Bookings come into play in the early preparation phase of a project when you start assembling the project team. Booking your team members' time in advance helps ensure you have the right people available when the project starts.
You can use Scoro’s bookings tool in the Bookings module to easily manage resource bookings across projects, teams, and roles. The module consolidates data from all projects to give you a portfolio-level overview of your team’s bookings, so you can easily forecast availability and plan capacity while keeping all work in mind.
This article shows how to use the bookings tool in the Bookings module to manage resource bookings across the entire team and portfolio. Alternatively, you can use the bookings tool in the project view to plan resources on a single project level.
Note! If you haven't used bookings before and want to learn more about the concept bookings, we recommend reading Resource bookings - an overview.
1. Example flow
Before we dive into the exact functionalities of the booking tool, let’s walk through an example use case to illustrate how the Bookings module can help you plan your resources better.
Let’s suppose you have a new project coming in where the client needs creatives for their new Google Ads campaign, ideally within the next four weeks. You know you’re going to need a designer and a copywriter to deliver the work.
There are two ways you can approach this.
Option 1: Check resources first
If you want to get a general idea of whether you even have availability for respective roles over the next four weeks, you can navigate to the Bookings module. It shows you how booked each team member is across current active projects.
To assess availability by roles, group the view by Roles.
To see if you can fit the new project, look for:
- Anything less urgent or low-priority that you can move around to fit the new project
- Tentative bookings (marked by a striped background) - if most bookings for the period are tentative, there's a higher chance some time might still open up.
Check with other project managers to confirm whether you can move things around.
You can then inform the client of realistic and feasible timelines and proceed with quote compilation.
Option 2: Scope the project, build the timeline
Another option is to scope out the project in more detail first and then see when you would have resources for it.
In this scenario, you’d first compile a quote and use roles as stand-in doers to estimate costs and communicate the need for that skill set.
Next, turn that quote into a project to scope out resources.
As soon as the project is created, Scoro will automatically create tentative bookings for the roles you specified in the quote. You'll see these tentative bookings in the Bookings module and the Bookings tab in the project view.
If you already know which team members you want to use for the project, you can replace these placeholder roles with specific users in the Bookings tab in the single project view and then figure out a timeline based on their availability.
But for this example, let’s say you rather want to understand first:
- whether you have any designer available at all within the next month
- how utilized each designer is
- how do you need to split the workload to deliver the work on time
For this, the portfolio-level overview is the best. So, let’s open up the Bookings module.
You can group the view by Roles to see role-based availability.
You can see that you’d have no designer resource for August as the designers are over capacity, but there’s availability for September. Expand the role by clicking on its name to understand the exact workload breakdown between team members in September.
From here, you can see that Peter is fully booked, but Eve and John can still take on new projects in September. Let’s zoom into the week level and switch the heatmap filter to Remaining hours to get a better understanding of how many hours Eve and John still have available for each week in September.
You can see that Eve has 10 hours available every week in September, so it makes sense to assign the new Google Ads projects to her.
You'll see that the tentative bookings were already made when you created the project from your quote. So next, you can move that designer placeholder booking over to September and transfer it to Eve.
Then you can repeat this process to find the Copywriter for the same timeline.
Once you’ve found resources for the project, you will know what deadlines are feasible and what timelines to promise to the client. Once the client confirms the timeline, you can turn your tentative bookings into fixed ones to indicate committed work.
2. How to use the Bookings module
This section dives deeper into the various actions you can perform within the Bookings module. To get a better understanding of bookings in a flow, read the example flow above.
To book resources or manage existing bookings, navigate to the Bookings module.
On the left, you'll see the list of all the team members.
On the right, you see a heatmap, which shows you each user’s utilization based on current bookings. It helps you understand their current and forecasted availability.
Note! The utilization levels in this view are calculated purely based on bookings.
Click on the user name to expand the view and see what projects they are already participating in. This will help you understand what they are booked for and when.
From here, you can add people to new projects and create new bookings or move the existing bookings around to resolve resourcing conflicts and balance workloads. Any adjustments you make to bookings in this view will be automatically reflected in respective project views as well, and vice versa, meaning data is always kept in sync across Scoro.
The Booked column shows you how many hours worth of bookings are made in total for each project. The purple blocks on the heatmap indicate the exact booking(s).
If you want to analyze resource availability based on roles, you can group the view by Roles.
The heatmap will instantly show you the combined utilization level of everyone by roles. To see the workload split between the specialists within that role, click on the role name. This makes it especially easy to figure out which of your Designers, Copywriters, Consultants, etc. have the capacity to take on new work over the next weeks or months.
Time-off entries are also shown on the heatmap. A yellow corner indicates that the user has taken time off during that time period, and a violet corner means the user has extra availability. Click on the corner to see more details of the user's time off or extra availability.
2.1. Heatmap
The utilization heatmap visualizes each team member's availability levels. You can choose whether you want to see the heatmap based on the utilization percentage, booked hours, or remaining hours, depending on which insights help you the best.
Use the zoom-in and zoom-out options to navigate between day, week, and month views. The heatmap shows a maximum of 6 months at a time. Click on the Next and Previous buttons to move to the next or previous months.
You can group the view either by users or roles.
- The user-based view shows the utilization of a specific person. Click on their name to see the exact projects they’re booked for.
- The role-based view shows the utilization of all the people within that role, plus placeholder members. Click on the role name to see the exact breakdown by people and projects.
Note that, by default, both views also include data on placeholder members.
Role-based placeholders act as placeholder members to communicate the need for a certain skill set, e.g. “I will need 20 hours of a designer's time next week”. In this case, you don't know yet which designer(s) will deliver the work; all you know is that you will need a designer. So you use a role to create a placeholder member and ensure your booking is accounted for. All placeholders should eventually be replaced with actual team members once it’s clear who will do the work.
If you prefer not to see placeholder data, you can exclude placeholders with a filter. The heatmap will still take placeholder bookings into account when calculating role-based utilization levels, but placeholders won’t be listed separately. If you prefer this as your default view, don’t forget to save it as a bookmark.
The heatmap calculation logic is identical to that in the heatmap in the Bookings tab in a single project view. The heatmap compares the resource's total availability in the given period with their bookings across all projects to calculate their utilization. See more details here.
Heatmap legend:
- Solid background – fixed bookings.
- Striped background – tentative bookings.
- Green – indicates less time has been booked than is available within that period. The resource can take on additional work.
- Red – indicates more hours have been booked than the resource has available within that period. The resource is overbooked.
- N/A – indicates the resource is not available during that time due to time off.
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No capacity – applies only to role placeholders. Indicates the that team members linked to this role do not have any available hours left, i.e., the the role is already at capacity.
- Red background means the role has been overbooked and current bookings need to be adjusted to free up time and prevent resourcing conflicts. You can click on the cell to see what projects the placeholder is booked for.
- White background means the role has no capacity because people in this role are off that day. In other words – you can’t free up time for that role by readjusting bookings as no bookings have been made.
- Yellow corner - user has time off (click on the corner to see more details).
- Violet corner - user has extra availability (click on the corner to see more details).
2.2. Create a booking
To create a booking, click the three dots icon next to the project user/role placeholder and choose New booking.
Alternatively, you can just hover over the suitable slot on the Booked row and click to open the booking modal.
Once clicked, you can adjust the following booking details:
- Booking time frame – define the time span of the booking. Scoro will book time only on the actual workdays within the selected period. For example, if your site doesn’t include weekends in the workweek, Scoro will automatically disregard weekends within that timeframe. The Total workdays counter shows you how many workdays fall into your selected timeframe.
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Amount – choose how much of the resource’s time you want to book either in percentages or hours.
Example calculations:- 6 hours per day: 6 hours of the resource’s time is booked on each workday within the selected timeframe.
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75% per day: 75% of the resource’s total daily availability is booked on each workday.
- For example, if their daily availability is 8 hours, 6 hours are booked each day. If on some days their availability is 4 hours, only 3 hours are booked that day.
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10 hours total: the total number of hours is divided by the number of workdays, and the respective amount of time is booked each day.
- For example, 10 hours across 5 workdays amounts to 2 hours per day.
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Booking type – choose whether it’s a tentative booking or a fixed booking:
- Tentative booking indicates a need for the resource, but things may still change. Select this type when you're still waiting on the go-ahead from the client or are trying to figure out potential deadlines and timelines to promise.
- Fixed booking indicates committed work and a more definite need for the resource. Select this type when the project and the timeline are confirmed.
- Learn more about the tentative and fixed booking types.
2.3. Modify a booking
To adjust the time frame, modify the daily workload, or change the booking type, click on the booked slot. This opens up the booking modal, where you can change the details.
Alternatively, you can adjust the time frame of the booking by simply dragging it.
2.4. Replace a role placeholder with a user
Role placeholders act as placeholder members for the project. They help you indicate a resource need but have to be replaced with a specific team member eventually. Only tentative bookings can be placed for role placeholders because it's unknown who exactly will deliver the work.
Once you know which team member will deliver it, click the Assign a user button next to the user's name to replace the placeholder with the user. Alternatively, click the three-dot icon, select Assign a user, and choose the user.
As soon as you replace the role placeholder with a user, all bookings will be transferred to that user, and the placeholder will be removed from the project as it’s no longer needed.
2.5. Transfer booking(s)
You can easily transfer bookings to another user - for example, if the original team member becomes unavailable:
- Click the three dots icon next to the user name
- Choose Transfer bookings
- Select who you want to assign the bookings to.
Once you confirm the transfer, all the bookings of that user will be transferred to the newly selected user. If the newly selected user is not yet a project member, they will be added to the project automatically.
Review the bookings after the transfer and, if necessary, adjust the schedule to avoid overbooking.
2.6. Delete booking(s)
To delete a specific booking, click on the booked slot and then on the trash can icon in the bottom left corner of the modal.
To clear all the bookings of a specific user or placeholder at once, click on the three dots next to the resource name and select Clear bookings.
2.7. Add a user to a new project
You can also assign users to new projects directly from the heatmap. Simply navigate to the relevant user, expand the list, and click Add to project. This adds them automatically, and you can create a booking for the project right away from the same view.
2.8. Shift all bookings to a new project
If you want to shift all the project bookings at once because of a changed timeline, you can do so on the single project level.
3. Disabling the Bookings module
By default, the Bookings module is visible to all site users. However, admin users can disable access to the module from permission sets.
Each user can hide the module from their menu by customizing the menu items.
4. Frequently asked questions
| How do bookings differ from tasks and time entries? |
Simply put – bookings help you plan people, tasks help you plan work. Bookings help you reserve someone’s time. You don’t have to know yet what they will be working on exactly. Bookings are easy to adjust or remove as the project plan changes, so your utilization forecast remains up to date. Tasks help you plan out work and deliverables in more detail. You should already know what the person will be working on.
You don’t need to delete bookings once you start creating tasks, as they don’t duplicate each other. Rather, they give you different insights. For this reason, the Utilization report also has both filters: you can look at utilization either based on bookings or based on tasks and time entries. We recommend to:
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| Do I need to delete bookings when I start creating tasks for the booked time frame? | Bookings and tasks are independent of each other. You don’t need to delete bookings once you start creating more specific tasks or time entries. Bookings can stay in place as they simply show you how much of the resource’s time you booked in the first place. |
| How is role placeholder availability calculated? | Role placeholder’s availability is calculated based on the remaining availability of the users linked to this role. Read more here. |
| How is the role placeholder utilization level calculated? |
Role placeholders act as standalone dummy members in projects. Their utilization level is calculated purely based on the bookings made for this placeholder. Read more here. |
| How do bookings work with retainers? | The booking tool always shows the bookings for all retainer periods. The view is not limited to the current period in order to give you a more high-level, long-term overview of bookings. |
| What’s the best practice for adopting bookings? | In order to ensure accurate data and unlock the full potential of bookings, you should ensure that your whole project management team uses bookings to plan out their resource needs. Bookings need to become an integral part of the project workflow. |
| Why can’t I see the Bookings tab? | If you can’t see the Bookings tab, it means your user doesn’t have permission to View bookings. Contact your site admin. |
| Can I shift all bookings at once when the project dates change? | Changing the project start and end dates is easy: click on the project dates next to the project's progress bar and select the new dates. To shift all bookings simultaneously with the date changes, tick the Bookings checkbox and click Save to confirm the changes. |
| Why can't I see further than 6 months? | The heatmap shows only 6 months at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons above the heatmap to move to the next month. |
| Why can't I see an active project on the heatmap? |
If you scroll across the heatmap, the project list will only show the projects for the period you’re currently viewing. The list is dynamic and updated as you switch between periods. This prevents the project list from getting too long. |
| I transferred bookings from person A to person B. Why is the project still listed under person A as well? |
If you transfer bookings from person A to person B, person A will still remain a project member. Just because you transfer the bookings, it doesn’t mean you won’t need person A for the project at all, so this is why Scoro doesn’t remove them from the project automatically. You can remove the user from the project manually by clicking on the three dots and selecting Remove from project. If you transfer bookings from a placeholder to person B, the placeholder will be removed from the project since the main purpose of the placeholder is to be substituted with a specific person. |