Getting Started With Resource Planning And Timesheets

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Core Concepts in Operating

Projects, People, and Positions

Operating is built around three core entities: projects, people, and positions.

Projects represent your client engagements and internal work. People are your workforce. Positions are the link between the two. A position is a person, or a placeholder role, assigned to a project.

Positions without a named person are open positions, which form your staffing pipeline.

Each of these entities can be viewed as a customizable list or on a visual timeline.

Working with Views

List Views

In list views, you can choose which columns to display using the display options.

For projects, you can build dashboards showing financial metrics such as gross profit to date, percentage of budget spent, or planned margin. For people, list views show availability, role, seniority, and other attributes.

Timeline Views

The timeline is where you plan and schedule work.

On the people timeline, you see each person’s allocations across projects over time. Sorting by availability helps you quickly find who has capacity.

To adjust workloads, click an allocation to edit it or drag the handles to extend or shorten it. Gray lines represent tentative allocations, while green represent confirmed ones. You can also book time off and assign internal project work directly on the timeline.

On the project timeline, opening a project shows its team, budget, and planned margin. For ongoing projects with tracked time, hovering over the financials shows actual margin to date and projected margin.

Click Open details to reach the project status page, where you can compare planned and actual hours in detail and see whether the project is on track financially.

Tracking Time with Timesheets

In the Hours tab, team members log time against the projects and tasks they are allocated to.

The timesheet displays each project alongside the planned hours from the timeline. This helps people understand how much work is expected and compare that against what they have logged so far.

Enter hours for each day, add notes where helpful, and submit the timesheet at the end of the week.

Timesheet Approval Flows

Operating supports two approaches to timesheet approval.

You can configure approval flows, such as requiring the project owner to approve hours on client projects, or you can allow submitted hours to be approved by default. Both options are managed under Settings.

Exporting Time Entries

Time entries can be exported for use in external finance or invoicing systems.

You can export data from a single project’s time tracking section, filtered by date range, or from the master time entry list, which shows all entries across the organization.

Choose which columns to include and download the export as a CSV file. This data can be sent to systems such as QuickBooks or NetSuite, or connected via the REST API.

Comparing Planned vs. Actual Hours

With both planning and time tracking in place, Operating highlights where plans and reality diverge.

On the project status page, planned hours from the timeline are shown alongside actual hours from timesheets in a burn-up chart.

At the team level, the Planned vs. Actual report compares these numbers for each person. You can define a deviation threshold, for example flagging anything more than 50 percent off plan, to quickly surface issues.

If someone is consistently tracking more or less than planned, it may indicate a workload problem worth reviewing with the project manager.

Filling Open Positions

Filter the Positions tab by “Person is none” to see all open positions across your portfolio.

Each open position shows the required role, start date, and duration. Clicking Suggest prompts Operating to recommend people based on availability, site, role, seniority, and skills.

Once someone is assigned, the position disappears from the list and appears on the timeline.

This view works as your staffing to-do list.

Reports

Portfolio

Portfolio provides an overview of planned hours and estimated revenue across your project pipeline.

Capacity

Capacity shows your team’s future utilization, including both tentative and confirmed allocations.

Planned vs. Actual

Planned vs. Actual compares timeline allocations against timesheet data at the team level. Highlighting deviations helps identify where people are significantly over or under plan.

Customizing Your Workflow

Creating Pinned Views

Save and pin the views you use most to your sidebar, and organize them into folders for quick access.

Useful starting views include:

• My schedule, the people timeline filtered to just you

• My projects, projects where you are a team member

• Team views, people filtered by a specific role you manage

• Open positions, positions with no person assigned

• Open time entries, submitted but not yet exported entries, useful for month-end

Pinned views can be shared with your team so everyone works from the same setup.

Navigation and Settings

Quick Navigation

Use Cmd+K on Mac or Ctrl+K on Windows to jump anywhere in Operating.

Account Settings

Explore the Settings area to review your organization setup, sites, roles, and approval configurations.