For capacity planning it would be very helpful to be able to show the impact of future hires.  From what I can tell, there is no way to do this.

For example, we have planned hires in months 2, 6, and 8.  I'd love to be able to show that we have increasing capacity starting for those roles in those months.  Instead, I believe I have to wait to add them when they start in months 2, 6, and 8. 

 Any one have ideas or help on this topic?

Ilio

This is why you have External Resources.  You can forecast the need and create External Resources as placeholders and then replace them with real names once the contractor or employee is hired.

John,

 I like the thought of using External resources to show the impact of future hires but I don't think it meets the need.  If I add a resource (either an enterprise user or an external resource) now, their availability will begin now.  If this resource is serving as a placeholder for someone yet-to-be-hired, they won't be available until their start date and thus shouldn't show up on the capacity planner until then.  I could set up some personal non-working time for this placeholder but I find that PNWT causes real headaches when trying to get task schedules to stay put.  Perhaps a resource / user start date that fed into the capacity planner could help address this.

Thanks!

Darlene

Darlene,

I like your thought process here.  I would add a new custom user field for their Effective Date and set the date we estimate their hire.  Then I would design a report like the one below to show by Effective Date what the capacity of each resource type or person is against our estimated need by week or month.  I know this report doesn't show it, but it would give you an example of how to provide a solution. This is a cross tab report.