How do you track staff capacity hours per project (projected vs actual)

[Rosemary Conner]

We would like to be able to project and capture estimated resource hours needed per project for resource planning.  We want to be able to justify the projected hours in a project for each person involved and determine where they are over capacity and by how much.  We want to be able to use reports to justify whether or not new hires are needed, and if so, what area.

We just converted from data center to cloud, and in data center there is activity/ timeline but I cannot seem to find it in Jira cloud.  How do you use the tool to track resource capacity for your departments?

[Ivan Manolov - JXL]

Hi @Rosemary Conner ,
welcome to the community!
As mentioned by @Gracjan Wesołowski _HeroCoders_  and @Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_, there is no out-of-the-box solution for capacity planning in Jira Cloud.
To add to the Atlassian Marketplace suggestions, you may want to have a look at the app that my team and I are working on: JXL for Jira.

JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view for your Jira data that allows viewing, inline-editing, copy-pasting, sorting, and filtering by all your work items' fields, much like you’d do in e.g. Excel, Google Sheets, Smartsheet, or Airtable. It also comes with a long list of further features, including work item grouping based any work item fields, as well as sum-ups.

With these, you can build a view like e.g. this in just a couple of clicks:

This is really just one of a virtually endless number of possible views and reports; you can also view and group by any other issue fields, configure different sum-up styles, etc. etc. I should also add that JXL can do much more than the above: From configurable issue hierarchies, to conditional formatting, or inline bulk editing via copy/paste.

Any questions just let me know,
Best,
Ivan

[Rahul_RVS]

Hi @Rosemary Conner 

If you would like to try a mktplace app for tracking resource workload and capacity planning across multiple projects/boards, take a look at

Capacity Planner 

The app offers:

1. Resource Tracking and Allocation : The app allows you to monitor and track various resources by adding them as part of a template, and their work allocation across multiple projects / sprints.

2. Real-time Visualization: Provides intuitive charts, graphs to visualize resource utilization and capacity levels in real-time.

3. Full Sprint / Project Fix version Capacity and Monitoring

Mode details here

[Anastasiia Maliei SaaSJet]

Hi @Rosemary Conner  👋

We faced the same challenge after moving to Cloud, and the solution that really worked for us is Time & Cost Tracker for Jira Cloud.

It’s an all-in-one solution — you don’t need extra apps:

• Forecasts – plan projected hours for each team member and project, plus forecast budgets so you know upfront how much effort and cost to expect.

• Time tracking – log actual work right in Jira and compare it with estimates.

• Cost reports – connect hours to labor rates or expenses and get clear reports showing planned vs actual, over-capacity, and real project costs.

This way you get full transparency for stakeholders — from forecasts to actuals — and a clear picture of your budget and team capacity, all inside Jira Cloud.

🚀Time & Cost Tracker for Jira Cloud on the Atlassian Marketplace

[Daria Spizheva_Reliex_]

Hi @Rosemary Conner,

If you don't mind using an app, the timeline features you remember from Data Center are available through the ActivityTimeline Planner module in the Cloud version. This gives you that same cross-project timeline view for managing tasks and schedules across your teams.

For your specific needs around resource planning and capacity tracking, the plugin offers some helpful capabilities. The visual indicators in the Planner can help you spot when departments or teams might be consistently overloaded or have capacity gaps. The reporting features allow you to analyze resource utilization patterns over time.

If you're looking to build a case for additional headcount, the data from these reports can provide some concrete evidence about where capacity constraints exist - whether that's in specific skill areas or particular teams. There's also a feature that lets you create placeholder "Resources" to model how additional team members might impact your overall capacity planning. And in addition, there's quite a bunch of capacity reports showing existing bottlenecks, like this:

Our customer success managers may help you to figure out other benefits the app can bring in to your case. If you want to learn more, here you can book a consultation for free. Hope this helps.

[Dave Rosenlund _Trundl_]

Welcome to the community, @Rosemary Conner 👋

As @Gracjan Wesołowski _HeroCoders_'s response suggests, there is no out-of-the-box solution for capacity planning in Jira. You'll need to look to the Atlassian Marketplace for an Atlassian-partner-developed add-on.  Gracjan's company's product is one of many possible solutions. 

Rather than pitching a specific product (my company makes one, too — Simple Portfolio Management), here is a marketplace search approach I would suggest (because only you can turn the marketplace search knobs to best suite your needs).

I also suggest you consider joining Program/Project Masters, an online/virtual Atlassian Community Events chapter dedicated to topics like this one. 

Best,

-dave

[Rosemary Conner]

Thank you for the additional content, I have taken a look, that are so many options.  :)  We are new to Atlassian and finding our way through the troves of material.

[Gracjan Wesołowski _HeroCoders_]

Hi @Rosemary Conner 

Welcome to the community.

If you are interested in third-party addons, I can recommend our Portfolio app.

We have created this app specifically to easily monitor all projects, their statuses, and dependencies in a single view.

With built-in capacity planning, you can effectively allocate resources and ensure that projects stay aligned with business objectives:

If you are interested, you can book a demo here.

Best Regards.

Gracjan

[Rosemary Conner]

Thank you