What’s new

Check out the latest features and product improvements that save you time

Apr 2024
  • 11th April 2024

Coming soon: Save phase durations in your project templates

Phase duration now available in project templates

Do you use phases in your project planning? Now when your projects with phase dates are saved as templates → the number of calendar days for each phase will be automatically calculated and set as the default phase duration.

Let's walk through an example.

  • siobhan headshot
  • By Siobhan Hayes3rd April 2024

    Time Tracking

Try the Float desktop timer app

The Float desktop timer app is now available for everyone to download! In October, we introduced an in-app timer that automatically logs your recorded time as entries in Float. Now, the dedicated timer app makes it even easier to start recording your time on tasks—directly from your desktop.

  • By Alice Winthrop1st April 2024

Set default hourly rates by role

Default hourly role rates

Simplify your planning and estimation workflow with default rates for roles. You've just saved a step if you bill work with default hourly role rates! For all new projects and phases, we'll automatically apply these default rates.

Need to customize your bill rates? You can edit and set rates at the Person level, overriding any default rates for that Role.

And if you need to make project or phase-specific bill rate adjustments, you can quickly set custom rates for each team member directly in the project—and use the new side panel for an even smoother experience 😉

This update won't change any rates on existing projects or phases. Let's walk through an example.

Say that the default hourly rate for the 'Designer' role is $100/hour. However, your designer, Racquel, has a personal rate of $150/hour, which is already set at an individual level. In this instance, Racquel will continue to be billed at $150/hour for the projects and phases they're added to. On the other hand, Alice, also a designer, doesn't have an individual rate set. That means when Alice is added to a project or phase, her default rate will be the 'Designer' role at $100/hour—unless an Admin or Project Manager edits this.

Role rates are only visible to the Account Owner, Admins, and Project Managers with the select permissions. You can learn more about access rights and permissions in this support article.

Happy planning!

Mar 2024
  • By John Thompson22nd March 2024

New project side panel: A slicker way to set up your projects

Project side panel

How projects are set up is core to allocating work effectively with the only sure thing being that—plans can change! We want to make it easier to jump in and out of editing your projects in Float, and, to be able to do this with a full view of your team's scheduled work. Here's why you're gonna love the new project side panel...

Feb 2024
  • 27th February 2024

    Integrations

    Scheduling

Sync calendar events to your time zone

Sync calendar events in your time zone product image

Before today, when connecting your Google Calendar or Outlook to Float, synced events were only shown in your Team’s time zone.

This works great for teams located in the same time zone, but for globally distributed teams like ours; all calendar events would show in Float at unexpected times — e.g. a meeting at 4pm GMT for a UK-based team member, would show up in their Float Schedule as 3am AEST.

Now you have the option to set your synced calendar events in Float to show in the time zone of your calendar. 🎉

To enable this option, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to your Personal settings and select ‘Calendar integrations’
  2. Next, click ‘Edit’ in the ‘Sync with Google Calendar’ option
  3. Finally, switch the toggle within the “Show events in time zone from” option, from ‘Team setting’ to ‘My calendar.’

Try it for yourself now

Note: This update does not convert tasks or allocations to your individual time zone in Float — just your synced Calendar events. Allocations created directly in Float will always be set at the specific time they are scheduled, regardless of where your team is located. Individual time zone for tasks and allocations are currently not supported.

  • 27th February 2024

    Project Planning

    Scheduling

Refreshed date range insights with % option

Refreshed date range insights with percentage option

Before now, Float would calculate utilization based on the amount of scheduled or unscheduled hours; but now we’ve refreshed the “date range insights” feature with the addition of seeing utilization by percentage at a specific period of time for your team!

To show utilization by %, select a date range from the drop down within the Schedule or by clicking and dragging the timeline to highlight the dates you want.

Watch this video explainer

You can also use date range insights on the Project Plan view to see what % of time each team member is allocated to across projects!

For example, imagine a scenario where your new client has bought 50% of your Senior Designer’s time across 4 weeks. One day, you log into Float and notice they’re at 40% utilization, this gives you the insights and flexibility to add additional allocations — making up for the 10% shortfall.

With this, you can see at a glance which projects you are under or over servicing, helping you make better planning and resourcing decisions.

Switch to date range insights by % now