Growing a business is challenging. And expanding a firm with few resources might be daunting. 

By helping you arrange the workload and gain precise insights into your resource capacity, capacity planning enables you to complete your task on schedule and within your allocated budget. This can speed up business progress by enabling you to plan for and complete upcoming initiatives and meet present work demands. 

A capacity planning tool assists project managers in creating demand estimates, setting prices and deadlines, managing resource allocation, and increasing team efficiency. 

Capacity planning tools assist firms in developing strategic and realistic business goals by measuring present employee capacities and anticipating what would happen if more individuals were hired. Companies that effectively manage their workforce may make better-informed decisions about goals, output, and, most crucially, their people. 

What Is the Purpose of a Capacity Planning Tool?

Capacity planning software assists businesses in evaluating their resource requirements to stay up with market demand fluctuations. 

Managers, owners, and department heads utilize these tools to monitor workforces and assess how much work can be performed by their current employees. Additionally, it enables you to determine the number of staff you currently have and whether they are overworked or underutilized.

The ability to forecast the number of new employees your organization can or will need to make in the upcoming year and how the cost may affect the business is another significant advantage of capacity planning tools.

The following are significant benefits of implementing the capacity planning tool:

• Taking the uncertainty out of resource planning and resource-leveling.
• Identifying any existing or potential obstacles with ease. 
• Processes for capacity management are being streamlined.
• Workload and productivity management.
• Routine resource scheduling systems are being automated.
• Ensuring the ability to satisfy expectations.

Top Capacity Planning Tools

Staying on top of things can be made much easier with robust capacity planning tools. The right tools can help you allocate resources, consolidate resources, and optimize resource capacity planning. The functionality of these tools varies, but we'll guide you through each one so you can decide which ones to add to your project manager's arsenal. The correct software can assist you in avoiding project delays, bottlenecks, and other issues.

eResource Scheduler

eRS is a cloud-based capacity planning tool that assists businesses in successfully allocating resources, managing team schedules, and tracking project progress. eRS enables efficient resource management through an easy UI and comprehensive reporting options.

The tool has been divided into project and resource management, timesheets, reporting, and financials. It is simple to track and plan for capacity, thanks to the fact that all interfaces let you see the workloads and tasks that have been given to each team member.

The benefit of the tool is that you can try its free trial. Paid plan starts with very minimal charges, i.e., $4 per resource.

ClickUp

ClickUp is a productivity platform that allows teams of any size to manage projects, interact smarter, and consolidate their work across apps into a single centralized hub. With various customized capabilities, ClickUp is the ideal capacity planning software for managing workloads, effectively managing resources, and increasing overall efficiency.

ClickUp has 5 different pricing Plans: Forever Free Plan, Unlimited Plan, Business Plan, Business Plus, and Enterprise. 

Meisterplan

Meisterplan is a cloud-based portfolio-level resource management tool created to assist organizations in building outcome-focused portfolios. It has a highly visual platform that enables project portfolio and resource managers to decide on resource allocations, scheduling, priorities, and capacities at the portfolio level using data.

The pricing plan of Meisterplan starts from $713 per month, which includes 50 resources. 

Mavenlink

Mavenlink provides a resource management and optimization tool in addition to other tools. Mavenlink allows you to streamline essential operations, intelligently connect staffing and team configurations to business goals, and has a wide range of forecasting and planning features. It is a full-service program with all the bells, whistles, and analytics.

Mavenlink has four pricing categories, the first two offering a free trial, but all of which need payment. Teams’ entry-level plan costs $19 per month for a maximum of five members. The cost of their Professional plan is $39 per user each month, while a consultation is necessary for a direct quotation on their Premier and Enterprise plans.

Wrike

Wrike is a work management platform that lets you personalize your workflows, dashboards, and request forms and connect to 400+ connectors.

This tool provides all-in-one capacity planning software that enables users to keep track of projects, fill in workload gaps as needed, make the most of resources, and use a range of templates to speed up routine projects and activities.

Wrike offers a free version for up to five users, and prices per user/month start at $9.80. 

Resource Guru

You may arrange groups of individuals, projects, and teams with Resource Guru, a resource management tool. Its drag-and-drop design makes it easy to assign tasks quickly, and its entire user experience adheres to the maxim of being clear and uncomplicated.

By considering individual working hours, workloads, and vacation time, the clash management feature ensures you avoid double bookings and overtime. Thanks to the waiting list feature's monitoring of your resources and prevention of over-allocation, every resource has a manageable burden.

Plans with a martial arts theme start at $2.50 per user per month.

Saviom

Saviom claims to redefine business efficiency with its enterprise resource management and enterprise resource planning software. This includes real-time planning, scheduling, and forecasting, as well as maximizing utilization, optimizing the workforce, and reducing project resource costs.

Pricing plans are shared on request. 

10,000ft by Smartsheet

Smartsheet's resource management software features specific resource allocation, precise project planning, simple time tracking, and dynamic reporting. It includes all the tools required for capacity planning with teams of varying sizes. One of the advantages of 10,000ft is that it can be integrated with a wide range of project and team management tools.

Pricing plans are shared on request.

Monday.com

Monday.com is a powerful integration management platform that can do it all. Monday.com is one of the top capacity planning solutions for teams that require unique features due to its customization and powerful integration tools. Project roadmaps, resource allocation, team capacity evaluation, and projection are among the capacity planning tools accessible on Monday.com.

The premium plan starts at $8 per user per month. 

Teamdeck

Teamdeck is a comprehensive capacity planning application with resource scheduling, time monitoring, and reporting features. Teamdeck offers effective resource management with customizable dashboards and connections with common project management tools.

The pricing plan starts at $0.9 per user per month. 

Summary

Finally, there are several capacity planning solutions on the market, each with its own set of features, benefits, and drawbacks. When choosing the proper capacity planning tool for your firm, it is critical to examine variables such as ease of use, integrations, pricing, and your organization's specific requirements. Businesses may streamline processes, increase efficiency, and ensure optimal resource allocation by investing in the correct capacity planning technology.

Would you like to test out a capacity planning tool that is free to use for any number of users? Check out eResource Scheduler's capabilities.