How to Track Team Capacity and Available Hours in Airtable

If you want to know who has time for the next task, Airtable can compare each person's available hours with the work assigned to them. The easiest way is to use a Timeline view with the Utilization summary.

You add the estimated hours to each task, link the task to a team member, and store each person's available hours. Airtable then shows how much of that capacity is already assigned.

Airtable timeline showing team members, assigned work, and available capacity

Set up the tables

Create a People table with one record for each team member. Add:

  • Name (the person's name)
  • Weekly Availability (the number of hours they can work each week, such as 40 or 24)

In your Tasks table, add:

  • Task (the task name)
  • Assigned To (a linked record field connected to People)
  • Estimated Hours (the hours the task needs during the selected period)
  • Start Date and End Date (the dates the work is planned)
  • Weekly Availability (a lookup from Assigned To that brings in the person's value from the People table)

Use one consistent unit for the hours. For example, if Weekly Availability is weekly, enter the task allocation as weekly hours too.

Compare assigned work with capacity

Timeline Utilization is available on Airtable's paid plans. It works best when the tasks have dates, an assignee, and an hours field.

  1. Create a Timeline view from the Tasks table.
  2. Group the timeline by Assigned To so each person has their own row.
  3. Open Summarize and add Utilization.
  4. For Allocated hours, select Estimated Hours and set the rate to Per week.
  5. For Available hours, choose Assigned To as the resource field.
  6. Set Working hours to the Weekly Availability lookup field on Tasks and set its rate to Per week.

Airtable now compares the hours assigned to each person with their weekly availability. A person over 100% utilization is carrying more planned work than their available hours.

You can also add a Days off table when holidays or leave need to reduce someone's capacity. Turn on the time-off option in the Utilization settings and connect it to the person's days off.

A simpler weekly total

If you only need a total for each person and do not need the Timeline view, use a linked record and a rollup instead.

In People, create an Allocated Hours rollup that sums Estimated Hours from linked Tasks records with SUM(values). Then add an Available Hours formula:

{Weekly Availability} - {Allocated Hours}

This works well when each person has one fixed weekly capacity and each task has one assignee. It does not account for different availability from one week to the next unless you create a separate capacity record for each person and week.

For changing schedules, holidays, or availability that varies by date, keep the capacity in a separate table with one record per person and time period. Then link the relevant tasks to that capacity record and roll up the hours there. This is also the better structure when one task needs different hour allocations for several people.

For a setup that tracks availability for specific events and projects, see how to track contractor or team availability in Airtable.