Resource management: How to allocate issues on multiple users or teams in Jira?

[Kamil Beer]

Hi,

a very common use case is that companies want to do resource management on issues in Jira, and plan Initiatives or Epics multiple weeks in advance on one or more users or teams.

Example 1:

I know that in 3 months, I will need a developer for ten days for Epic A. I don't know what developer exactly it will be, but only that I will need him for ten weeks for Epic A. How?

I tried using BigPicture, but the only way to do that is to create a fake user, which consumes a license, and assigning this user as the assignee of this Epic. Which obviously doesn't work, as the Epic will first need to be reviewed by some other people that are assignees (and the allocation will be lost after that).

If I want to plan the work for two developers, that's even worse, as this assignment will be based on the assignee field (and there can be only one person).

I just want to plan an the Epic for multiple people, so I know it will take up their allocation in the future :(

Example 2:

We want to allocate two+ teams of users to an Initiative that is coming up in 2 months and will take up a month, so that we can mark that these teams have already allocated 50% of their time to this Initiative and that other Initiatives can be planned for these teams only for the remaining 50% of their capacities during that month.

Again, using BigPicture, I was able to plan team A to one initiative, yet when I assign this initiative to team B, it disappears from team A's resource schedule.

Please advise me with resolving this - can BigPicture do it? Can some other app do it? Thanks.

[Chris Chappelear _Tempo_]

Hello @Kamil Beer 

Thank you for sharing your resource management challenges in Jira. Planning and allocating resources for future projects without specific assignees is indeed a common scenario many teams face.

Tempo’s Capacity Planner  allows for flexible resource planning across multiple users and teams without needing to create fake users or rely solely on the assignee field in Jira.

For your first example:

With Capacity Planner, you can allocate capacity for an Epic using generic resources instead of specific individuals. This approach allows you to reserve time for the task well in advance and assign it to a specific developer as your plans solidify. Utilizing generic resources in this way ensures that the allocated time remains visible and adjustable across the planning horizon, providing flexibility without committing to specific Jira users prematurely.

For your second example:

Tempo’s Capacity Planner supports the allocation of initiatives to multiple teams simultaneously. You can specify that each team, such as Team A and Team B, is allocated 50% to an initiative without one assignment overriding the other.

Additionally, the Flex Plans feature allows you to start planning at a high level without immediately linking to Jira epics, which may not yet be finalized. These plans can serve as placeholders for initiatives, and once the epics or initiatives are defined in Jira, they can be assigned to the appropriate teams. This flexibility is visible in our intuitive team planning view and capacity dashboards, facilitating clear and effective resource management.

Tempo’s Capacity Planner integrates directly with Jira and enhances visibility into team and individual capacities, supporting both granular task-level planning and higher-level strategic planning. This integration ensures that all data remains within your Jira environment, fully leveraging existing workflows and data without the need for external tools.

Disclaimer: I work for the company who developed Capacity Planner so feel free to reach out with any other questions.

Best,

Chris Chappelear, Tempo Product Marketing

[Lígia Zanchet]

Hello Kamil

Thank you for your post.
I believe you could achieve it using Jira Plan 


For Example 1, you could create a team plan only for the developers, allocate a capacity of 80 hours (10 days) to that team, and associate it with the epic.

For Example 2, the same idea implies that adding the two teams to the Initiative will consume 50% of each team's capacity.

How your plan distributes capacity

Your plan assumes that each team member can work on one story-level issue at a time. With that in mind, it distributes an issue’s estimate based on the capacity of one team member, which it calculates using the following equation, assuming the capacity of each team member is equal:

• [team’s capacity per iteration]/[number of people in a team] = [capacity of one team member]

It consumes one team member’s capacity for an iteration, then moves on to the next team member, repeating the process until the work is assigned. If there is still more work to do, a new iteration is started and the process continues until all the issues have been allocated.

You can read more about it in How your plan assign capacity 

Thanks

[Nadiia Karabchuk]

Hi Kamil,

In ActivityTimeline you can assign Initiatives and Epics to multiple teams or users, even if you don't know the exact assignees yet. There are several ways to achieve this, such as using placeholders or splitting tasks. This way, you can effectively plan and allocate resources for future projects.

We invite you to join demo session where our product experts can show you how to set this up and answer any questions you may have. You can book it through this link:

https://activitytimeline.com/schedule-demo

Regards,

Nadiia, ActivityTimeline Team

[Kamil Beer]

Hi Nadia, unfortunately I have encountered the same problem with Activity Timeline.

[Nadiia Karabchuk]

In ActivityTimeline you can easily split issues between multiple assignees by drag-n-droping the task on a Dashboard by keeping the Shift key pressed. Additionally, in order to show people who are working on the task in Jira, you may create a Multi-user picker field and then indicate your additional assignees there.

Regards,

Nadiia, ActivityTimeline Team