Projects and resource planning

Projects & Resource Planning

When to Use

Use when building or extending project delivery, professional services automation (PSA), resource scheduling/capacity planning, timesheets, billable expenses, or order-to-project delivery workflows.

1. Order-to-Project Lineage & Delivery Structure

In service and hybrid businesses, a won Opportunity or confirmed SalesOrder triggers a delivery Project:

• Link project.source_order_id / opportunity_id and account_id so budget, contracted hours, and milestone deliverables trace directly back to the commercial agreement.
• Model Phases / Milestones and Tasks / Work Packages with explicit budgets (budgeted_hours, budgeted_amount_minor), target dates, and completion states (planned $\rightarrow$ in_progress $\rightarrow$ ready_for_acceptance $\rightarrow$ accepted).

2. Resource Allocation & Capacity vs. Demand

Prevent double-booking people, equipment, or rooms by modeling both Capacity Supply and Allocated Demand:

• Available Capacity: Working calendar hours per resource (resource_id, role/skill tags, standard hours/day minus approved time off/holidays).
• Resource Allocations (Soft vs. Hard Bookings):
  • soft_booked: Tentative hold from an open high-probability opportunity or draft project plan.
  • hard_booked: Confirmed commitment on an active project (start_date, end_date, allocated_hours_per_day or % utilization).
• Utilization & Over-Allocation Detection:
  • Compute utilization = allocated_hours / available_capacity_hours per time bucket (day/week) and flag over-allocations (> 100%) or skill/role shortages early.

3. Time & Expense Capture with Approval Locks

• Timesheet & Expense Entries:
  • Record resource_id, project_id, task_id, work_date, duration_minutes (or hours NUMERIC(6,2)), billable boolean, billing_rate_snapshot, cost_rate_snapshot, and status (draft $\rightarrow$ submitted $\rightarrow$ approved $\rightarrow$ invoiced).
• Immutability After Approval / Invoicing:
  • Once a time or expense entry is approved or linked to an invoice_line_id, lock it against direct edits! Corrections must use an explicit adjustment/credit entry so project profitability and customer invoices never drift.

4. Project Billing Models (T&M vs. Fixed-Price Milestones)

• Time & Materials (T&M): Aggregate approved, unbilled (billable = true AND invoice_line_id IS NULL) time and expense entries within the billing period, locking them atomically when generating the draft invoice.
• Fixed-Price / Milestone Billing: Trigger invoice eligibility when a ProjectMilestone transitions to accepted, tracking contract_amount - billed_to_date = remaining_to_bill.