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The Resource Scheduler

This article introduces and covers setup/troubleshooting of the Resource Scheduler to assign hours, manage capacity, and schedule at the phase level.

Written by Brandon Moses

Introduction to Resource Scheduling

Factor's scheduling tools help you plan and track when work happens across your projects and team. The SCHEDULE area includes three main features: the Resource Scheduler, Timelines, and the Project Schedule.

Resource Scheduler

The Resource Scheduler is a grid-based view where you assign weekly hours to team members across projects. It can be viewed two ways:

  • By project — Projects as rows, with expandable rows for each assigned team member

  • By person — Team members as rows, with expandable rows for each of their projects

Columns represent weeks, with the first column defaulting to the current week. You can navigate forward and backward through weeks.

Each project row shows a budget bar that fills with yellow as hours are scheduled and blue as time is logged, showing how much of the project's budget has been consumed. Each team member row shows a capacity dial that fills based on their scheduled hours relative to their weekly capacity. Icons in weekly cells indicate tasks or milestones due that week.

Project Schedule

The Project Schedule is a tab on each individual project that provides a Gantt chart view of that project's budget phases, work tasks, and milestones. You can set and modify dates by dragging items on the timeline or editing dates in the sidebar. It also includes tools for Pushing dates when timelines change.

Timelines

The Timelines page is a cross-project Gantt chart showing phase dates, task dates, and milestones across all projects, with filtering options. This gives a firm-wide view of how work is distributed over time.

Setting Up Resource Scheduling

Before you can use the Resource Scheduler effectively, a few setup steps need to be completed.

Step 1: Add Your Team

Users must be added to Factor before you can schedule them. Go to SETTINGS > Your Team and add all team members you plan to schedule. See "How to Add and Manage Users" for detailed steps.

Step 2: Configure User Details

For each user, complete the following in SETTINGS > Your Team > [User Name]:

  • Default Project Role — The billing role (e.g., Architect, Designer, Manager) auto-assigned when they're added to a project. Can be overridden per project.

  • Payroll Type — Whether the user is Salaried, Hourly, or Contracted. This affects capacity calculations.

  • Include in Capacity Planning — Controls whether this person appears in capacity planning views.

  • Include in Project Scheduling — Controls whether this person is available for project scheduling.

  • Manager — Optionally designate a reporting manager for hierarchical views.

Step 3: Set Up Projects

Projects must exist before you can assign resources to them. Create projects under PROJECTS > Add Project with appropriate details including client, budget, and timeline. If the project exists and you still do not see it on the schedule, check the "Show On Schedule" toggle in the Project Status section on the Overview tab of the project. This switch should be toggled to yes.

Step 4: Define Project Phases and Dates

For scheduling to work effectively:

  1. Add budget phases to your projects (see "Creating and Managing Project Budgets").

  2. Set start and end dates for phases on the project's Schedule tab.

The scheduler uses phase dates to understand when work is planned and to distribute assignments correctly when scheduling at the phase level.

Step 5: Configure Capacity and Time Off

  • Team member capacity — Set each person's weekly available hours under SETTINGS > Your Team. Typically 40 hours for full-time employees, or a custom amount for others.

  • Time off and PTO — Enter PTO so the scheduler accounts for unavailability. Holidays on your firm's Holidays list are applied automatically. Available capacity is calculated as weekly capacity hours minus holidays and PTO.

Step 6: Decide on Scheduling Mode

Before scheduling, your firm should decide whether to schedule at the project level or phase level — this is set per project and cannot be mixed on the same project:

  • Project-level scheduling is simpler and works well when phases are sequential and don't overlap.

  • Phase-level scheduling gives more granular budget tracking per phase and is recommended when phases overlap in dates.

Once a project is set to phase-level scheduling, all assignments must be made at the phase level. Switching modes after scheduling has begun requires converting existing assignments.

How to Schedule and Manage Resources

Assigning Hours to Team Members

  1. Go to SCHEDULE > Resource Scheduler and choose your view (by project or by person).

  2. Use the search and filter options to find specific projects, clients, or team members.

  3. Expand a project row to see assigned team members.

  4. Click a weekly cell and enter the number of hours to schedule for that person that week.

As you enter hours, the project's budget bar updates to reflect scheduled hours (yellow) versus logged hours (blue). If the combined scheduled and logged amounts exceed the budget, the bar will indicate over-budget status.

Adding Team Members from the Scheduler

You can add team members to a project directly from the Resource Scheduler. Expanding the project and using the add controls will assign the person to the project with their default project role, provided a default role has been configured in their user settings.

Understanding Capacity Indicators

Each team member has a capacity dial visible in their weekly cells:

  • Yellow — Under their target utilization for that week

  • Green — Between their target and 100% of capacity

  • Red — Scheduled over their total capacity

Hovering over the dial shows where their hours are committed across projects. Capacity and target utilization are configured under SETTINGS > Your Team.

Scheduling at the Phase Level

By default, hours are scheduled to the overall project. To schedule at the phase level:

  1. Click the ellipsis menu on a project row and choose to schedule by phase.

  2. Select a default phase — existing project-level assignments will be redistributed to phases based on date ranges, with assignments outside any phase's dates falling back to the default phase.

  3. Use the phase selector to jump between phases and assign hours to each.

Note: Once a project is switched to phase-level scheduling, all assignments must be made at the phase level. You cannot mix project-level and phase-level assignments on the same project.

Bulk Operations

The context menu on weekly cells provides tools for pushing and clearing assignments across multiple weeks. Pushing assignments lets you specify a number of days and a start date to move assignments forward — useful when project timelines shift.

Troubleshooting Resource Scheduling

Scheduler Is Blank or Not Showing Projects

  • No projects with dated phases — The scheduler requires projects with phases that have start and end dates. Add dates to your project phases first.

  • Date range filter — The scheduler may be filtered to a range with no scheduled work. Adjust the date filter to include the relevant period.

  • Permission — You may not have permission to view the scheduler. Contact your administrator.

  • Show On Schedule set to no —check the "Show On Schedule" toggle in the Project Status section on the Overview tab of the project. This switch should be toggled to yes.

Team Members Not Appearing

  • User not added to Factor — All team members must be added as users under SETTINGS > Your Team.

  • "Include in Project Scheduling" is off — Check the user's settings and ensure the Include in Project Scheduling flag is enabled.

  • View filter — You may have filtered the scheduler to show only certain people. Check the view options.

Can't Assign Hours

  • User not assigned to the project — Add the user to the project on the project's Team tab first.

  • Scheduling mode mismatch — If the project is set to phase-level scheduling, you must assign hours at the phase level, not the project level, and vice versa. Check the project's scheduling mode.

  • No permission — Contact your administrator to grant scheduler edit permissions.

Hours Not Saving

  • Check for error messages — there may be a validation issue such as hours exceeding weekly capacity.

  • Try refreshing the page or using a different browser.

  • Ensure you have a stable internet connection.

Capacity Numbers Look Wrong

  • User capacity not set — Go to SETTINGS > Your Team and verify each user's weekly capacity hours.

  • Time off not recorded — Missing PTO entries will make available capacity appear higher than it actually is. Holidays come from your firm's Holidays list.

  • Payroll type — Ensure each user has the correct payroll type set (Salaried, Hourly, or Contracted), as this affects capacity calculations.

Overallocation Warnings on a Correctly Scheduled Person

Holidays and PTO reduce available capacity. If a team member has time off that week, their effective available hours will be lower than their base weekly capacity, which can trigger overallocation even if the scheduled hours look reasonable. Check their time off records for that week.

Performance Issues

  • Use filters to narrow the view to fewer projects — large numbers of visible projects can slow the scheduler.

  • Clear your browser cache and reload.

  • A slow network connection will also affect scheduler performance.

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