Teambook For Resource Managers

How resource managers move from spreadsheet chaos to visual resource scheduling

If you are managing a 30-50 person team in spreadsheets and constantly double-checking formulas, tabs, and holiday trackers, this guide is for you.

The real problem with spreadsheet-based resourcing

Spreadsheets work until they do not.

As teams grow, resource planning spreadsheets become fragile:

One copy-paste breaks a formula
Time off lives in a separate tab or file
Capacity calculations require manual updates
Multiple versions exist at the same time

Most of your time goes into maintaining the spreadsheet instead of making good resourcing decisions.

Why resource planning needs a single source of truth

Effective resource management depends on three things being visible at once:

Who is working on what
Who is available
Who is not available due to time off or other commitments

When these live in separate tools or tabs, errors are inevitable. Teambook replaces static spreadsheets with a live schedule that updates automatically and stays consistent for everyone.

Step 1: Centralize your data

In spreadsheets, project work, time off, and capacity are usually split across different tabs.

In Teambook, these are layered on the same schedule.

When:

A user books time off
A project booking is added or moved
A working schedule changes

The schedule updates instantly. This prevents common mistakes like booking someone who is actually on vacation or already at capacity.

Step 2: Adjust plans with drag-and-drop

Rescheduling work in spreadsheets is slow and error-prone.

In Teambook:

Click a booking
Drag it to a new date or week
Capacity and total project hours update automatically

This makes it easy to respond to delays, shifting priorities, or scope changes without rebuilding plans from scratch.

Step 3: Plan pipeline work with unassigned bookings

Spreadsheets struggle with tentative work.

In Teambook, Unassigned bookings let you plan future projects without committing specific people yet.

Use them to:

Placeholder work that is likely to close
Visualize future demand on team capacity
Spot upcoming bottlenecks early

Once the project is confirmed, you can assign the booking to a specific person in seconds.-

Step 4: Get answers without manual calculations

Instead of building pivot tables, use the Analysis view to answer common resourcing questions.

You can quickly see:

Heatmaps showing who is overworked or underutilized
Project burn to track remaining hours against budget
Availability to identify who can take on new work in the coming weeks

This turns reporting into a decision-making tool, not an administrative task.

What success looks like

When resource planning moves out of spreadsheets:

Everyone works from the same up-to-date plan

Time off is accounted for automatically
Rescheduling takes minutes instead of hours
Fewer mistakes happen due to outdated data

Resource management becomes proactive instead of reactive.

What to do next

To transition smoothly:

Import your current projects and team schedules into Teambook
Define working schedules and time-off rules for your team
Start using unassigned bookings for pipeline planning
Review capacity and availability weekly instead of fixing spreadsheets daily

If you need help migrating from spreadsheets or setting up your first schedules, contact support and we can guide you through the setup in Teambook.