The Capacity Planner View

The Capacity Planner view is the central visualization tool for team leaders and project managers. It offers a complete overview of the workload, availability, and utilization of a team's members over time, allowing for informed decisions about task allocation and future work planning.

Accessing the Planner

There are two ways to access the tool:

1. From a Jira Project

Navigate to your Jira project. If the administrator has enabled the plugin for your project, you will find a tab called Capacity Planner in the left navigation menu.

2. From a Jira Dashboard (v1.1.0+)

If an administrator has configured the Capacity Planner Gadget on one of your dashboards, you can view and use the planner directly from the dashboard.

Exploring the Interface

The interface is divided into two main areas: the controls and the planning grid.

1. Planner Controls

At the top, you will find the filters to define the context of your analysis:

• Team Selector: Choose the team you want to analyze.
• Date Filters: The date control has been redesigned to offer greater flexibility.
  • Month/Year Mode: This is the default mode. It allows you to navigate through time using the month and year selectors.
  • Date Range Mode: Click Use Dates to activate this mode. It allows you to select a start and end date, showing in the grid only the days within that specific range. To return to the previous mode, simply click Back to Month/Year or refresh the view.
• Export as CSV: Click this button to download the current grid view as a .csv file, which can be opened in applications like Excel or Google Sheets.

Each time you modify a filter, the planning grid will update automatically.

2. The Planning Grid

This is the visual matrix that crosses team members (rows) with days (columns). The grid interface has been completely modernized to use native Jira components, resulting in a cleaner look and seamless integration with Jira's light and dark themes.

Issue Breakdown per User

To provide a deeper level of detail, you can now view the specific issues that make up a user's workload.

• How it works: Next to each user's name, you will find a toggle icon (>). Clicking it will expand a table directly below the user's row.
• Table contents: This table lists all Jira issues that have work assigned to that user within the currently displayed date range. The columns include:
  • Key: The issue identifier, with a direct link to open it in a new tab.
  • Summary: The issue's summary or title.
  • Status: The current status of the issue, displaying the same look and feel (color and design) as in Jira.
  • Start Date and End Date: The planned work dates for the issue.
  • Original Estimate: The original estimated time used for capacity calculations.
• Dynamic filtering: The list of issues updates automatically if you change the date range in the planner controls, always showing the most relevant information.

Workload Cells

The color of each cell acts as a workload "traffic light":

• Green: Healthy workload (below availability).
• Amber/Yellow: Workload nearing the limit.
• Red: Over-allocation. The assigned hours exceed the available capacity.

Status Cells

• Gray: Non-working day (weekend or holiday).
• Pastel Orange (full background): Full-day absence. Availability is zero.
• Top Orange Bar: Partial absence. The day's availability has been reduced by a number of hours.
• No color: Working day with no load.

Tooltips: Information at a Glance

Hover over any cell to get a tooltip with crucial details:

Use Tooltips to Diagnose

• On a cell with hours: You will see the assigned vs. available hours and a list of the issues contributing to that load.
• On an empty cell: You will see the total available hours.
• On a status cell: It will confirm the reason (e.g., "Non-working day", type of absence).

3. Summary and Totals

The bottom and right side of the grid offer aggregated data for a macro analysis:

• Totals per Day Row: Sum of assigned and available hours for the entire team on each day.
• Totals per User Columns: Total sum of assigned and available hours for each person in the visible period, along with a utilization percentage.