Clockify Scheduling for Resource Planning: A 6-Step Workflow (With Example)

When a developer calls in sick and you’re already on a tight budget and deadline, a bad Monday can suddenly turn into a late delivery. Without proper resource planning, it’s challenging to deal with unpredictable workdays.

This guide covers what resource planning is, why it matters, and how to do it in 6 steps with Clockify Scheduling. Let’s get into it.

• Resource planning is a repeatable process that involves scope, resources, estimates, schedule, tracking, and review.
• A plan fails when it ignores real capacity. Subtract time off and other work before you assign hours.
• Comparing scheduled and tracked hours every week shows overruns while they’re still easy (and cheap) to fix.
• Clockify by CAKE.com supports each step of the resource planning process you might need with its Pro plan.

What is resource planning?

Resource planning is deciding who works on what, when, and for how many hours, so that a project is delivered on time and within budget. The result is a resource plan — a schedule that shows what the project needs, who is assigned, and what it costs.

Resource planning vs. resource management

Resource planning decides in advance which people, money, and equipment a project will use. On the other hand, resource management is the ongoing practice of tracking and adjusting those resources while the work is in progress. Planning comes first, while management keeps the plan accurate.

A powerful resource planning and management software like Clockify lets managers schedule employees and projects, while employees can track time on their tasks. To see who worked on what, and for how long, you can check Clockify’s Reports. Additionally, you could use Clockify’s Activity monitoring to manage cost control and gain productivity insights in real time.

Resource planning in Clockify

In the table below, you can see a quick overview of the resource planning steps, along with the Clockify features used to complete them efficiently.

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Why resource planning matters

Resource planning matters because it keeps projects inside their budget and people inside their capacity. An article about flexible resource management, published in Journal of Industrial Engineering International, states that most projects run into cost overruns and schedule slippage because of poor resource management. The following benefits stand out:

• Cost control — planned hours and budgets show where the money will go before work starts, so overruns surface early.
• Balanced workloads — seeing each person’s capacity stops one person from being overbooked while another sits idle.
• Better estimates — comparing plans with tracked hours shows how long work really takes, so the next quote is priced from facts.
• Higher profitability — when hours and rates sit side by side, you can see which projects earn money and which don’t.

6 steps of the resource planning process

To go through the resource planning process successfully, follow these 6 steps.

#1: Define the project scope and budget

The first step in resource planning is to define what you’re delivering, by when, and for how much. List the deliverables, the deadline, and the budget that project has to stay within. Without them, there’s nothing to plan against.

How Clockify supports it: Create the project, client, and tasks in Clockify. For repetitive work, you can use Project templates to copy a project’s structure into a new one.

#2: Identify the resources you need

The 3 basic types of resources in project management are people, money, and physical resources such as equipment and materials. Time is what you schedule across all 3. List the roles, budget, and equipment the project needs, then check what you already have.

How Clockify supports it: Add team members and organize them into Groups, so you can add a whole group to a project in one click. With User fields, you can store details such as job title, department, or employment type. Set billable and cost rates, and record non-billable costs such as print runs with Expenses. 

#3: Estimate and forecast your resource needs

Estimate the hours and money each deliverable needs. Whenever you can, base these estimates on tracked hours from similar past projects. Then, forecast whether the plan still fits as work progresses. A forecast tells you early if a project is heading over its estimate, while you can still change the plan. 

How Clockify supports it: Set time estimates on projects and tasks, or a project budget to track budget and estimates. Clockify’s Forecasting feature uses tracked time and scheduled team assignments to show whether a project will go over its estimate or budget. Additionally, Alerts notify you when a project reaches its budget/estimate.

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#4: Allocate and schedule resources

Allocating means assigning people to tasks for set hours. Check real capacity first — available working hours excluding time off and other commitments. When matching people to tasks, don’t just take their availability into account, but also their skillset. A project/resource/operations manager usually owns this step.

Example: An agency team of 6 has 240 hours a week (6 people x 40 hours). In the 3rd week, 1 developer goes on leave for 5 days, which removes 40 hours, so 200 hours remain. The manager schedules 180 hours that week and keeps 20 hours open as a buffer.

How Clockify supports it: With Clockify’s Scheduling feature, you can plan from the project or the team, using the same assignment data. Project view shows timelines and milestones, while Team view shows each person’s capacity. Approved time off appears in the schedule, and you can track daily attendance alongside it. Publish the schedule so people can see their assignments in the Calendar view.

Thanks to different user roles and access permissions in Clockify, only admins can create and manage projects for everyone. Additionally, project managers can schedule their own projects, while team managers can view and approve their team’s tracked time. 

#5: Track actual time and spend

Track what actually happens on the same projects and tasks you scheduled. Ask people to log time as they work and record non-billable costs when they occur. 

How Clockify supports it: Employees can track time with the Timer, Timesheet, Auto tracker, or Kiosk on a shared device. 

Track time in Clockify

#6: Review and adjust the plan

Review the plan every week. Compare scheduled hours with tracked hours, find the gap, and adjust while it’s still easy to fix. When the project ends, use the tracked hours as the baseline for your next estimate. 

Example: In week 3, the mentioned agency team scheduled 180 hours but tracked 198, which is 18 hours (10%) over. Most of this extra time was front-end work covered while a developer was away. To get back on track, the manager assigned the remaining front-end tasks to the returning developer and added a mid-week check-in to monitor the progress. 

How Clockify supports it: Use Clockify’s Reports to extract useful data about time and costs. The Assignments report compares scheduled and tracked hours, and shows the difference, cost and billable amounts, and expected vs. realized profit. Group it by project/user/week and export to CSV or Excel. Grouped by user, the report shows each person’s available and scheduled hours. 

Additionally, the Summary report totals time by project/client/user, while the Attendance report covers breaks, overtime, and time off. Also, Labor cost and profit compares what you pay your team with what you charge clients.

Clockify’s Activity monitoring feature adds a second signal. When your team members install the agent on their company-issued devices, Clockify shows their active and idle time, productivity levels, plus a utilization score.

What to look for in a resource planning tool

A resource planning tool is software that shows capacity, assignments, and actual hours in one place. Spreadsheets work for a handful of projects, but as your team or the project count grows, dedicated resource management software saves you from manual updating. Use this checklist when you compare options:

• Capacity and time off in one view — spot overbooking before assigning work.
• Planning from both sides (by project and by person) — balance project demands with individual workloads.
• Estimates and budgets per project — get alerts before you go over.
• Scheduled vs. tracked hours in one report — update the plan from real data.
• Utilization tracking — see what share of available hours goes into productive work.
• Cost and profit per project — see which projects earn money.
• Role-based permissions — let managers plan while team members see their own assignments.

Clockify covers all of the points on its Pro plan.

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Resource planning best practices

The following guidelines keep a resource plan accurate and useful:

• Plan from the scope, not from who happens to be free.
• Use real work capacity. Subtract time off, meetings, and other work before you assign hours.
• Estimate from history. Use tracked hours from past projects as the baseline.
• Keep a buffer. Do not schedule people at 100% of their hours.
• Review weekly. Update the plan whenever scope, deadlines, or availability change.
• Share the plan. People who see their assignments can flag conflicts early.
• Explain what you measure. If you monitor activity, tell your team what’s collected and why.

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Factors that make resource planning accurate

Accurate resource planning depends on 5 factors:

1. Realistic estimates
2. True availability including holidays and leave
3. The right skills for each task
4. Dependencies between tasks
5. Enough lead time to secure people, equipment, or budget

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Resource planning comes down to 6 moves:

1. Define the scope.
2. Identify resources.
3. Estimate.
4. Schedule.
5. Track.
6. Review.

The last move feeds the next estimate, which is how projects stop running over budget.

Here’s how to set up your first resource plan in Clockify:

• Create the project and tasks. Add the client, projects, and tasks, then set a time estimate or a project budget.
• Set up people and capacity. Invite your team, organize them into groups, and set each person’s working days and daily capacity. Turn on Time off in Workspace settings, create policies, and import public holidays.
• Enable scheduling. In Workspace settings, open Time planning, and switch on Project and team scheduling. Turn on cost rates and billable hours to see the cost next to each assignment.
• Schedule and publish. Add assignments from the Project or Team view. Check the capacity labels that tell whether a team member is fully booked or has available hours. Proceed to publish the schedule so people see their work in the Calendar view.
• Track time against the plan. Everyone logs hours with the Timer or Timesheet — or the Kiosk on a shared device.
• Review every week. Open the Assignments report to compare scheduled and tracked hours. Check Forecasting and Alerts to manage scheduled projects that may be heading over their estimate. Add Activity monitoring if you want a utilization signal, as well. 

Take a look at what each Clockify plan covers for resource planning (each paid plan includes everything in the plans before it).

Note: Every plan (including the Free one) offers 24/7, fully human, customer support.

For more information, check out Clockify’s pricing page. 

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FAQs about resource planning

Let’s go over some of the commonly asked questions about resource planning.

What is resource management?

Resource management is the ongoing practice of tracking and adjusting the people, money, time, and materials that a business uses, so the right resources are available at the right time. 

Resource planning is its forward-looking part — it sets the allocation that resource management then keeps on track. 

What are the key components of resource planning?

The key components of resource planning are project scope and budget, resource identification, estimates, allocation and scheduling, time tracking, and regular review. Also, capacity planning, which checks that no one’s overbooked or idle, runs through all of them.

What are the common challenges in resource planning?

The common challenges in resource planning include inaccurate estimates, ignoring time off and other work, overbooked people, scope creep, changing priorities, and spreadsheets that go stale. A weekly comparison of scheduled and tracked hours addresses most of them. 

What is resource utilization?

Resource utilization is the share of a person’s available hours that goes into productive work (productive hours divided by available hours, times 100). Planned utilization uses scheduled hours while actual utilization uses tracked hours.

What is a resource planning template?

A resource planning template is a pre-built spreadsheet or document that lists roles, hours, capacity, and costs for a project. Templates suit one-off plans and small teams. For recurring work, a tool that keeps the plan, the schedule, and tracked hours together saves re-entering data. 

Does Clockify’s Activity monitoring take screenshots?

Yes, Clockify’s Activity monitoring takes screenshots — if they’re turned on. Screenshots in Clockify are also blurred by default. Admins set how often screenshots are taken and the level of blur. Capture stops while a user is idle and screenshots get deleted after 60 days. 

Which Clockify plan do I need for resource planning?

Scheduling, Forecasting, Assignments report, and Activity monitoring require Clockify’s Pro plan, which costs $7.99 per seat per month, billed annually. Time tracking with the Timer and Timesheet is free for up to 5 users. Every Pro feature can be tried free for 7 days, no credit card needed.

Additionally, CAKE.com Productivity Bundle includes 3 Enterprise-level tools — Clockify for time tracking and resource planning, Plaky for project and task management, and Pumble for easy team communication. The Bundle is available for only $12.99 per seat per month, billed annually.

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