Availability All Editions
Changing the role capacity in a scenario can help you view your project portfolio under different conditions, like varying capacities.
General
You need to have the Edit Resource Pool, Absences, OBS, Calendar and Skills right to access this function.
The capacity of a role is the sum of the capacities of all resources with this role as primary role (project roles do not count towards the base capacity of a role). You can change the capacity to simulate your plan with additional resources.
Simply specify how many FTE you would like to add to the base capacity of the role.
- Example: You have three resources with the Consultant role. Their combined capacity, that is, the base capacity of the role, is 3 FTE. If you then specify a changed role capacity of +1 FTE, you get an overall capacity of 4 FTE for the Consultant role.
Exceeding the License Package
Adding additional role capacity will count towards your license consumption and may exceed the number of resources available in your current package. Contact the Meisterplan administrator in your organization if you are unsure about the number of role capacities you can add for your planning. You can also learn more in the article Licensing & Pricing.
Editing Role Capacities
In the Detail View of a Role
Open the Resource Pool and select the Roles tab. Move your cursor over the role entry in the list and click the pencil icon at the end of the line to open the detail view of the role:
In the Role Capacities in "[current scenario]" section, you will only see the changed role capacity, not the summed capacity of all resources with this role. So the capacity change displayed is always the change to the base capacity (which in turn is the sum of the capacity of all resources with this role as primary role).
Click Change Capacity and enter the start and the finish date of the capacity change as well as the amount of FTE that you want to add or take away.
A capacity change with 2 FTE will add 2 FTE to the base capacity of the role. A capacity change with -0.5 FTE will take away 0.5 FTE from the base capacity of the role.
If no start or finish date is entered, the change is permanent.
In the Portfolio Designer
In the Resource Section, select the desired role and click the three dots at the end of the entry to open the context menu. Then, select Edit Capacity:
If the capacity change applies only to a limited period of time, first define the start and the end of the change. To do so, move your cursor over the Change Role Capacity row and click the place where the change starts:
Likewise, set an end date if required.
Click on a value to change it, type in the desired value, and press the Enter key. Confirm the change with the tick mark or revert with the arrow.
Role Capacities in Scenarios and the Plan of Record
Role Capacity Changes are only valid for the scenario in which they were entered. Capacity changes entered in the Plan of Record, for example, have no effect on any scenario.
Reset Capacity Changes
You can reset role capacities to their basic capacity either in the Portfolio Designer or the detail view of the role:
- In the Portfolio Designer, click the three dots after the role and in the context menu, select Reset Capacity Changes.
- In the Resource Pool, open the detail view of the role, and delete the capacity changes by moving your cursor over each one and selecting the trash can icon at the end of the line.
If you want to keep the capacity change history, you can also change the capacity to 0 FTE and add a start date. Meisterplan will automatically set an end date to the current capacity change. The change to 0 FTE will not be added to the list, because it is not a change but the default.
Use Cases
Planning with Additional Role Capacity
You're planning the next quarter but do not know yet whether the two approved consulting positions will be filled by then. So you create two scenarios for the upcoming quarter, "Proposed Scenario A" and "Proposed Scenario B". In the "Proposed Scenario B" scenario, you increase the base capacity of the Junior Consultant role by two FTE:
In the "Proposal A" scenario (no deviation from the base role capacity), the capacity looks like this:
In the "Proposal B" scenario, with an additional role capacity of two FTE, the capacity looks like this:
Planning with Roles Only
When working with agile teams, it may be useful to set up these teams as roles and not maintain any resources in Meisterplan. Learn more about this in the article Use Roles to Set Up Teams in Meisterplan.
If this is the case, each role has a base capacity of 0 FTE, because there are no resources with this role:
You need to change the capacity for each team (i.e., each role) to be able to plan: