Summary
Widget group: Table Widgets
Source data: Field
Description: Displays, in percentages, how much time your Users (Team Members) have forecasted (via Scheduled Time records) or logged (via Time Entries) compared to their available hours, so you can identify under- and over-utilization
Use case examples: Utilization analysis - e.g. identify who within your Team has capacity to take on a new project; identify whether you need an additional Team Member
Who is this article for?
All Planhat Users who work in Service Delivery, Professional Services, Implementation, and so on
It's particularly relevant for:
Planhat Users who are designing Dashboard and Presentation Pages (e.g. Ops)
Planhat Users who manage Teams within Service Delivery / Professional Services
This article is relevant to Planhat Service Automation (PSA), also sometimes referred to as Professional Services or Service Delivery.
If you don't have access to these features and would like to add them, please speak with your Planhat CSM.
Series
Utilization Tables are part of both:
Article contents
Introduction
Central to Service Delivery, such as Professional Services, including Implementation and so on, is an understanding of how much time will be or has been spent, on which project/customer etc. As well as being important for billing if you're working on a "time and materials" ("T&M") basis, you'll want to understand the capacity of your Team, especially if you are a Manager - this means knowing the difference between the amount of time your Users have allocated or logged, compared to the amount of working hours they have/had available.
For example, you'll need to answer questions such as:
Are any particular Users (Team Members) consistently under- or over-utilized?
Who should the next big project be assigned to?
What's the capacity of your Team like overall?
If the Team is over-utilized, is this just a short-term peak in work, or should you recruit an additional Team Member?
Are there differences in capacity between different Teams, and if so, why?
Planhat's Utilization Tables, which you can include in Dashboards and Presentations, make it easy for you to answer these sorts of questions. They calculate the percentage utilization (and hence capacity) of Users for you, based on either the time allocated (forecasted data) or the time logged (historical data) in Planhat, and even automatically color-code data to flag any possible issues. As with other Page Widgets (chart types), they are easy to customize to suit your particular needs.
In this article, we'll take you through Utilization Tables (also called Utilization Charts / Utilization Widgets) in further detail - what they are, why they are useful, and how to set them up.
📌 Important to note
When Utilization Tables were first launched, in 2025, they were exclusively based on logged (historical) work, referring to data in the Time Entry model.
While this functionality is still available, in 2026 we introduced an additional option for upcoming (forecasted) work, using the Scheduled Time model. You may hear such a Utilization Table referred to as a "Capacity Planning Widget".
📌 Reminder
The User model represents users of Planhat (i.e. you and your colleagues), while the End User model represents your contacts/customers. You can read more about Planhat models here.
🚀 Tip
Utilization Tables are not the only way to analyze capacity in Planhat.
The "Resource Allocation" Page is a System Report Page that is specially designed for assigning Users to upcoming work (via Scheduled Time records). You will notice that the right-hand side of this Page type is effectively a Utilization Table.
You could also create a series of Widgets to visualize the number of open Tasks per User, or the number of active Workflows per User, etc. You can take a look at the Planhat Template Pages (described at the end of this article) for inspiration.
What are Utilization Tables?
"Utilization" is a type of chart in the "Table Widgets" group, which you can use within Dashboard and Presentation Pages.
They display the utilization of Planhat Users (Team Members) - that is, how much of their available (working) time is being used (or at least logged/allocated). Utilization is displayed as percentages, and potential issues are flagged via automatic color coding (with green meaning good, red indicating a possible problem, and yellow/orange somewhere in between).
With Utilization Tables, you can quickly identify which Users are under-utilized or over-utilized (or perhaps aren't completing their Timesheets correctly). They are also useful to review the capacity of Teams as a whole - e.g. if everyone is logging a very high number of hours, perhaps you should recruit a new staff member.
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Technical details
Component field data
Utilization is based on:
Either Time Entry - for logged work (historical data)
Or Scheduled Time - for upcoming work (forecasted data)
There are two particularly significant system (default/standard) fields on each of these models when it comes to Utilization Tables, which are both toggle switches (i.e. Boolean/checkbox fields).
"Time Off" - you should toggle this field on when you want to track your time off (vacation/holiday/PTO or sick leave etc.)
"Billable" - you use this to specify whether the hours logged should be billed to the customer in a "time and materials" (T&M) type of project (i.e. they are billable), or not (because they are part of a fixed-fee project)
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Utilization Tables also use a system (default/standard) field on the User model called "Weekly Capacity", where you can define the number of weekly working hours of each User. If this is not filled in, 40 hours is assumed (i.e. that's the default value).
Utilization calculations
In the Utilization Table, you can either display/analyze "total utilization" or "billed utilization". "Billed utilization" only includes Time Entries or Scheduled Time records where the "Billable" system (standard/default) field is toggled on.
"Total utilization"
is calculated by:
total hours of Time Entries or Scheduled Time records for the time period (e.g. 30 hours)
divided by: (the weekly capacity of the User (e.g. 40 hours), minus their Time Entries or Scheduled Time records with the "Time Off" field toggled on (e.g. 8 hours))
multiplied by 100 to make a percentage
So in this example, it would be (30 / (40-8) ) x 100 = 93.75% of available hours were utilized
"Billed utilization"
is calculated by:
total hours of Time Entries or Scheduled Time records where the "Billable" field is toggled on for the time period (e.g. 20 hours)
divided by: (the weekly capacity of the User (e.g. 40 hours), minus their Time Entries or Scheduled Time records with the "Time Off" field toggled on (e.g. 8 hours))
multiplied by 100 to make a percentage
So in this example, it would be (20 / (40-8) ) x 100 = 62.5% of available hours were billable
Why use Utilization Tables?
Utilization Tables are especially useful for Managers who are reviewing the performance of their Team(s).
The Utilization percentage is calculated for you, and it's automatically color-coded for you to make it even easier to identify where there are potential issues - they'll be flagged for you in orange or red. You can then take action in response to that data.
Here are some typical use cases for Utilization Tables:
If a particular User keeps having a very low percentage of utilization, should they be given more work? Or, if you are looking at historical data, are they perhaps forgetting to record some of their time as Time Entries?
If a particular User keeps recording over 100% utilization, are they overworking (potentially at risk of burnout) and you should help them reduce this, e.g. by assigning upcoming new work to other Users? Or is their some inaccuracy in the inputted data?
If you have consistently low percentages across your team, are you overstaffed, or is there a Team-wide issue with colleagues not recording time spent or upcoming work not assigned?
If there's a pattern of over-utilization across the Team, do you need an additional staff member so that you can bring that utilization down to a more manageable level?
With Utilization Tables, it's easy for you to compare different Teams (which could correspond to different geographical regions, or different customer tiers, for example), so you can identify if there is a particular issue (or success) in a specific Team
How to set up a Utilization Table
The main steps are:
Choose between "Historical" (using Time Entry) and "Forecasted" (using Scheduled Time)
Choose between "Total utilization" and "Billed utilization"
Make any changes, if required, to "Period", "Timespan" and "Offset" - the default is to plot the last 8 weeks, including the current one
Optionally, apply a filter, e.g. if you would only like to view Utilization of Users within a specific Team
Within a Dashboard or Presentation Page, click on "Table Widgets" and then "Utilization"
You'll see a form that looks like this:
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In the "Setup" tab
In "Timeline", choose whether the Utilization Table will be built on:
Either "Historical" data - using the Time Entry model
Or "Forecasted" data - using the Scheduled Time model
In "Value", choose whether you'd like your Utilization Table to calculate and display "Total utilization" or "Billed utilization"
"Billed utilization" only looks at Time Entries or Scheduled Time records where the "Billable" field is toggled on
You can view the full definitions (calculations) for both earlier in this article (here)
Only if you selected "Historical" for "Timeline": in "Status", you can filter which Time Entries are included, based on the "Status" of their Timesheet (if they are associated with one)
You can read more about Timesheets in general here
The default is "Any" (i.e. nothing selected)
You can select one or multiple of "Submitted", "Approved" and "Returned"
You can easily deselect a Status by clicking the "x" next to its name in the box, or by clicking on its name in the dropdown menu
An example use case is that you may only want to display/analyze Time Entry records that are part of Timesheets that have been Approved by managers
In "Period", choose which time period you'd like the columns of the table to correspond to
The default is "week", and typically you'll leave it as this (so each column shows percentage utilization for a specific week)
You can change "week" to your choice of "day", "month", "quarter", "fiscal quarter", "year" and "fiscal year"
The number you specify for "Timespan" determines the number of columns shown - e.g. the number of weeks, if you have "week" selected in "Period"
In addition to this, you will always have a column displaying the "User" (or "Team" etc. if you add a grouping, described/shown later in this article), and a column displaying the "Average" utilization across all the time periods
You can use "Offset" to move forward or backward in time, to change which weeks etc. are included in the table
In "Columns Preferences", you can either leave this set to show the "Default" columns, or click to open up the "Manage Table" modal and add more columns (User fields/properties) for additional context. (You can read more about choosing columns in our general article here)
Note that that these additional User field columns are not applicable if you group the table (see next bullet point)
The typical use case for "Table Group by" (which is blank by default) is to select "Teams", and then the rows of the Utilization Table will change from Users to Teams (e.g. the EMEA Team, the APAC team, and so on)
Note that this makes each row a group - so it's not like a Grouped List
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If you've chosen to "Group by" in this way, you'll see a dropdown menu underneath called "Table Group by options", where you can choose between "Ascending" (the default) or "Descending"
Notes that you configure Teams (their names and which Users are in them) within the "Settings" Global Tool
If you don't have anything selected for "Table Group By", you will see two additional dropdown menus underneath:
In "Table Sort By", you choose how you want to sort (order) the rows - "First Name" of the User is the default
In "Table Sort By", you can switch between "Ascending" (the default) or "Descending"
In "Name", you can optionally enter a title for your Utilization Table, which will display within the Widget
An alternative, particularly relevant for Presentation Pages, is to use a separate simple Text Widget if you would like different formatting options
In "Description" (at the top of the modal), you can optionally add a description for your Utilization Table
This will show in the Widget as a tooltip on an "i" icon (on the left)
An alternative could be to use a simple Text Widget for this
In the "Customization" tab
"Hide items without utilization" checkbox
This removes rows corresponding to Users or Teams (depending on how your Utilization Table is configured) that don't have any utilization recorded
This is a quick and easy way to "clean up" your Utilization Table by removing unnecessary rows
"Hide items with soft allocation" checkbox
This option is only visible/relevant if you have selected "Forecasted" in "Timeline", and so the Utilization Table is built on Scheduled Time data
This relates to the "Soft Allocation" system field on the Scheduled Time model
Soft Allocation is used to tentatively/provisionally assign a Scheduled Time record (piece of work) to a User (as opposed to it being confirmed allocation / committed resource)
You can use this checkbox to select whether these provisional allocations should be included in the Utilization Table or not
In "Custom colors", you can choose from an existing color palette (the standard being red/amber/green), or create a new custom color scheme for this Utilization Table only (where you can define which percentage ranges correspond to which colors)
Note that the default colors for Utilization Tables can also be set within the "Settings" Global Tool, specifically within the "Capacity planning" settings, which we describe here
If you would like to apply a filter, click the "Add filter" button in the top right of the Utilization Table preview, opening up this modal:
A typical filter you might apply in a Utilization Table is "Teams is equal to Team X", like in the example below
This can be useful if you manage that Team and so would like to review its utilization
You could also potentially build multiple Utilization Tables in a Page with different Team filters applied, so you can easily compare the utilization of different Teams (e.g. corresponding to different regions)
Click the orange "Save" button to apply your filter
When you've finished configuring your Utilization Table, click the orange "Save Widget" button in the bottom right
Pro tips
Viewing Time Entry or Scheduled Time records
When you're viewing a Utilization Table, you can click on any of the cells to view the component Time Entries / Scheduled Time records that have contributed to that percentage.
So, for example, if you are looking at the Utilization Table below and see that Taylor has 112.5% utilization for the week starting May 25 ...
... you can click on that cell to open up the list of Time Entry records, so you can see the details, and check if anything looks obviously "wrong" (e.g. potentially entered incorrectly).
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In addition, for Utilization Tables built on forecasted data (Scheduled Time), you can mouse over a User name and then click on the chevron (arrowhead) that appears, which will open up a bar or Gantt-type view
Including Utilization Tables in Pages
The first point to note is that a pre-built Utilization Table based on the "Forecasted" Timeline (and therefore Scheduled Time) is included as part of the "Resource Allocation" System Report Page, which you can read all about in our separate article here.
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If you'd like to include Utilization Tables in other Dashboard or Presentation Pages (e.g. because you want to look at a Utilization Table based on "Historical" data - i.e. Time Entries), you could either:
create a Page from scratch,
or use one of our "Planhat Global Templates" (in the "Pages Library"), also known as "Community Templates" --> "Page Templates"
Once you have applied a Page Template, you can then customize it if required
The screenshots below show the two alternative methods to access the Capacity Planning / Service Delivery Page Templates.
In Content Explorer:
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When adding a Page to a Section and selecting "Browse Planhat Global Templates"
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