What Is Capacity?
Capacity is the amount of productive time available for work. It’s measured in two ways:Daily Capacity
How many productive minutes are available per day per person
Available Capacity
How many total productive minutes are available in a time period
Daily Capacity
Each person has a daily capacity—the productive minutes available on a working day.The Two Standards
CharleOS uses two different daily standards for different purposes:Why Two Different Values?
- 7.5 Hours (Billing Day)
- 6.5 Hours (Default Capacity)
The billing day of 7.5 hours is an industry standard for professional services. It’s used when calculating:
- Day rates (revenue per day)
- Days allocated in contracts
- Billable days delivered
Why 6.5 and not 7.5?If you scheduled 7.5 hours of focused work every day, you’d have no time for necessary coordination, communication, or mental breaks. The 6.5-hour default is more realistic and sustainable.
Role-Based Capacity
Different roles have different daily capacities because they have different meeting loads and responsibilities:These can be configured in the system per role or per person. If no role-specific capacity is set, the system uses the 390-minute default.
Available Capacity
Available capacity is your total productive time in a date range:The Formula
What Is a Working Day?
A working day is any weekday (Monday-Friday) that is not:1
Weekends
Saturday and Sunday are automatically excluded.
2
UK Bank Holidays
CharleOS tracks UK bank holidays and excludes them from working days.Common UK bank holidays:
- New Year’s Day
- Good Friday, Easter Monday
- Early May Bank Holiday
- Spring Bank Holiday
- Summer Bank Holiday
- Christmas Day, Boxing Day
3
Approved Leave
Any leave with status
approved is subtracted from working days.This includes:- Full day leave
- Half day AM
- Half day PM
Worked Example: February Capacity
Let’s calculate available capacity for February 2025:
So in February, with 2 days of leave, this person has 117 hours (7,020 minutes) of available capacity.
Half-Day Leave
Half-day leave is supported and counts as 0.5 days: Example:- Working days: 20
- Full day leave: 1 day
- Half day AM leave: 1 half-day (0.5 days)
- Net working days: 20 - 1 - 0.5 = 18.5 days
- Available capacity: 18.5 × 390 = 7,215 minutes
How Capacity Is Allocated
CharleOS uses a priority-based fill-first algorithm to allocate capacity across scheduled work.Allocation Priority
Work is allocated to capacity in this order:1
Help Desk Tickets (Priority 1)
Active and scheduled help desk tickets get first priority. Client support comes first.
2
In-Progress Multi-Day Items (Priority 2)
Subtasks that started before today and are still ongoing get next priority (work you’ve already begun).
3
Single-Day Items Starting Today (Priority 3)
Tasks scheduled to start and finish today.
4
New Multi-Day Items Starting Today (Priority 4)
Larger tasks starting today that will span multiple days.
5
Future Items (Priority 5)
Work scheduled for future dates.
6
Explicit Priority Order (Priority 6)
If items have explicit
priorityOrder values set, those override the default hierarchy.How Allocation Works
For each day in the schedule:- Start with full daily capacity (e.g., 390 minutes)
- Sort scheduled items by priority
- Allocate capacity to each item in order:
- If an item needs 120 minutes and 390 are available, allocate 120 and reduce available to 270
- If an item needs 300 minutes and only 270 are available, allocate 270 and carry over 30 minutes to the next day
- Continue until capacity is exhausted or all items are allocated
- Multi-day items track remaining minutes across days
Weekends get 0 capacity. Tasks may span weekends, but no hours are allocated to Saturday/Sunday. The remaining work simply shifts to Monday.
What Consumes Capacity?
Capacity Status Indicators
CharleOS uses color-coded indicators to show capacity health:
These indicators appear on:
- Schedule views (day-by-day capacity bars)
- Capacity quick view (team overview)
- Scheduling dialogs (warnings when over-scheduling)
Where to See Capacity
Capacity information appears throughout CharleOS:My Schedule
My Schedule
Your personal schedule shows daily capacity:
- Progress bar per day (green/amber/red)
- Percentage allocated (e.g., “78% scheduled”)
- Next available date
Capacity Quick View
Capacity Quick View
PM and Manager dashboards show team capacity:
- Each team member’s capacity status
- Available vs scheduled vs logged minutes
- Who has bandwidth for new work
- Can filter by client to see client-specific capacity
Scheduling Dialogs
Scheduling Dialogs
When scheduling new work:
- Shows assignee’s current capacity
- Warns if scheduling would create conflicts
- Suggests conflict-free start dates
- Shows end date based on capacity
Schedule Timeline Panel
Schedule Timeline Panel
Visual timeline showing capacity per day:
- Color-coded capacity indicators
- Next available date for each person
- Used in scheduling to find optimal dates
Reports
Reports
Capacity planning reports (coming soon):
- Team capacity vs demand
- Hiring signals (sustained over-capacity)
- Utilisation forecasts
Capacity and Scheduling
Capacity is tightly integrated with scheduling:Conflict Detection
When scheduling new work, CharleOS checks if there’s available capacity:- No Conflict
- Pushes Existing Work
- Creates Overload
Scenario: Scheduling 2 hours of work on a day with 3 hours available.✅ No conflict—work fits within capacity.The system schedules the work and updates capacity indicators.
End Date Calculation
When you schedule work, CharleOS automatically calculates the end date based on:- Start date - When work begins
- Estimated minutes - How long the task should take
- Assignee’s daily capacity - How much they can do per day
- Already scheduled work - What’s already on their plate
- Leave and holidays - Days they’re unavailable
- Start date: Monday, March 1
- Estimated: 12 hours (720 minutes)
- Daily capacity: 6.5 hours (390 minutes)
- Already scheduled: 2 hours/day (120 minutes)
- Available per day: 390 - 120 = 270 minutes
- Day 1 (Mon): 270 minutes allocated, 450 remaining
- Day 2 (Tue): 270 minutes allocated, 180 remaining
- Day 3 (Wed): 180 minutes allocated, complete
- End date: Wednesday, March 3
How Capacity Is Used for Planning
1. Utilisation Tracking
Capacity is the denominator in utilisation calculations:2. Resource Planning
Capacity helps answer:- Who has bandwidth for new work? Look at scheduled vs available capacity
- Do we need to hire? If team is consistently over-capacity for 4+ weeks
- Can we take on this project? Check team capacity vs project needs
3. Forecasting
Capacity enables forward planning:- Project future capacity based on known leave
- Identify busy and quiet periods
- Plan hiring or contractor needs in advance
4. Schedule Health
Capacity metrics show schedule quality:- Gaps: Days with less than 50% capacity scheduled (under-utilised)
- Overloads: Days with greater than 100% capacity scheduled (over-scheduled)
- Balance: Good distribution of work across the team
Common Capacity Scenarios
Scenario: Over-Scheduled Team Member
Scenario: Over-Scheduled Team Member
Problem: Someone has 200% capacity scheduled.Causes:
- Unrealistic estimates
- Too many concurrent tasks
- Unexpected urgent work added
- Reschedule some work to later dates
- Redistribute work to team members with capacity
- Re-estimate if original estimates were too optimistic
- Push back on new work until current load is manageable
Scenario: Consistent Over-Capacity (Team)
Scenario: Consistent Over-Capacity (Team)
Problem: Team is greater than 85% capacity for 4+ consecutive weeks.This indicates:
- High demand (good problem to have!)
- Potential hiring need
- Risk of burnout if sustained
- Consider hiring or contractors
- Review and optimize processes
- Ensure realistic estimates
- Protect team from over-commitment
Scenario: Low Capacity Utilisation
Scenario: Low Capacity Utilisation
Problem: Team member has less than 40% capacity scheduled.Causes:
- Between projects (pipeline gap)
- New starter ramping up
- Blocked by client approvals
- Seasonal quiet period
- Assign internal projects or improvement work
- Training and skill development
- Help with other team members’ workload
- Business development activities
Scenario: Leave Impact
Scenario: Leave Impact
Problem: Someone has 2 weeks leave next month.Impact:
- Available capacity drops from ~130 hours to ~65 hours
- Existing scheduled work may need rescheduling
- Other team members may need to cover
- Review scheduled work before leave
- Reschedule non-urgent items to after return
- Delegate urgent items to teammates
- Ensure handoff documentation exists
Capacity Priority vs. Workload Reality
Tips for Healthy Capacity Management
Don't Schedule to 100%
Don't Schedule to 100%
Leave buffer capacity for:
- Urgent work that comes up
- Tasks taking longer than estimated
- Meetings and interruptions
- Mental breaks and context switching
Plan Around Leave
Plan Around Leave
When leave is booked:
- Review scheduled work for those dates
- Reschedule or delegate proactively
- Don’t wait until the last minute
Monitor Trends, Not Just Today
Monitor Trends, Not Just Today
Look at capacity over 2-4 weeks:
- Are you consistently over-capacity?
- Are there predictable busy/quiet periods?
- Is the team balanced or are some people overloaded?
Use Capacity to Say No
Use Capacity to Say No
Capacity gives you objective data to push back on unrealistic requests:“We’re at 90% capacity for the next 3 weeks. We can start this on [realistic date] or we need to reschedule something else.”
Balance the Team
Balance the Team
If one person is at 120% and another at 40%, redistribute work. Don’t let some people burn out while others are under-utilized.
Related Concepts
Utilisation
Capacity defines available time—utilisation measures how much is billable
Schedule
Learn how to use the schedule view to manage your capacity
Scheduling Work
See how capacity affects scheduling and conflict detection
Annual Leave
Understand how leave reduces available capacity