Table of Contents

Bookings

"Bookings" are a resourcing tool available in Wrike Labs that focus on representing the project allocation for individual users within Wrike.

Creating Bookings

Resources View

To apply a booking to a project/user in Wrike, locate and open the needed project. Once the project is open, navigate to the "Resources" tab.

From here the bookings for that project can be managed directly, across any users attached to the project.

Applying a Booking to a User

Adding a booking will first require adding the user to the "Resources" view of that project. To do so, collapse down the project that you're adding the booking to, and click "Add Assignee".

Then, collapse down the arrow underneath that user and navigate to the "Add Booking" button.

From here the booking window will open, in which you must apply three values:

  • Number of estimated hours for the program (for that specific user)
  • Start date of program assignment (for that user)
  • End date of program assignment (for that user)

Wrike will take these values, create a daily number of hours for that project by that user, and distribute the daily amount of hours for each day the user is assigned to that project.

This process can be repeated as many times as needed in order to add all necessary users to the project.

Booking Percentages

Within the "Resources" tab, user can view the amount of effort in multiple ways. The options available, currently, are hours, percentages, and full time equivalents. It's recommended that the allocations be viewed in percentages.

To do this, find the "Show effort in" dropdown at the top right corner of the view, and select "Percentages". Here is a recording of finding the dropdown and what the effort looks like in each option.

Once percentages are applied there will be multiple places where percentages are appearing. Below is breakdown of the different percentages.

At the top level, this percentage is showing the amount of daily hours that have been applied via bookings to that project, across all users.

The next values are then showing the amount that each one of those user's days are going to be allocated to that project.

When the user's individual daily percentage is clicked, their total allocation percentage (all of the collective bookings for that user), again being displayed at a daily level.

Monitoring Bookings

Workload Charts

In order to best monitor the bookings of individuals and groups, navigate to the "Workload" tab. From there, click "Create Workload chart" to open a window for titling the chart and selecting the users, or groups, for whom you'd like to view their bookings.

This workload chart will give a very similar view and options compared to the "Resources" tab of individual projects. Below you can see the same "Show effort in" drop down and options are available. This workload view will now show a user's collective bookings, as opposed to only one project.

To add more users to the workload chart, find the "settings" option in the top right view of the workload chart. From there additional users or user groups can be added to the chart.

Workload Percentages

It is again recommended to view the workload chart as a set of percentages. The chart will display multiple percentages and other values within the chart, similar to the resources tab. The first is a percentage that individual user's total allocation for each day within a given week.

When a user's line is uncollapsed, the projects that they have bookings on will then be visible, as well as the number of hours per day that the system has calculated for that individual booking.

If one of those individual bookings is clicked, more specifics regarding the booking is visible, mainly the total hours that individual has been "booked" for that project.

Grouping, Sharing, and Customizing Workload Charts

When inside a workload chart with multiple users, it's possible to group those users into their specific roles by using a Wrike feature called "Job Roles". After the grouping is applied, there will be new collapsable lines for each one of those role groups. Currently, this is the only effective form of grouping available.

If a workload chart has been created, and it should be shared with specific users or user groups, navigate to the top right and select "Share". From there, the chart can be shared with users or groups in a standard fashion.

As stated above, sometimes it will be useful to see workload charts for specific groups. To do this, open the "Settings" window of the chart. First, specify the group of users that you'd like to see the bookings for. And if need be, select "Advance Settings" to specify a location from which the bookings should be pulled.

Maintaining Bookings

An important thing to keep in mind with the bookings feature is that all of the information needs to be placed manually. There is no option to link the hours of a booking to any other piece of data or information, and the dates associated with the booking are not connected to a projects "Start" or "Due" date at all, nor any other date field in the system. All values need to be manually configured.

Booking Edits

From the workload chart view individual bookings can be directly edited. Both the hours applied to the bookings as well as the dates of the bookings. Below is an example of how shifting the hours of one booking will change what is seen in the chart view.

Here is an example of what is seen when the dates are updated. As the dates are shifted, the booking will visually shift on the chart, but so will the daily values of the booking, as well as that individual users allocation percentage.

So, when used, it will be critical to continuously monitor these values, and adjust when necessary, to make sure the most current allocation effort is being communicated.

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