Labor availability dashboard

This dashboard shows a team or technician’s labor availability based on how many labor hours are available in theory vs how many labor hours have already been assigned to them. This information helps maintenance planners assign work strategically to make the most of available labor hours without overloading technicians. 

This article includes the following sections:

• Filters
• How to use this dashboard
• Example 1: Using the dashboard
• Example 2: Actioning positive labor availability
• Example 3: Actioning negative labor availability
• Example 4: Actioning null labor availability

Filters

To view any data, you must set the following filters:

• Number of days in week
• Shift duration
• Number of technicians
• Suggested completion date

You can further filter the dashboard by:

• Site
• User
• User group 

How to use this dashboard

This dashboard is designed to calculate labor availability per day and per week based on the date range you provide. It cannot calculate labor availability for other periods, such as months or quarters; regardless of the dates you select, availability is still calculated by day and by week.

Labor availability is calculated using two main values:

• The total available hours, which is calculated by multiplying the days in a week by the shift duration. In cases where it’s a team’s availability rather than an individual user, this number is then multiplied by the number of technicians in the team. All of the values in this calculation come from the options you select in the dashboard.
• The total assigned hours, which relies on the suggested completion date and estimated labor fields in work orders. If those fields aren't filled in, this value can’t be calculated properly.

To calculate labor availability, the total assigned hours are subtracted from the total available hours. The resulting value indicates whether you’ve optimized your available labor hours for that day or week: 

In addition to labor availability, this dashboard also displays:

• Your backlog, which lists all open work orders that are either past the suggested completion date or that don’t have a suggested completion date. If you still have labor available (i.e. your labor availability is a positive number), these are the work orders you might want to assign to your team by updating or filling in the suggested completion date, assignee, and estimated labor.
• Upcoming scheduled maintenance, which shows planned maintenance that will trigger in the near future. If you still have labor available, you could trigger a work order early to assign some of those remaining hours. As with the backlog, you’ll also need to make sure you update or fill in the assignee, suggested completion date, and estimated labor fields. 

Example 1: Using the dashboard

You’re a maintenance planner for a team of 5 technicians at the Toronto site who work 9-hour shifts, 5 days a week. The technicians on your team are all in a user group called Toronto Maintenance Technicians. You’ve already assigned them work orders with estimated labor, but you want to see if there’s any additional capacity over the next month.

To check your labor availability, you:

1. Click the folder button in Analytics:
   
2. Click Shared > Labor availability.
3. Set the following filters based on your team’s specifications:
   1. In the Number of days in week filter, select 5.
   2. In the Shift duration filter, select 9.
   3. In the Number of technicians filter, select 5.
4. In the Site filter, select Toronto.
5. To specify which technicians to include, do one of the following:
   1. In the User group filter, select the Toronto Maintenance Technicians group.
   2. In the User filter, select the 5 technicians individually.
6. In the Suggested completion date filter, select This month.
7. Click the update button to display your labor availability:
   

Example 2: Actioning positive labor availability

Your labor availability for next week is a positive number, meaning that you still have more available hours you can assign. When you check the Backlog section, you see a work order that’s two weeks overdue, so you:

1. Click the work order’s code to open it.
2. Edit its suggested completion date to next week.
3. Fill in the estimated labor field (if it’s not filled in already).
4. Assign it to someone on your team (if it’s not already).
5. Click Save.

Since you still have more hours to assign, you decide to also move planned work forward by generating a scheduled maintenance early. In the Upcoming scheduled maintenance section, you:

1. Click the SM code to open the scheduled maintenance.
2. Click Generate work order now.
3. In the work order that’s generated, make sure that:
   • The suggested completion date is next week.
   • The estimated labor field is filled in.
   • It’s assigned to someone on your team.
4. Click Save. 

Example 3: Actioning negative labor availability

Your labor availability for tomorrow is a negative value, meaning that you’ve overscheduled your team. You decide to reschedule some of their work, so you:

1. Check the dashboard to find a day with availability (i.e. a positive number for labor availability).
2. Navigate to Maintenance > Work orders.
3. Filter or sort the list to find your team’s work orders that are due tomorrow.
4. Change the suggested completion date to the date you noted in step 1.
5. Click Save. 

Example 4: Actioning null labor availability

Your labor availability is a null value, meaning that there isn’t enough information to calculate availability, so you:

1. Navigate to Maintenance > Work orders.
2. Filter or sort the list to find work orders that are missing a suggested completion date or estimated labor.
3. For each work order:
   1. Fill in the suggested completion date and estimated labor fields.
   2. Make sure the work order is assigned to someone on your team.
   3. Click Save.