This guide helps delivery managers plan, staff and follow up on delivery in Cinode. It walks you through a typical delivery workflow, from understanding your teams' capacity to following up on how well your customer projects are staffed. Each section explains what to do, which view to use and where to read more.
Cinode brings project management, resource utilisation and planning together in one platform. Because sales and delivery work from the same data, delivery managers can see demand as it appears in the sales pipeline and staff it with the right consultants at the right time.
Note: Most views in this guide require Manager-level permissions.
How do I get an overview of my teams' capacity?
You get an overview of your teams' capacity in Planner > Forecast. The Forecast views show the following:
Utilisation Forecast: a yearly overview of utilisation for the company, business units or teams, in weekly or monthly views, with definitive bookings only or combined with preliminary bookings.
Availability Forecast: consultant availability, so you can identify resource gaps before they occur.
Capacity Forecast: employee capacity, to support decisions on workload balancing, project planning, hiring and scaling.
You can filter the Forecast views by team, tag, location and skills to focus on the part of the organisation you are responsible for.
Read more in Overview of Planner.
How do I see which roles need to be staffed?
You see which roles need to be staffed in the Delivery view under Projects. The Delivery view focuses on the execution of projects, for example assigning consultants to their defined roles. By default, the Delivery view shows only Open and Won projects.
What do the coloured circles in the Delivery view mean?
The coloured circles in the Delivery view show how many roles in a project are in each category:
Green: Assigned
Blue: Preliminary assignment
Red: Unassigned
Click the arrow next to a project to expand it and see more details, including dates and role assignments.
Which filters can I use in the Delivery view?
You can narrow down the Delivery view with the following filters:
Allocation
Select Unassigned and Preliminary assigned to see roles that are not yet finalised.
Select Preliminary and Team to see consultants preliminarily assigned to your team.
Project Responsible
If a project has a responsible person, filter by that person to find the projects linked to a resource manager.
Use Sales Responsible instead if that role overlaps.
Tags
Filter projects and assignments by relevant tags.
Pipe
Useful if your organisation uses different sales pipelines by business area or geographical region.
Other filters
Filter by Resources, Customers or Team as needed.
How do I export projects and roles from the Delivery view?
You can export the projects and roles shown in the Delivery view to a file:
Apply the filters you want in the Delivery view.
Click Export in the bottom-right corner, next to Settings.
The export includes only the rows that match your active filters (Status, Allocation, Resource, Period and so on) and respects your chosen page size.
Note: You need Manager permissions to export projects and roles from Projects. This export is different from the full data export under Administration > Data, which requires Administrator access and covers your entire dataset rather than a filtered view. See the "Exporting Data from Cinode" article for that option.
How do I find the right consultant for an open role?
You can find the right consultant for an open role from several starting points in Planner, depending on whether you start from a consultant, from availability or from a timeline.
Find a role for a consultant with available capacity
To find a role for a consultant with available capacity, use Find role in the Utilisation view:
Go to Planner > Forecast > Utilisation.
Click the consultant you want to find a role for.
In the employee panel, click Find role.
Browse or search the available roles, or use Semantic Matching (beta) to find roles that fit the consultant's skills.
Click Book to assign the consultant to the role, or click Add a new role if the required role does not exist.
Find consultants without an assignment
The Available list in Planner shows which consultants are available for new projects. You can book a consultant directly from the Available list, or click the consultant's name to create an event.
Compare consultant availability over time
In Planner > Timeline, the Employee view ranks consultants from most to least available, which helps you prioritise consultants for upcoming projects.
Tip: Use preliminary assignments while a deal is still being negotiated. A preliminary assignment shows both sales and delivery which consultant is planned for the role before the assignment is confirmed.
Read more in Overview of Planner.
How do I follow up on how well my customer projects are staffed?
You follow up on how well customer projects are staffed in Planner > Delivery Rate. The delivery rate is calculated by dividing the extent of assigned roles by the total roles in a project.
In the Delivery Rate view, you can filter by customer or owner team and manage roles with the following actions:
Book
Pin
Edit
Duplicate
Remove
To change a role in the Delivery Rate view, click the three dots next to the role and choose the action.
Read more in Delivery Rate.
How can sales and delivery work together in Cinode?
Sales and delivery work together in Cinode by sharing the same projects, roles and planning views. The following practices help both teams keep the same picture:
Agree on how your organisation uses preliminary assignments, so everyone knows what a blue role in the Delivery view means.
Use events and mentions on projects to hand over information and follow up on next steps.
Fill in Project Responsible and Sales Responsible on each project, so the filters in the Delivery view work for everyone.
Read more in Event Management & Mentions.
Why can't I see all teams in some delivery views?
If your organisation uses team access, delivery managers only see data for their accessible teams in some Business views. For example, Delivery Rate shows projects connected to accessible Owner Teams, and Utilisation Forecast shows only accessible Delivery Teams.
Check with your administrator that team access matches how your delivery organisation works. Read more in Team access - restrict access to Business overviews and reports.
What does a weekly delivery routine look like?
A weekly delivery routine in Cinode can look like this:
Check Projects > Delivery for new unassigned roles.
Review consultants in the Available list and match them to open roles.
Follow up on preliminary assignments with sales.
Check Delivery Rate for your key customers.
Look ahead in the Availability Forecast for upcoming resource gaps.