How to use Teambook for capacity forecasting?

How to predict hiring needs six months in advance

Hiring rarely fails because companies don’t plan—it fails because planning is often based on incomplete or outdated information. This guide is designed for resource managers, operations leaders, and founders who need to make informed decisions about when to hire, pause hiring, or rebalance workloads across teams.

Capacity forecasting isn’t just about predicting the future—it’s about seeing pressure points before they become problems. Teambook transforms capacity forecasting by integrating future bookings, working schedules, and utilization trends into a single, dynamic timeline. If your hiring decisions currently feel reactive or based on intuition, this guide will help you shift toward data-driven, proactive forecasting with Teambook.

Step 1: Build on Strong Foundations

Accurate forecasting starts with up-to-date, relevant, and precise team data.

In Teambook:

Create all users, including freelancers and even future hires (use placeholder names—no email required).
Use tags to define skills, languages, and specific competencies. This helps you quickly identify availability (or shortages).
Ensure every team member has an accurate working schedule. Include part-time roles and potential start/end dates to reflect realistic availability.

Your team is your greatest asset—make sure Teambook knows every detail.

Step 2: Make Future Demand Visible

Forecasting only works if future work is visible and structured.

In Teambook:

Add confirmed projects with realistic timelines (start and end dates).
Use project statuses to filter views in the Planner, Capacity, and Analytics modules.
Enter estimated time per project (hours or man-days—Teambook converts and tracks both).

This creates a forward-looking view of demand, not just a snapshot of today.

Step 3: Use Operational Planning to Build Capacity Analysis

Short-term, detailed planning provides a solid foundation. You can then complement it with long-term assumptions.

Teambook offers two approaches:

Bottom-Up Approach: Use the Planning module to allocate detailed workloads for the coming weeks/months and sync this data with the Capacity module.
Capacity-Only Approach: Enter data directly into the Capacity module in the "by user" view.

Regardless of the approach:

Enter planned time off, public holidays, and other constraints as early as possible.
Remember: Forecasts are only as good as the assumptions behind them!

Step 4: Identify User Capacity Issues

Short-term spikes in workload are normal. Long-term, continuous overload is a hiring signal.

In the User views:

Look 3 to 12 months ahead and watch for red indicators (over-capacity).
Check for uneven workload distribution across the team.
Identify if specific roles or skills are repeatedly overloaded.
Determine whether rescheduling or reassigning work could alleviate pressure.

Step 5: Compare with Project Requirements

Capacity forecasting helps distinguish between resourcing problems and process problems.

In the Project Capacity view:

Enter your demand for each project.
Teambook’s ratios will highlight potentially under- or over-staffed projects.
Check if internal work is crowding out billable or delivery work.

Iterate between User and Project Capacity views to solve the equation.

Step 6: Translate Capacity Gaps into Hiring Scenarios

Once future gaps are visible, model different scenarios:

What happens if we delay hiring by two months?
How much workload is relieved by adding one mid-level role?
Which role reduces risk the most?

Instead of asking, “Should we hire?”, ask: “What happens if we don’t?”

What Success Looks Like

Teams that use capacity forecasting effectively:

✅ Start hiring conversations earlier—align headcount growth with real demand.
✅ Avoid emergency hires under delivery pressure—reduce burnout from prolonged overload.
✅ Deliver projects on time and maintain high customer satisfaction.

Hiring becomes a planned decision, not a reaction.

What to Do Next

Watch our step-by-step video and guide on capacity forecasting.
Review capacity 3 to 6 months ahead on a regular basis.
Track repeated over-capacity as an early warning signal.
Use forecasts to inform hiring and prioritization discussions.

Need help setting up forecasting views or interpreting capacity signals? Contact Teambook Support—we’ll help you configure this workflow in Teambook.