Two issues usually arise during resource tracking. First, resource managers and project managers might be unsure of which metrics to track. Second, they might know what to track but struggle to gather information from different tools.
The initial problem results in data insufficient for decision-making. The latter issue leaves managers feeling overwhelmed, mentally strained, and grappling to connect the dots.
Effective resource tracking entails gathering well-organized, easily comprehensible, and accurate data, knowing the right metrics to track, and utilizing insights for informed decisions.
Thousands of our customers successfully track their resources with Float every day. In this article, we'll share the metrics they look for and how they use reports in Float to interpret them.
This article will cover:
- The specific metrics to look for
- Considerations to keep in mind when tracking resources
- The benefits you gain from effective resource tracking
What is resource tracking?
By definition, resource tracking is overseeing how resources are assigned and utilized throughout a project.
In this context, resources refer to people, time, and money, but it can also include:
- Office space
- Materials
- Software and hardware
- Machinery
- Finances
Use these 9 metrics to track your resources
We recommend using resource management software to track resources because it consolidates project data in one place and provides insights that you can use.
Below are the metrics you should be tracking:
People
- Utilization rate
- Capacity hours
- Allocations
- Skills
Cost and time
- Scheduled hours (Billable hours vs. non-billable hours)
- Scheduled vs. logged time
- Time off
- Over time
- Budget
- Billable hours
1. Utilization rates
Utilization rates show how much productive work your people are doing compared to their capacity and can signal instances of excessive workload.
Your team’s capacity and scheduled hours are displayed in the Report dashboard in Float. Visual bars to the far right display their utilization level.
Targeting a resource utilization rate between 70% and 80% is advisable, allowing flexibility for project adjustments and preventing burnout.
You can spot when a team member's utilization rate hits 100%. For example, their capacity hours might be 40 hours, and they're scheduled for precisely that amount.
Alternatively, resource underutilization might arise. For instance, this can occur when a team member logs fewer hours due to a skill mismatch, like a data scientist handling data entry. Bottlenecks like waiting on dependent tasks can also lead to reduced output.
Pro tip
Using resource planning software like Float helps ensure your team isn’t underutilized or overbooked and that you maintain optimal utilization rates. Keep track of capacity, allocate work efficiently, and automate tasks like time tracking with pre-filled timesheets.
Learn more2. Allocations
Allocations help you grasp which projects your team is engaged in and the portion of their time dedicated to each.
They provide insights for your resource management plan, improving decisions on prioritization.
Allocations to projects can be easily viewed on your team’s Schedule in Float. You can filter by person, department, or skill type to know who is allocated to what and for how long.
This broader perspective of your team’s time is important for prioritizing work. For instance, imagine your design team allocates six daily hours to a design project with a deadline far out in the future. Faced with a new, urgent project, you can promptly reduce hours from the longer-term project to focus on the impending deadline.
3. Capacity (no of hours)
Your capacity hours are the total hours of time your team is available for work. Tracking this is important because resource capacity constantly changes depending on factors like workload, administrative tasks, and time off.
For example, a copywriter might have less time to work on other tasks because they work on revisions for a client’s website copy.
If you don’t consider this while planning projects or scheduling resources, your estimates might be off, and your people might be overloaded or underutilized.
Team capacity is reflected in the People report. This will vary based on custom work hours, time off, public holidays, and custom holidays, all deducted from a person's overall capacity.
4. Available skills
Your projects can only happen when people have the right skills to do them. As new projects come in, there might be skill gaps you have yet to notice that could stop the projects from progressing.
You can track skills by clicking the People tab on your topmost left. It will display your team members, and you can filter to find specific skills.
For instance, if an upcoming project requires engineers proficient in Javascript and C++, it's vital to ensure you're tracking these skills to guarantee resource availability before launching a new website project.
Skill tracking should be a routine task involving:
- Identifying skills needed for upcoming projects.
- Locating individuals with the required skills who may be engaged or on leave.
Pro tip
You can use people tags to identify and track individual skills and talents within your team.
Check it out5. Scheduled hours (billable hours & non-billable hours)
Billable hours determine the cost of the projects, so it is important to track them to avoid overruns. You can track this in tandem with non-billable hours, as comparing them will show whether your project is profitable.
For example, while overseeing a team of agency designers, you spot an increasing chunk of time dedicated to non-billable tasks like meetings. This could indicate a potential financial loss.
You can find how logged compares with scheduled time in your Report dashboard.
6. Logged hours to scheduled hours
Comparing these two shows you if your estimates were accurate. It also improves resource forecasting and provides a baseline for future resource plans.
A disparity between the two can point you to adjusting your project timelines before it is too late.
For easy comparison, your scheduled and logged times are displayed beside each other in the Report dashboard.
7. Time off, public holidays, and custom holidays
Time off, public holidays, and custom holidays affect your team’s availability and, by extension, the progress of projects. You need to consider them during resource planning and allocations so you do not realize when it is too late that there are no resources to work on pending tasks.
Your team’s time off is reflected directly on the Schedule.
You can also filter by specific people or departments to see who will be unavailable and when.
8. Overtime
Overtime indicates both team well-being and the accuracy of your project estimates, and it directly impacts project costs.
You can track your team’s overtime hours in two places in Float:
a) Directly on the schedule where it is displayed in red. You can see the number of hours next to their profile.
b) On the Report dashboard, you can find a summary of overtime hours by person, department, or project.
If you notice that your team members are working overtime, you can change the project schedule or allocate more resources to the project.
9. Budget
No one wants cost overruns, which is why keeping a close eye on your project budget is essential. However, overspending can sometimes occur without your notice, especially if you're tracking it in a spreadsheet that doesn't reflect changes in the project as they happen.
When allocating time to a project in Float, the budget is displayed.
Once you exceed your set budget, the new budget is shown in red, along with the extra hours and the percentage of costs incurred.
The Report dashboard also shows the cost overruns as they occur.
Budgets are divided into phases, enabling you to pinpoint where you might have overspent. You can customize how you track your budgets. For example, an agency or law firm might find hour fees more suited to their need. You can see the exact hours spent instead of numbers if you track budgets in hours.
There are five budget types available in Float, so you can track your budget by
- Hourly fee
- Phases
- Fee by project
- Hours by phase
- Hours by project
Why is it important to track resources?
Tracking resources ensures that you are prioritizing high value work and directing your resources in the right direction.
Resource tracking also helps you:
- Keep your projects on schedule.
- Keep tabs on who's doing what and when.
- Notify you about the need for more people, time, or budget for a project.
- Prevent overworking team members
- Avoid keeping team members on the bench
- Keep an eye on your budget and billable hours, so you know where your spending and usage rates.
Two questions to consider when tracking resources in a project
Am I prioritizing the right projects?
Your resources could be used for multiple projects at the same time. But you need to ensure they are involved in projects with the most impact.
You can prioritize projects by deciding how each project matches business goals, what your resource capability is, how urgent a project is, and what’s at risk if you don’t finish it.
Once you figure these out, you can make better choices using the information you find while tracking resources.
Are my estimates accurate?
Estimates are usually not 100% accurate, but they can be close.
If you notice that while tracking your resources, your estimates are consistently off, it might indicate larger issues like wrong baselines. For example, assuming a task will take one hour when it actually takes four.
Digging deeper to find the cause is important so you don’t miss the mark.
For instance, you might discover that project managers use guesses instead of past project data during resource scheduling. If that's the case, you can work on improving your estimates.
The closer your estimates are to reality, the better for your project.
Insights are just the first step in the right direction
The information about your resources becomes powerful when used to make informed decisions.
Based on your findings, you might need to consider slowing down spending, possibly hiring more personnel before initiating a project, or redistributing team members to other projects.
Whatever the situation, you can rely on Float to simplify the resource tracking process, providing you with valuable insights to guide your actions. With all your project and people data consolidated, real-time updates, and seamless integrations, our resource management software is the ideal tool to improve your tracking.
