The Resource Planner in the Resourcing tab is your central tool for allocating time across your entire team.
Whether you need to see who's working on what or adjust plans when someone’s out, it helps you stay organized today, next week, or months ahead.
📌 Who can see and manage bookings in the Resource Planner depends on their permission set. See Resource Planner Access and Permissions for more information.
While bookings are often created directly in the Resource Planner, they can also be created from tasks in projects and managed here.
This allows you to plan work either from the service perspective or directly from the tasks that define the work.
Key Features
See who’s assigned to each service (and optionally a task) in a budget or deal — and for how long.
Schedule around sick leave, vacations, and other time off.
Distribute workload efficiently and avoid burnout.
Track time easily — each scheduled event appears as a suggestion in My Time.
No need for external tools like Hub Planner or Float — it's built into Productive.
Plan ahead to anticipate revenue and profit over the next 3, 6, or 12 months.
Tasks vs. Services: What’s the Difference?
Understanding the difference between tasks and services is essential for planning and tracking time correctly.
Services are used for time tracking and scheduling. They’re part of budgets or deals and show up on invoices.
Tasks help manage day-to-day project work and internal collaboration.
How They Work Together
Feature | Services | Tasks |
Used for | Scheduling in the Resource Planner, time tracking, invoicing | Project work, collaboration |
Required for time tracking | ✅ Always required for time tracking | No. Time entries can be linked to tasks, but do not have to be. |
Can be linked to bookings | ✅ Mandatory | ✅ Optionally, via task bookings |
Example workflow
You create a budget with the services you’ll be delivering to a client.
You plan the work:
Option A: Book people for these services directly in the Resource Planner
Option B: Create tasks to manage the work, then book people from the task (task bookings)
Important: Task bookings don’t replace services. They add context to the scheduled work. Each booking remains linked to a service and optionally to a task, making it visible in the Planner with both references.
📌 You can link a task directly to a service in a budget or deal.
When you do, any booking created on that task automatically inherits that service so the booking is connected to the right budget, billing rates, and cost calculations from the start.
Layout Options in the Resource Planner
There are four main views in the Resource Planner. Each one gives you a different perspective on bookings.
By Person
See all your team members and placeholders on the left side of the screen. Use this layout to:
Distribute work evenly
Avoid under- or overbooking people
By Project
This view is grouped by projects. Use it to:
See all bookings related to a specific project
Get a project-level overview of services and assignments
Adjust team allocation directly within the project context
By Budget/Deal
This view is organized by budgets and deals, which may or may not be part of a project. You’ll see:
Budgets (standalone or project-based)
Deals (not necessarily in a project)
Timeline track for budgets and deals – provides a visual overview of each budget/deal’s duration and its progress.
📌 Note: If a budget or deal is linked to a project, the project name appears above it.
By Absence
Use this view to manage and schedule:
Vacations, sick leave
Other types of off-time
📌 You can open the Resourcing Panel from any layout for additional context on a person, project, budget, deal, or absence without switching layouts.
Viewing the Resource Planner Elsewhere
The Resourcing tab isn't the only place to reach the Resource Planner. From a specific project, the Resource planning tab shows the same bookings scoped to that project.
From a bookable person's profile, the Planning tab shows their bookings and capacity in the By Person layout, filtered to just them, with the filter and layout locked in place.
👉 See Resource Planning in Projects and The Planning Tab for details on each.
Planning Ahead with Placeholders
Planning future work or hiring new teammates? Use placeholders to book time even if the person isn’t on your team yet.
Placeholders work the same way as regular teammates in both People and Project views.
