Firstly, the availability planner is not an HR tool, rather it is essential for project planning. Non-available time in Synergy encompasses everything that is not directly related to project work. The availability planner is a Synergy Enterprise only feature.
The availability planner in Synergy works in two ways.
Staff can update their availability for their manager to approve (optional).
Managers can mark their staff as unavailable.
From the resource planning page, managers can see at a glance how changes to availability will affect resourcing for a project. From the team availability page, managers also have a register for all the times their staff were unavailable.
Why use the availability planner?
The availability planner gives managers a visual representation and also a register of when staff are unavailable for project work.
Feature specifics
Access the team availability page from the organisation menu. You can only see the team availability page if you have direct reports or are an availability administrator.
Security matrix explains how to add new availability administrators. System administrators are availability administrators by default.
The team availability page shows:
A history of all the times staff were unavailable or scheduled as unavailable in the future.
Different options for status requests – declined, approved, requested or cancelled.
Managers can see requests for their direct reports and themselves, whereas administrators can see the entire organisation.
There are multiple ways and different reasons to filter results in the Team availability/My availability pages.
Start after or ends before - Who is unavailable between 15 December and 15 January?
Type - Who is on professional development (attending the International Architects conference)? This is a list of your organisation's internal project stages.
Status - Do I have any availability requests that I have not acknowledged?
Staff (only in Team availability) - Do I want to see my own availability or that of my staff? Managers can see staff as Me, My staff and me. Availability administrators will have visibility to all, My staff (if applicable) and me.
Search - This will find any part of the search term in the availability request, including in the comment field
It is possible to add a new unavailable period for yourself or any of your staff using the add button in the top right of the page.
When you click on the Add button in the team availability page, select if you are changing the availability for yourself or for others.
What you will see in the dialog box depends if you are adding for yourself or for others.
Select staff members - This is only seen if you are adding leave for others. Availability administrators can add ‘All staff’ here. Only availability administrators will have the All staff multi-user group option. If you have multiple offices, availability administrators can set for unavailability for an office. Managers will only see and set unavailability for their reporting staff.
Type - Choose the type that relates to your availability request from here. This is a list of your organisation's active, internal project stages (configure in Organisation menu > Settings > Timesheet lists > Internal project stages).
Start and end dates - Use the date picker to select proposed dates.
Comment - Add a comment to provide context for the leave request.
In the team availability page, you can make changes to an availability request in two ways.
Click on the ellipsis icon.
You then have several options.
Set as approved - The boss has acknowledged it and it is approved (not applicable in My availability).
Set as declined - The boss has said you can’t go at this time (not applicable in My availability).
Set as cancelled - The user changed their mind.
Set as requested - Reverts an approved request back to requested status.
Edit details - Same action as when you click on a row.
If as a manager, you click on your own name, you will only see the options ‘Set as cancelled’ or ‘Edit details’. This is because someone else will need to acknowledge your change in availability.
Click on a row.
When you click on a row, a dialog will open.
Type - If an incorrect request was submitted, change it here.
Start and end dates - Use the date picker to change it to the correct dates.
Comment - You can add onto any comments already written. This text box does not support versioning, so make sure to initial your comments.
My availability page is similar to the team availability page but it only shows the availability requests related to the person.
Find the My availability page in the profile menu – under ‘My availability’.
You can change the status of the request from the ellipsis in the grid. Or in the dialog, after clicking on a row.
If changes are made to any request, the request will revert to requested and your manager is notified.
EXAMPLE: I am presenting at a conference in Melbourne and this was approved. Several clients who are also in town want to meet following the conference. I make changes to the request to include the additional days. My manager will receive a notification to approve the additional dates.
We enhanced the resource planning page to include instances where staff are unavailable, for example they may be offline planning an event or at a staff workshop.
NOTE: The resource planning page is only available for Synergy Enterprise customers with project manager access and above.
You can add unavailable time by clicking on the set unavailable dates icon on the right of the page. The list of people who you can add will change. If you are a manager, you can add for yourself or your direct reports. If you are an availability administrator, you can add for yourself or your entire organisation.
Complete the fields in the sidebar to submit an availability entry.
Select staff members - This is only seen if you are adding leave for others. Availability administrators can add ‘All staff’ here. Only availability administrators will have the All staff multi-user group option. If you have multiple offices, availability administrators can set for unavailability for an office. Managers will only see and set unavailability for their reporting staff.
Type: -Choose the type that relates to your availability request from here. This is a list of your organisation's active, internal project stages (configure in Organisation menu > Settings > Timesheet lists > Internal project stages).
Start and end dates - Use the date picker to select proposed dates.
Comment - Add a comment to provide context for the leave request.
When you see purple in the grid, this means the staff member corresponding to the row is unavailable for the days shown in the header row.
The purple background shows the unavailable period. If the row is a solid colour, this means the request is approved. However, if the row is striped, the request is awaiting approval and are not included in the resource calculations.
When you click on the purple background, you will open the right-hand sidebar. In the instance, there are two unavailability types taken in the same week, this is shown as separate entries
When you expand the row, you will see the internal project on the left menu. In the grid, you will see the number of utilised hours you are unavailable at a weekly level.
When you expand the internal project, you will see a breakdown of the types of unavailable time.
EXAMPLE: When an availability request is approved, the number of hours marked in the weekly total shows the total of utilised time. For example if your target utilisation is 90%, and you take one day of leave, this equates to 5.23 hours. So you will see 5.23 hours for that week. Similarly, if you take the whole week off you will see 5.23 * 5 or 23.17 hours.
The staff summary hours and total summary hours also includes unavailable hours, once a request is approved.
In the instance, the same type of unavailability is taken during different weeks, when the row is expanded, you will see them grouped in the one row, ie you will see leave taken in April and leave taken in June all on the same row.
As a manager, you can edit or approve the request by clicking on the purple background. You can change the status, the availability type, the period or add a comment. Clicking on the arrow or clicking in the grid will save your changes.
The project planning page looks at the total workload of your resources over the duration of the stage/project. If a resource is over-allocated (greater than 105%), the circle around their profile picture will show up as red.
Example: If Jack is utilised on a project for 60% of his time and he marks himself as unavailable to attend a two-day conference over a three-month project, it is unlikely he will show up as red. However, if he is working on a one-month project at 90% utilised, and wants to attend the same conference, he will show up as red, as there are not enough hours to account for the time off.
You will receive notifications in Synergy by email and in the app. This will update you when your/staff availability status changes. You can also choose to receive by managing your email frequency in the Settings icon of the notifications.
When you click on a notification sent to your email, the notifications page will open. When you click on a notification in-app, managers are taken to the Team availability page. Staff are taken to the My availability page.
You can set an availability administrator who can do everything.
You can set Read, Add or Edit access to users with different user settings. For example, you might want a project manager as an availability administrator so they can change availability for people who don’t report to him/her.
By default, these are set to on. But in Settings > Organisation > Configuration, you can change these to off.
When these are set to off, any unavailable period is automatically approved. This is used when staff already enter their leave in a dedicated HR system.
If a staff member makes a change to their availability with approvals set to off, their manager will receive a notice that their availability has changed but is not required to approve it.