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Time Tracking

Capacity, holidays and leave

Utilization is tracked time divided by the time a person was there to work. Colabio calls that available time: their expected weekly hours over the period, less organization holidays and recorded leave. This page explains the arithmetic, the three settings behind it, where the numbers show up, and who can change what.

The formula

Three lines, in hours, for any member and any date range.

scheduled = expected weekly hours ÷ 5 × working days in the range (from the join date)
available = scheduled − organization holidays − recorded leave        (never below 0)
utilization = tracked ÷ available × 100

Working days are Monday to Friday. A holiday or a day of leave takes off one day of the member's own schedule, so it costs a 40-hour member 8 hours and a 20-hour member 4. A day that is both a holiday and leave comes off once.

A week for a 40-hour member with one holiday and one day of leave, who tracked 24 hours, 12 of them billable.
LineHoursAgainst scheduleAgainst available
Scheduled40100%—
Holidays−8——
Leave−8——
Available2460%100%
Tracked2460%100%
Billable1230%50%

Both columns describe the same week. Colabio reads against available and keeps the schedule column beside it, because the two answer different questions: did this person use the time they had, and how much of a full week did they work. The utilization guide explains why the basis has to be stated whenever the number is compared.

The three settings

Each is set once, in one place, by an organization manager, and every screen reads it from there.

Expected weekly hours

Where
Members → Users → the member's ⋯ menu → Update member
Who
Organization managers

The member's schedule, in hours a week. Everyone starts at 40. Colabio spreads it over Monday to Friday, so 40 hours is 8 a day and 20 hours is 4 a day, starting from the day the member joined.

  • Half hours are fine (32.5). The range is 0 to 168.
  • A change applies to every period, past ones included. There is no schedule history yet, so change it when the schedule changes, not retroactively.
  • 0 hours means nothing is expected; utilization shows a dash rather than a percentage.

Organization holidays

Where
Members → Users → Work calendar
Who
Organization managers

Days the whole organization is off. Add a holiday by name with its first day and, for a multi-day holiday, its last day; Colabio stores one entry per working day and shows them as one line. Everyone's available time drops by their own daily hours for each of those days.

  • Weekends inside a range are skipped: there are no scheduled hours on them to take off.
  • Past holidays stay on the calendar, folded under Past, because they still explain past utilization.
  • Removing a holiday asks for confirmation, since it changes every member's numbers for every range that includes it.

Member leave

Where
Members → Users → the member → Work section → Leave
Who
Organization managers

Days off for one person: vacation, sick, personal, parental or other, with an optional note. Pick a first day and optionally a last day; weekends and organization holidays inside the range are skipped. Leave a blank Hours per day for a full day of that member's schedule, or enter 4 for a half day.

  • The member sees their own leave, read-only, under My Account → Employment. Members do not record their own leave; it is a decision the organization owns, like pay rate or working hours.
  • Consecutive days of the same kind show as one line, and removing the line removes every day in it.
  • Leave is a calendar entry, not a time entry. It never appears in timesheets and is never counted as internal work.

Where it shows

One calculation, read in five places. Each one states its basis.

  1. 1

    Insights → Workload Utilization

    The gauge reads against available time. Under it, one line spells out the basis, for example “Available 24h = 40h scheduled − 8h holidays − 8h leave”, and a small table shows tracked and billable time against the schedule and against available time side by side. Export CSV downloads those lines, the public calculator's worksheet, and the dated holidays and leave behind them.

  2. 2

    Insights → Team performance

    Team utilization and each member's utilization use available time, and the header states the team's basis: scheduled minus holidays minus leave.

  3. 3

    Alerts

    The under-utilization and over-utilization rules judge against available time, so a day off is not missed time. A member away for the whole window gets no verdict at all. Thresholds are unchanged.

  4. 4

    My Account → Employment

    Every member sees the leave recorded for them. Their own Insights page shows the same basis line for their own numbers.

  5. 5

    Colabio for Claude

    The utilization tool answers with the same figures: available time, the schedule, holidays and leave, and the percentage on each basis.

A range in which holidays and leave cover every working day shows as Away for this range, not as under-utilized.

Who can change what

Writes are for organization managers, because each one changes a number someone is judged on. Reads follow the same visibility rules as the rest of a member's performance data.

WhatOrg. managerProduct managerTeam leaderEmployee
Set expected weekly hours Yes No No No
Add or remove organization holidays Yes No No No
Record or remove a member's leave Yes No No No
See the holiday calendar Yes Yes Yes Yes
See a member's leave Yes Yes Yes No
See their own leave Yes Yes Yes Yes

Product managers and team leaders see leave for the members whose performance they can already see. Every add and remove is written to the organization's audit log. Roles themselves are explained in Roles and permissions.

Setting it up

Nothing changes until you touch something: with no holidays and no leave, available time equals the schedule and every number is what it was.

  1. 1

    Confirm each member's hours

    Everyone starts at 40. Set part-timers and contractors to their real schedule from Members → Users → Update member; the default is an assumption, not a decision.

  2. 2

    Add the year's holidays

    Open Work calendar on the Members page and enter the days the organization is closed. Do it once; new joiners pick them up automatically.

  3. 3

    Record leave as it happens

    When someone is off, record it on their profile's Work section. A range takes a few seconds; weekends and holidays are skipped for you.

  4. 4

    Read utilization against available time

    Open Insights for a member or the team. The basis line tells you what the percentage is divided by, and the two-bases table shows the number you would have had against the plain schedule.

  5. 5

    Export when you review

    Use Export CSV on the utilization card before a capacity review or a client conversation. It carries the period, every capacity line and the calendar entries, so the number can be checked.

Running a weekly review? The capacity review template starts from exactly these lines.

Questions

Why did last month's utilization change today?

Capacity is calculated from the calendar when a page is opened, not stored per day. Adding a holiday or leave for a past date changes the available time of every range that includes it, so last month's percentage goes up on the next page load. Nothing is re-run and nothing is lost: the tracked hours are the same, only the denominator moved.

What if someone works on a holiday or during leave?

Their tracked time still counts. Available time for that day is zero, so the day's hours push utilization above what the schedule alone would give, and a member away for the whole range who still tracked time shows a dash for utilization against available time with the tracked hours beside it. Utilization is an allocation ratio, not a judgement of the extra work.

How does a part-timer's day off count?

By their own schedule. A member on 20 hours a week has 4-hour days, so a holiday or a full day of leave takes 4 hours off, not 8, and a half day is 2.

What does “Away for this range” mean?

Holidays and recorded leave cover every working day in the range, so nothing was expected. The card says so instead of calling the member under-utilized, and the alert rules make no judgement for that window.

Can a member record their own leave?

No. Leave changes the denominator of a number the member is judged on, so an organization manager records it and every entry is audited. Members see their own leave under My Account → Employment.

How is this different from the “On leave” employment status?

The employment status (Working, On leave, Terminated) is for long absences: while it is On leave, no alert rule applies to the member at all. Leave entries on the calendar are for ordinary days off inside a working status, and they adjust the numbers rather than switching the rules off.

Where did “Expected Target” go?

It is now “Available”. The figure was the schedule over the range; it is now the schedule less holidays and leave. When nothing is on the calendar the two are identical, so an organization that has not added holidays or leave sees exactly the numbers it saw before.

Does this match the billable utilization calculator on the website?

Yes. The calculator's two rows, scheduled capacity and scheduled capacity minus exclusions, are the same two bases the product shows, and the CSV export repeats the calculator's worksheet with its own column names so the two can be laid side by side.

Still have a question about capacity? Email support@colabio.org.