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Booking Details Explained

Learn how to fine-tune your booking details, see how much time you've already scheduled, and manage bookings after saving.

New Booking Layout (Beta)

We're rolling out a redesigned booking form across all organizations. New organizations get it by default, while existing organizations will receive it gradually.

The new layout introduces two key improvements:

  • Compact and expanded modes: work directly on the timeline or in a full side panel, depending on what you need

  • Left to Schedule badge: see how many hours remain on a service directly in the booking form

During the rollout, you can temporarily revert to the previous booking form by opening any booking, clicking the three-dot menu, and selecting Switch back to old booking layout.

Think of it as a bridge: switch back and forth as many times as you like to compare the two at your own pace. This option will be phased out as the rollout completes.

πŸ“Œ This setting is per user and won't affect your teammates.

Compact and Expanded Modes

When working with bookings in the Resource Planner, you can work in two modes:

Compact: an inline popover that appears directly on the timeline. Great for quick edits without leaving your current view.
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Expanded: a full side panel that slides in from the right, with all options visible at once. Ideal when you need more context or want to fill in additional details.
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To switch between modes, use the β†— icon to expand and the ↙ icon to collapse back to compact.

Productive remembers your last used mode, so whichever you used most recently will open by default the next time you select a booking.

Creating a New Booking

When creating a new booking, first choose the booking type using the tabs at the top of the form:

  • Project: book someone on a service within a budget or deal

  • Absence: book someone for time off or remote work

Then fill in the main details:

  1. Assignee: the person you are booking

  2. Time allocation: how much time to allocate

  3. Date range: the start and end date of the booking

  4. Service: the budget or deal service to book against

  5. Task: link the booking to a specific task.

The booking form is available in both compact and expanded modes. Use the β†— icon to switch to expanded if you need access to additional options.

πŸ“Œ Tentative is available during creation in both modes β€” toggle it on directly in the form before saving.

Assigning Multiple People at Once

You can create identical bookings for several people in one go. This option is only available in the expanded modal: use the expand icon in the bottom-right corner of the compact modal to switch.

In the expanded modal, the Assignees field supports multiple people. Select everyone who should receive the same booking setup and click Create bookings to confirm.

πŸ“Œ Adding multiple booking assignees is available on the Ultimate plan only.

Time Allocation

When creating a booking, choose how you would like to allocate the person's time. Options include Hours per day, Percentage, and Total.

  • Hours per day: allocate a fixed number of hours each day for the duration of the booking. For example, 2h/day over 10 days = 20h total.

  • Percentage: the person is scheduled relative to their total capacity. For example, if a teammate has an 8-hour workday and is scheduled for 50%, they'll be allocated 4 hours a day.

  • Total: the total hours are distributed across the booking duration. For example, 10h over 10 days = 1h/day.

Left to Schedule

When selecting or changing a service, the service field shows a colored badge indicating how many hours remain to be scheduled on that service.

πŸ“Œ The badge updates after saving.

The badge color tells you where the service stands:

  • 🟒 Green: hours remain (e.g. 50 hrs)

  • βšͺ️ Gray: fully scheduled, nothing left

  • πŸ”΄ Red: over-scheduled (e.g. βˆ’12 hrs)

The calculation method depends on your admin's setting in Settings > Resourcing > Planning & scheduling:

  • Unscheduled time: Estimate βˆ’ Total scheduled

  • Unaccounted time: Estimate βˆ’ (Worked + Future scheduled)

πŸ‘‰ Learn more in the Left to Schedule in Resource Planner article.

Custom Fields

Custom fields let you add additional information to bookings beyond the default options.

πŸ“Œ The compact modal shows required custom fields only. Switch to the expanded modal to view and fill in all custom fields.

πŸ‘‰ Learn more in Managing Bookings with Custom Fields.

Confirmed and Tentative Bookings

Bookings are confirmed by default. Toggle on Tentative in the booking form to reserve a person's time without committing it as confirmed capacity, as tentative bookings don't affect availability but can still be used to analyse potential revenue and cost.

πŸ‘‰ Learn more in Tentative Bookings.

Note

Add a note while adding the booking for easier analysis as you progress. The note will be accessible in your Bookings data source report.

Automatically Track Time for a Booking

Automatic time tracking logs your team's work hours based on their bookings, making time management easier and reducing manual time tracking.

πŸ“Œ This option is only available in the expanded modal.

Booking History

After saving the booking, at the bottom of the expanded modal, you'll see a Show history link. Click it to view a full log of all changes made to the booking.

πŸ‘‰ Learn more in Viewing Booking History.

πŸ“Œ This option is only available in the expanded modal.

Managing the Booking After Saving

After saving, click any booking to open it and adjust the allocated time, service, note, or date range. Click Save to confirm changes.

Access additional options via the three-dot menu in the top-right corner:

  • Duplicate: creates a copy of the booking for the same person on the same day

  • Split: divides the booking into two (click where you want the split to occur on the timeline first)

  • Repeat: sets the booking to repeat weekly or monthly for a defined number of occurrences

  • Convert to tentative / Convert to confirmed: toggles the booking status

  • Open budget: opens the related budget or deal in a new tab

  • Delete: removes the booking from the Resource Planner entirely

πŸ“Œ Deleted bookings can be found and restored in the Recycle Bin.

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