at the top of the page. You can zoom out to a maximum of 4 weeks.

After you've customised the view to your preference, it's time to plan tasks.

  • Click on Plan tasks in the top right-hand corner.
  • First of all, you can filter on which tasks are displayed here by: 
    • Searching for it in the search bar;
    • Defining the range of the due date of the task;
    • Filtering on projects, assignees or work types.

      Note: You cannot create tasks in the planning module. You have to create the task via the calendar or by clicking on the plus and then "task" at the top.

  • After you’ve found the right task, drag and drop it into the planning of the right person on the right day.
    • If you filled out 6 hours when creating the task, the task will immediately be scheduled for 6 hours.
      Note: This will only happen if there is enough availability on that day for that user, otherwise it will plan however much is available.
    • If you didn’t define the duration of the task, it will automatically be planned for 1 hour. 
    • Tasks that are already fully planned won’t show up in the sidebar to plan tasks. They will show up with the label ‘Fully planned’ when searching for them.

After you've planned tasks, this has an impact on your capacity.

  • At the top left of the planning you have the totals bar. Here you can see how much planned vs unplanned time you have in total for all your colleagues/employees for the duration of the visible time period on your screen. 
  • Next to the totals bar, you have the visualisation of the planned and unplanned time for every separate day.
     
  • Under the totals bar, you have the visualisation of the planned and unplanned time for every individual colleague/employee.



Notes:

  • If you’ve overplanned someone, their totals bar for that day will turn red.
     
  • The weekly planning options are different if you’ve also set a week schedulefor someone. 
    • Here, you can indicate if there are days when someone is not available and that day will be shaded in the planning. 
    • If you plan a task for that person on a day that they are not available, you’ll receive the following warning:
    • If you click on Plan anyway, then the capacity bar will turn red. 
  • If you have a BOOST or FLOW licence, you can also determine your days off. That day will be displayed in grey. If you try to plan a task that day, the capacity bar will turn red as well. 


If you hover over a task, you can see on which date and how long the task is scheduled, the customer name, the project title and work type. If you actually click on the task, you can edit the planned time. You can also edit the details of the actual task by clicking on Details.

  • There’s also the option ‘Suggest time’. Clicking on it will automatically schedule the full duration of the task (if there’s still enough time available for that day for that user of course), or the remaining duration.
  • If you’ve already planned time for the same task on another day, that amount of time will be visible between brackets. In the following example, the total task duration is 10 hours, but you’ve already planned two hours on another day (+02h00):


    Note: The planning module is not a calendar so you can’t see at what exact time a task is planned, only the duration. Check the paragraph below for more information on the link with the calendar module.


To reschedule a task and move it to another colleague or to another day, you can always drag and drop the task to someone else/another day.


If you right-click on a task you get the option to Remove the planning. By clicking on this, you delete the planned time in the planning, but not the actual task itself.


Tasks, meetings and calls turn a lighter shade if they are in the past.


The planning module is closely linked to the calendar module as the actions you perform in your planning have an impact on your calendar and vice versa:

  • After you’ve planned all the tasks to your liking in your planning, it’s up to your team members to schedule the tasks in their calendar. The tasks are not scheduled in the agendas for a specific time frame, but when they go to their calendar, they will see the amount of planned tasks per day on top. The availability bars below a certain day will fill up as they take all planned tasks, meetings and calls from the planning into account. Read more about the capacity bars here.
    By clicking on 'x task', a user will be redirected to the day view where every individual co-worker has the possibility to check them off immediately or to click and drag them into the daily schedule for a specific time frame.

  • If you schedule a task in your or your colleague’s calendar, it will automatically show up in the planning as well. And when you extend the scheduled time of a task in your calendar, the scheduled time of the task will also be extended in the planning.

  • If you work with an external integration for your calendar such as Google Calendar or iCloud, items will also be copied into the planning. Similar to what happens in your calendar, the boxes will be greyed out in your planning with the label 'busy'. The scheduled time of this activity will also be included in the capacity bar so it will affect your availability.


Access to planning

You can also change the planning access for everyone:

  • Go to Settings > Users > three dots next to every user in your account.
  • You see Planning and Access. Next to disabling the complete module, you can also limit access. You have 3 options:



Notes

  • Calls scheduled via the calendar are visible in the planning. The duration of a call is 30 minutes by default.
  • Meetings scheduled via the calendar are also visible in the planning. The duration of the meeting is taken over and is also included in the total bar.
  • If you want to reschedule a call or meeting, you have to do it via the calendar because you cannot move a call or meeting in the planning module.
  • Tracked time doesn’t show up on your planning card, and it’s also not possible to register time on a task via the planning.