Resource planning tool for agencies to successfully manage client work

A resource planning software can make or break the business of an agency. Hellotime is a resource planning tool specifically designed to help agencies manage their team workload and successfully plan their resources and projects.

• What is resource planning software and why it matters for your agency
• Can I do resource planning using spreadsheets?
• Should an agency use resource planning software?
• Why Hellotime is a good resource planning tool for agencies
• Try Hellotime

What is resource planning software and why it matters for your agency

Resource planning is the fundamental operative platform around which a team works. It determines who will do the job, for how long, and for how much of their time.

Resource planning software helps you visualize how much your creative or tech team has on its plate, getting a complete overview of who and when can overtake a new project. By doing resource planning, you ensure that while your creative and tech team focuses on project delivery, your agency won’t miss business opportunities. You can plan ahead for a boost in your sales pipeline and keep an eye on your team’s workload balance.

When working on client work, it is essential to use a resource planning tool because an agency usually manages multiple projects at once. The only way to ensure delivery on time and on budget is to pay close attention to who is working on what, for how long, and how much of their available time.

Can I do resource planning using spreadsheets?

When facing the need to have a clear view of team capacity and workload, companies often try doing resource planning with familiar tools, like spreadsheets. Before looking for resource planning software for small businesses, agencies typically start by relying on Google Sheets for resource planning, which is often a practical choice. You can start with a basic setup listing projects, responsible people, and their timelines. For more detail, you can organize projects by person and create timelines.

Using spreadsheets for resource planning comes with some advantages. It’s flexible, allowing customization to fit your needs, and it’s simple, focusing on essential features for ease of use.

However, as a company grows, relying just on spreadsheets for resource planning can become problematic. Growth in staff, projects, and roles makes spreadsheets cluttered, challenging to manage, and error-prone. When overloaded with data, it’s tough to maintain a clear overview, and constant updates become a time-consuming task. This can lead an agency to miss opportunities or deadlines, frustrating clients and negative business results. Switching to dedicated resource planning software might be the solution.

Should an agency use resource planning software?

On the flip side, there are dedicated resource planning tools, usually web-based, designed for when spreadsheets no longer suffice. The market offers a variety of resource planning software, typically featuring enhanced capabilities like time tracking, invoicing, leave management, and project management. These tools offer detailed control over daily and hourly tasks.

The main advantage of such comprehensive tools that makes them suitable for large organizations is their all-in-one approach: they often combine Human Resources and Project Management functions, ideal for big studios and companies. However, these advanced tools have drawbacks, both organizational and financial.

Since these resource planning tools are typically tailored for larger IT teams, they require meticulous supervision of vast workforces. For this reason, these tools aren’t usually fast and easy to set up, and require extensive training to master their numerous features, which can be a hurdle for smaller teams seeking simplicity. Also, one may navigate many features that might seem excessive for the average small-sized agency’s needs.

Additionally, the cost of these tools can be high, with prices increasing with the number of users or managed employees. This expense may become prohibitive for small to medium businesses as they grow, even with just 20 people, with costs soaring into hundreds of dollars monthly.

Last but not least, crafting a compelling and seamlessly performing capacity planning tool is hard due to the technical complexities of building an excellent user interface and interaction. Therefore, many capacity planning tools provide a user experience often perceived as sluggish and aesthetically unappealing.

Why Hellotime is a good resource planning tool for agencies

We at Hellotime have direct expertise in agency life, so we decided to build our own resource capacity planning software with specific attention for agencies and companies that need to manage client work, like design, development, or marketing activities.

Here’s what we believe makes Hellotime the perfect agency resource planning tool.

Zero-frills setup

Small business agency owners and managers are often pressed for time and don’t want the hassle of setting up and learning a new tool. They are makers, and they are focused on getting work done.

We’ve been there and that’s why we’re building Hellotime for simplicity and speed, eliminating the need to learn complex stuff. With a seamless, guided interface, users can grasp Hellotime effortlessly and decide to use it in under 5 minutes.

Create projects, people and assignments directly on the timeline

In Hellotime, all actions take place on the timeline. There are no subpages or intricate modals to navigate through. You can directly create projects, add team members, and create assignments right on the timeline. It’s as quick and straightforward as you would anticipate. Configuring your team capacity planning tool is just a few clicks away.

Think in hours or days

Every agency has its own approach to resource planning, with some preferring to measure in days and others in hours. This flexibility applies to defining individual capacity—such as the number of hours or days a person works per week—and allocating people to projects based on days per week or hours per week. Hellotime seamlessly accommodates both perspectives, allowing you to choose the method that suits your needs.

View at a glance

Managing a team’s activities on a timeline can be challenging. Hellotime comes to the rescue by allowing agencies to get an at-a-glance view of their utilization rate when a person’s view is collapsed. With a simple click, you can effortlessly toggle between open and collapsed views for all team members and get a clear overview of your team’s workload.

Add your team and invite them to collaborate

A capacity planning tool works around individuals. With Hellotime, an agency can incorporate as many resources as necessary, and if desired, you can invite them as users. When extending invitations, you can provide either read-only or read/write permissions, allowing them to view or create projects, allocations, and personnel. Choose what’s best for your organization: our pricing model is not based on how many users you invite or on your team size.

Manage time-off

Effective planning demands keeping tabs on the time off for each team member. Failure to do so could result in unexpected project delays. Hellotime allows agencies to keep track of time off by incorporating it into the timeline, similar to how they would handle a regular project.

Weekly reports via email

Agencies use a resource planning tool to manage their workload efficiently, and the Weekly Email Reports serve this purpose.

Weekly reports allow agency owners and managers to get relevant information, such as the number of active projects, capacity utilization, availability status of team members, and more.

Beautiful insights

Business insights and charts are essential to agency owners: they are the finishing touch that completes a good capacity planning tool. Hellotime is designed to provide relevant and visually appealing information about team workload and utilization accessible to everyone directly on the timeline. Explore data such as the progress of active projects, resource utilization, projects happening in the current week, underutilized or overworked people, top projects and much more.

Try Hellotime

Hellotime is a simple, fast and easy-to-use resource planning tool for agencies. You can sign up and try Hellotime for free. You don’t need any upfront training or go through a complex setup. Creating a workspace is all it takes to bring more focus to your team’s workload.