Curious about how capacity works in Productive? This guide covers everything you need to understand how capacity and availability interact and impact your resource planning.
Understanding Capacity
Capacity refers to the total number of hours a person can potentially work over a given period. In this example, we’ll use one month as a reference.
Setting Capacity: It All Starts with Cost Rates
When setting up an employee’s profile, the cost rate determines their capacity. You can customize working days and daily capacity (hours) for each employee.
For example, if Lucy Wu is scheduled to work Monday to Friday, with 8 hours per day, and there are 20 working days in the month, Lucy’s total capacity would be 160 hours.
Adjusting Capacity for National Holidays
National holidays are non-working days that automatically reduce a person’s total capacity.
Productive pulls in national holidays based on your account’s location, found under Settings > Holidays.
Each bank holiday reduces an employee’s capacity by 8 hours. If there are 2 bank holidays in a month, Lucy Wu’s total capacity would decrease from 160 hours to 144 hours.
Teammates with Different Bank Holidays
Holiday calendars can also be customized on an individual basis, allowing you to assign a different calendar for each person within your organization if needed.
This feature proves particularly useful when managing teams or colleagues working across different countries.
Availability vs. Capacity
Capacity represents the total hours a person could work, based on their cost rate and excluding bank holidays. Availability, on the other hand, reflects the actual hours they are available to work.
Availability can be affected by factors such as:
Vacation time
Sick leave
Other personal time off
For example, if Frank The Dog has a capacity of 176 hours for January and takes 5 days off, his availability will be reduced by 40 hours, leaving him with 136 hours available.
Utilization Metrics: Why Availability Matters
In Productive, utilization is based on availability rather than capacity.
This gives a more accurate measure of how much a person actually worked within a given time frame.
Paid vs. Unpaid Time Off
Time off in Productive can be categorized as Paid or Unpaid, and each has a different impact:
#1 Paid Time Off
Availability is reduced by the number of hours taken.
The agency incurs costs based on the person’s hourly cost rate.
#2 Unpaid Time Off
Availability is reduced by the number of hours taken.
No cost is generated since the time off is unpaid.