The bench and draft bookings

Finding a gap in the plan is only half the job; the other half is knowing who can fill it. The bench keeps that answer on screen at all times, so filling a gap does not mean leaving the page and losing your place.

The bench

The bench is a strip pinned along the bottom of the Resourcing page. It stays put while the grid scrolls, and it lists everyone who still has room in the period currently on screen, in the order you pick: by surname by default. The Bench pill, in the filter band above the grid, offers Surname, First name and Most free; choose Most free to bring the people with the most room to the front.

Each person appears as a chip showing how much of their time is uncommitted, for example 60% free avg. The count beside the heading — 8 free — is how many people have any room at all. Anyone fully booked is left out entirely: they are not available, so they are not offered.

The chip also shows contracted hours for the visible period. A change within that period reads as a range, such as 20–40 h/week. Capacity assumed means some contract details are unavailable. The same labels appear when choosing someone with Add a person.

Change the period and the bench changes with it. Someone free in September is not on the bench while you are looking at July.

Use the arrow on the Bench heading to collapse the strip when you want the full height for the grid, and to bring it back afterwards.

Read the percentage as an average across the period. 40% free avg means that, averaged over every week of the period on screen, 40% of that person's time is uncommitted — not that 40% is free in each of those weeks. Someone booked solid for seven weeks of nine and idle for the last two reads as roughly 22% free, and someone with nothing booked at all reads as 100%. The figure moves with how much is actually booked, so two people are genuinely comparable by it, and Most free orders the strip by the same figure the chips display.

An average is still not a week-by-week picture. A person free 40% on average could be free half of every week, or completely free in two weeks out of five — and those are different answers to can they take this on. Expand the role and check the individual weeks before extending a booking across several of them.

The percentage is a share of that person's own contract. A part-timer on three days a week who has nothing booked reads as 100% free, not as a fraction of a full-time week. That way the bench agrees with what the rest of Flowtly says about the same person, and a part-timer with real availability is not made to look nearly full. If someone's contract changes during the period on screen, each week is measured against the contract that applies in that week, so a move from full time to part time shows in the weeks after the change and not before it.

Where the per-week detail behind a person is not available, the chip falls back to reporting their best week instead, and says so — the label names which of the two readings you are looking at, so an average is never mistaken for a best case.

Fully booked is advice, not a lock. Once somebody has no room left anywhere in the period they read as unavailable and drop off the strip. That is the page answering who can take this on comfortably — it is not saying the person cannot be booked at all.

Someone can still end up above a full week, and sometimes that is the right call. Because drafts are not counted as coverage, two drafts for the same person can each look affordable on their own; it is confirming them that adds up, and the grid marks anyone over 100% in red so the cost is visible rather than buried.

What will not happen is Flowtly proposing it. A person with no room is never offered on the bench, and dragging someone onto a role never books more than the time they actually have free — so going over a full week is always a decision you made, not a suggestion the page made for you.

There is a hard limit at 125% for confirmed bookings. You can save and adjust a draft or staffing request above that limit to explore an alternative. Confirming it is refused until you free enough capacity, and the message names the week and the load on its busiest day. A refused confirmation leaves the proposal unchanged.

The limit is checked day by day. Bookings on the same day add together; bookings on different days of the same week do not. Someone booked full time on one project on Monday and Tuesday can be booked full time on another from Wednesday to Friday, because no single day goes over the limit. Two full-time bookings that share even one day are refused, since that day would carry 200%.

When nobody has room, the strip says so plainly: Everyone is fully booked in this window.

Sketching a booking

Drag a person from the bench onto a role in the grid, and drop them on the column you want them booked in. Roles highlight as you drag, so it is clear where a chip can land.

Dropping creates a draft booking:

It covers the column you dropped on — one week in the 9 weeks view, or up to two weeks in the 13 weeks view. The final column of the 13-week range contains one week.
It is sized to the free capacity shown on the chip, and never above 100%, so the drop itself cannot overbook anyone.

To book a longer stretch, drop once and then extend the draft with the grips described below.

If a draft cannot be saved, the page explains why, for example when you lack permission. Saving a proposal does not consume confirmed capacity; the combined-capacity limit is checked when an approver confirms it.

Dragging is one of two ways to create a booking from this page. The other is Add a person, described next.

Adding a person directly

Not every booking starts from a gap. Sometimes you already know who is going on a project and on which days — and the project may have no roles yet. Add a person, beside Declare a need at the top of the page, and on the empty page when nothing is planned yet, is for that.

Each project row also carries Add a person and Declare a need. They appear when you hover over the row or tab to it, and there the project is already chosen.

Choose the project. Any project can be chosen, including one with nothing planned on it.
Choose the person. The list is the whole organisation, searchable by name, with how free each person is in the period on screen. It is grouped as:
- Free in this window — people whose free time in the period is measured from their contract;
- Capacity assumed — people with no weekly hours recorded, whose share is worked out as if they worked full time;
- Already on this project and Fully booked;
- Capacity unknown, last — people for whom there is no capacity figure at all, so Flowtly cannot say they are free.
Nobody is hidden and everyone can be chosen: fully booked people and people of unknown capacity are listed, and booking them is your call. When two people share the same name, each carries a record number, such as Record #123, to tell them apart. If nobody matches the search, the list says so and offers to clear it.
Optionally choose a role. Without one, the person is booked on the project directly.

Choosing someone books nothing yet. It opens their week, day by day:

Click a day to select it, shift-click to select a run of days, or Ctrl-click (⌘-click on a Mac) to add a day that does not touch the others.
Enter the hours per day and apply. Each selected day is booked for that many hours, and neighbouring days with the same hours become one booking.
Entering 0 removes the booking from the selected days, and only from those days.
A dash marks a day the person does not work. It cannot be selected.
Use the arrows to move a week forward or back, or Go to date to open the week of a date further away.

A loose link, with no hours

Sometimes a person belongs on a project without booked time: someone who helps for about two hours a month, or who splits their days between projects. In Add a person, choose Loose link, no hours instead of With hours and a role (the default). Only the person is asked for, and Link person saves the link.

A loose link has no hours, no role and no dates. It adds nothing to capacity, the bench or coverage, never turns a project red and changes no figure. The person's free time stays free.
On the Projects grid the person appears as a row under the project, with a Loose link label and empty cells. A project whose only people are loose links still gets a row of its own. On the People grid the person carries a Loose link · <project> label.
A loose link is created unconfirmed, as a proposal, and is labelled unconfirmed. An approver confirms it with Confirm on the project row. In Confirm at once it is created confirmed.
A link made by mistake can be removed from the project row, after a confirmation. A Resourcing manager can remove an unconfirmed link; a confirmed one needs the Resourcing approver role. Removing it changes no hours or bookings.
A link to an archived project is not shown.

Planning a range of dates

For a longer plan, such as every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from September to December, the Range and weekdays section at the top of the editor saves picking the days one by one.

Enter From and To, pick the Weekdays the person works on the project, and enter the Hours per day.
Read the Preview. It lists every date in the range and marks each one as planned, skipped, existing booking or outside the pattern, and the summary says how many days will be planned and skipped, and how many hours that comes to.
Select Apply. The button states its effect, for example Apply: 51 days · 408 h. While a long plan saves, it counts the progress, Saving 12 of 26.

Some days are skipped rather than planned, and the preview names the reason for each: a day off the person does not work, a public holiday, or leave. Any leave counts, whatever its status, apart from remote work. Nothing is planned while the leave and public holidays are still being checked, or if they could not be loaded; the section says so and offers to try again, rather than planning as if there were none.

Days that already have a booking are skipped by default. Any booking of the person, on any project, counts. The section lists them with their project and hours. Choosing Overwrite replaces this project's own bookings on those days with the new hours; a day booked on another project, or shared with one, stays skipped, and bookings on other projects are never changed. Overwrite is not remembered: it has to be chosen again each time.

What the range saves is exactly what you would get by picking the same days by hand: draft bookings, with neighbouring days that have the same hours joined into one. If some days cannot be saved, the editor names them and offers to retry them, as below.

Leave is skipped unless you say otherwise. If the selection includes a day the person is on leave, the editor says so before anything is saved, and the main button books the other days only. Booking the leave day as well is a second button — sometimes you know something the leave calendar does not.

Bookings made this way are drafts, exactly like a drop from the bench: they are not counted as coverage until an approver confirms them, and the Resourcing manager role is enough to make them. Changing a day that is already confirmed needs the Resourcing approver role.

If only part of a save goes through, the editor names the days that were not saved and offers to retry exactly those. The days that were saved stay saved, and nothing else on the project or for that person is touched.

What a draft is

A draft is a proposal. It is saved and your colleagues can see it, but it is not coverage.

Drafts appear as a dashed outline over the cell, and the label reads 40% draft. Crucially, draft bookings are left out of every coverage figure in the grid: role percentages, project coverage and the over-capacity warnings all count confirmed bookings only. That is what makes drafts safe to experiment with — sketching three staffing options does not make a project look staffed three times over.

The practical consequence is worth knowing: a role that has only draft bookings still reads as uncovered. That is not a mistake. Nothing is committed yet.

Confirming a draft

Expand the role to see the people on it. A draft person's row carries a Confirm button; selecting it turns that person's draft on that role into a real booking. From that moment it counts as coverage everywhere, and the dashed outline becomes a solid bar.

Confirm works one person and one role at a time. There is no confirm-all; an approver who wants new work confirmed straight away can use Confirm at once, below.

A person's draft on a role can be made of several separate runs of days, for example when it was planned for some weekdays only. Confirming takes each run on its own, so some can be confirmed while others are refused, for example because a day in them would go over the limit. The message then says Confirmed 3 of 5 runs. The rest were refused and stay drafts., followed by the dates of each refused run and the reason. The refused runs are left exactly as they were.

Confirming needs the Resourcing approver role, which is a narrower permission than the one that lets you create the draft in the first place. Proposing and committing were deliberately separated: anyone with the Resourcing manager role can sketch a booking, but turning it into a commitment the company is counting on is a decision reserved for designated approvers. Administrators hold both.

Without that role the Confirm button is still shown on the row, but it is greyed out, and hovering it explains why: Confirming a draft needs the Resourcing approver role. Ask an administrator to grant it. It is left visible on purpose — a planner should be able to see that the step exists and that it needs approval, rather than find the button missing and conclude the feature is broken. Proposing and committing sets out which role covers what.

Confirm at once

An approver who has already agreed a plan does not need to save it as drafts and then confirm each one. The People and Projects toolbars give approvers a choice between Draft, the default, and Confirm at once. In Confirm at once, what you add, drag or edit is saved as confirmed, with no second step: a drop from the bench, a drop on a project, the day editor, and resizing or moving a draft. When a draft is moved, only the part that lands in its new place is confirmed; a part left behind stays a draft. Drafts you do not touch keep their Confirm button.

Your choice is remembered in your browser for the next visit. People without the Resourcing approver role do not see the choice and always save drafts.

Undoing a confirmation

A confirmed person's row carries an Un-confirm button, the mirror of Confirm: it turns their booking on that role back into a draft. The commitment is released, the bar returns to a dashed outline, and the time stops counting as coverage — so a confirmation made too early is not something you have to live with. The change is saved, and it survives reloading the page.

Un-confirming can never cause an over-booking, because it only ever removes committed time.

Un-confirming needs the Resourcing approver role too, not only confirming. Releasing a commitment is as consequential as making one, and it is the first of the two steps that lead to a confirmed booking being deleted — so both ends of the commitment are held by the same permission.

As with Confirm, the Un-confirm button stays visible without that role and is greyed out, explaining on hover that turning a confirmed allocation back into a draft needs the Resourcing approver role.

Removing a person from a role

A draft person's row carries a small bin button beside Confirm.

It removes them from the period you are looking at, and nothing else. The weeks currently on screen are the weeks affected; a booking that runs on past them is shortened rather than deleted, and coverage before or after the window stays exactly as it was. The role itself is never removed — taking a person off a need leaves the need standing, waiting for someone else.

This is the safe, ordinary action, and it is what the obvious button does on purpose. If you want the person off every week rather than the ones in view, the confirmation offers that as a separate choice, worded as such and naming the full span it would cover. It is one deliberate click away, not the thing that happens by default.

Because neither version can be undone, the button asks first: it names the person, says how many bookings it will touch, and states the dates. Nothing changes until you accept.

Only drafts can be deleted. A confirmed booking has no bin button, and the change would be refused even if it were attempted. This is deliberate: confirmed time is a commitment somebody is counting on, so clearing it away is two deliberate steps rather than one click. Un-confirm it first, then delete it. That extra step exists so that committed work is never a single misclick from vanishing.

Removing a draft never affects anyone's coverage figures, because drafts were never counted as coverage to begin with.

Removing a draft does not need the Approver role — creating a draft and withdrawing it are both proposing, and a proposal you can make is one you can take back.

The removal is permanent. The booking is not archived or hidden; it is gone, and it will not reappear anywhere in the plan. Flowtly does keep a record of the deletion — who removed it and when — but that record is the only remaining trace, and it is not something you can browse from this page. If it matters who removed a draft, ask your Flowtly administrator.

Adjusting a draft's length

The two small controls on a draft's row extend or shorten it by one week at a time, from the end. This is how a booking grows beyond the single column it was dropped into.

The start date cannot be moved here. To start a booking later, drop the person on the column where you want it to begin, rather than dropping earlier and trimming back.

Changing a draft's length or its percentage is proposing, not committing, so the Resourcing manager role is enough — the Approver role is not needed for either. A booking reserved through a staffing request and not confirmed yet is a proposal too, and its row adjusts the same way.

A confirmed row has the same controls, but changing a confirmed booking's period is committing, so it needs the Resourcing approver role. Without it the controls stay visible but greyed out, and hovering them says that changing a confirmed allocation's period needs the Resourcing approver role; the grip for dragging the row's edge is not shown.

Days outside the person's agreements

A booking can be saved for days that none of the person's agreements covers, for example days after their agreement ends. Those days have no capacity, as on Capacity by person, so after such a save Flowtly warns you rather than staying silent. The warning follows a drop from the bench, a booking made with Add a person or in the day editor, extending a row, confirming a draft, and requesting staffing.

The warning says the booking was saved and how many working days fall outside the person's agreements, or that none of the booking's working days is covered. A second line names the project and the booking's dates. When some of those days are also the person's approved leave, the same warning gives that count too. A link opens the person's agreements, so you can extend the agreement or move the booking.

The warning is advice, not a refusal: the booking stays saved. It stays on screen until you dismiss it, and a later save that raises the same warning replaces it. Organisations set up so that a person counts as active without an agreement do not get this warning.

When someone else changed the booking first

Confirming, un-confirming and changing a booking's length are checked against the version of the booking you saw when you clicked. If a colleague changed that booking in the meantime, your change is not saved, so theirs is not overwritten. The grid says Someone else changed this allocation after you opened it, so your change was not saved, reloads the current values, and you make your change again once they show.

What Flowtly records

Every change a person makes to a booking is recorded, along with who made it and when: creating it, confirming it, un-confirming it, changing its dates or its percentage, and deleting it. The record is kept indefinitely.

Bookings that arrive from an imported plan are the exception, including changes made to them here. They are mirrored from that plan rather than authored on this page, and re-mirrored whenever it is applied again, so the import's own report is their record instead.

There is no history view on the Resourcing page, so this is not something you can consult while you plan. It exists so that a question asked later — who committed this person, who released that booking, who removed the draft that used to be here — has an answer.

Example use cases

Find the open role on next month's project and fill it from the bench without leaving the page.
Sketch two ways of covering the same role as drafts, compare the grid, and confirm the better one.
Check who is genuinely free before agreeing to a new engagement's start date.
Compare two people's chips to see which of them is the more available across the window, rather than which one happens to have a single quiet week.
Book someone into the single week where the project is short, rather than for the whole quarter.
Extend a draft week by week until it covers the stretch the project actually needs, then confirm it.
Release a booking that was confirmed too early, so the person shows as available again while plans change.
Use the bench count as a weekly read on how much uncommitted capacity the team is carrying.
Put someone on a new project for Tuesday and Wednesday this week and four days next week, before the project has any roles.

Stable row actions

Confirm, Delete and Un-confirm keep separate positions in each person’s row. Un-confirm returns the allocation to draft, leaving its former button position empty. Clicking that same position again cannot confirm or delete the new draft. Delete still asks for confirmation before removing a draft.