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Overview of calculating hours and FTE for users and roles in the Resource Planner

Last update: Tue Jul 18 2023 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

CREATED FOR:

  • User

You can display the allocation and availability of your resources in the Resource Planner by Hours, FTE, or Cost.
For more information about calculating Costs in the Resource Planner, see Calculate costs in the Resource Planner.

“FTE” stands for Full Time Equivalent. It is a measure of time that represents the amount of hours dedicated to real work during a day or week for a user or job role.

The following sets of resource information are calculated differently in the Resource Planner:

It is important to understand what the FTE is for each of your users and their job roles to accurately manage your resources as you are assigning them to work.

Calculate Available Hours or FTE for users and job roles in the Resource Planner calculate-available-hours-or-fte-for-users-and-job-roles-in-the-resource-planner

Calculate the Available Hours and FTE for a user in the Resource Planner calculate-the-available-hours-and-fte-for-a-user-in-the-resource-planner

The Workfront administrator determines how the available time for a user is calculated by selecting to use one of the following in the Resource Management area in Setup:

  • The Default Schedule of the system and the user’s FTE.
  • The user’s schedule.

System setting for user schedules

NOTE
This determines how to calculate resource availability at the system level. For more information about defining the Resource Management preferences for the system, see Configure Resource Management preferences.

Based on how this setting is configured, the availability of the users in the Resource Planner (hours as well as FTE availability) is calculated using the following methods:

  • The Default Schedule: The Default Schedule of the system and the user FTE are used to determine the Available Hours and FTE value for the user in the Resource Planner. The Schedule of the user is ignored. In this case:

    • The Available Hours in the Resource Planner are calculated using the following formula:

      User Available Hours = Default Schedule Hours * User FTE value

      For example, if the Default Schedule has 40 hours a week available for work, and the user FTE is 0.5, the user is available to work for 20 hours a week in the Resource Planner.

      For more information about schedules, including the Default Schedule, see Create a schedule.

    • The Available FTE for the user in the Resource Planner is the same as the user FTE specified in the user settings.

      For example, if the user FTE is 0.5 in the user settings, the available FTE of the user is 0.5 in the Resource Planner. For more information about the value of the user FTE as it displays in the user settings, see Edit a user’s profile.

  • The User’s Schedule: The Schedule of the user is used to determine the availability of the user in the Resource Planner. The value of the user FTE is ignored. In this case:

    • The Available Hours in the Resource Planner are the same as the Hours from the Schedule of the user.

      For example, if the Schedule of the user has 40 hours a week available for work, the user is available to work for 40 hours a week in the Resource Planner.

    • The Available FTE in the Resource Planner is calculated by the following formula:

      User Available FTE = Hours from the Schedule of the User/ Default Schedule Hours

      For example, if the Schedule of the user has 20 hours available to work, and the Default Schedule in Workfront has 40 hours available to work, the user’s FTE is 0.5.

      For more information about schedules, including the Default Schedule, see Create a schedule.

NOTE
If the user is not associated with a schedule, the Available Hours for the user are calculated using the Default Schedule.

Calculate the Available Hours and FTE for a job role in the Resource Planner calculate-the-available-hours-and-fte-for-a-job-role-in-the-resource-planner

You first have to calculate the user availability, and then you can calculate the availability of each of their job roles.

The availability of job roles in the Resource Planner takes into account the total availability of the user, and the Percentage of FTE Availability associated with each role of the user.
percent_of_fte_availability_at_the_user_level.png

For more information about associating a Percentage of FTE Availability value with a job role for a user, see Edit a user’s profile.

For example, if the value of Available Hours for a user is 40 and they can fulfill one Primary Role for 75% of that time, and one Other Role for 25% of that time, the Resource Planner shows that the Available Hours value for the Primary Role for one week is 30 hours, and that the Available Hours value for the Other Role is 10 hours. In this case, the FTE for the Primary Role is 0.75 and the FTE for the other role is 0.25.

NOTE
The total available time for the user is calculated by one of the two methods described in the Calculate the Available Hours and FTE for a user in the Resource Planner section in this article.

When viewing the Resource Planner in the Role View, the availability of one job role is a total of the availability of all users who can fulfill that job role.
For more information about availability of resources in the Resource Planner, see the Resource Planner overview.

Calculate the Available Hours and FTE for a user in the Resource Planner (Example) calculate-the-available-hours-and-fte-for-a-user-in-the-resource-planner-example

The following table illustrates how the Available Hours and Available FTE are calculated for the user in the Resource Planner, depending on which method is used by the system administrator for the FTE calculation in the Resource Management Preferences.

For this example, we are using the following numbers:

  • A system Default Schedule of 40 hours
  • A user Schedule of 20 Hours
  • A user FTE of 0.8
Method for FTE Calculation (System Setting)
Hours from User’s Schedule
Hours from the Default Schedule
User FTE field
Available Hours in the Resource Planner
Available FTE in the Resource Planner
The Default Schedule
Ignored
40
0.8
32 (calculated)
0.8
The User’s Schedule
20
40
Ignored
20
0.5 (calculated)

Schedule exceptions and time off might affect the amount of Planned Hours or FTE. For more information, see Configure Resource Management preferences.

Example Resource Planner view by user and hours:

Resource Planner view by user and hours

Example Resource Planner view by user and FTE:

Resource Planner view by user and FTE

Calculate all other hour and FTE values for users and job roles in the Resource Planner calculate-all-other-hour-and-fte-values-for-users-and-job-roles-in-the-resource-planner

In addition to the Available Hours or FTE, the following time information is also displayed in the Resource Planner:

You can display the same information in the Resource Planner as FTE or as hours.

Workfront uses the following formula to display all other values as FTE in the Resource Planner:

FTE = Resource Planner Hours/ Default Schedule Hours

NOTE
The schedule of the user is ignored when calculating the FTE for all values except for the Available (AVL) FTE values, in the Resource Planner. Only the Default Schedule is taken into account for the calculation.

This calculation applies for the following values:

  • Planned FTE (PLN)
  • Budgeted FTE (BDG)
  • FTE Variance (VAR)
  • NET FTE
  • FTE Difference (DIF)
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