A planning defines how much time an employee is scheduled to spend on a project during a period. You create it through the Add planning button or by dragging the bar directly on the timeline. This article describes the fields of the form, the validation messages, and editing directly in the board. The structure of the view itself is explained in Planning Views – Resource Planning.

The form guides you from top to bottom: first the period, then the people and projects involved, and finally the value. Depending on the view you open the form from, the person or the project is already set.

In Period from and Period To you define the duration. Both fields correct each other so that the end never falls before the start. ZEP calculates the Working days field from this and shows it locked. It takes weekends, public holidays, and the standard working time of the person into account, so you see immediately across how many days your value is actually spread.

From the employee view you choose one or more projects, from the project view one or more people. Two toggles help with the selection: Show only projects with open planned hours and Show only employees with capacity. When you edit an existing planning, the window is titled Edit Planning followed by the name of the planning. Employee and project appear there as plain text and cannot be changed, because a planning belongs firmly to that combination. In the single views, ZEP hides both entries because the view itself already shows them.

Under Value in you decide between Percent and Hours. Percent refers to the daily standard working time of the person, hours are a fixed value per working day. Percent allows up to 200 per cent, hours have no fixed upper limit. The name of the value field follows your selection, for example Daily hours or Daily Hours per Project. Next to it sits Total in period: this field shows the sum across the whole period and can also be filled in directly, in which case ZEP calculates the daily value back from it. If a value exceeds the permitted maximum, ZEP says so immediately and blocks saving.

If you select several employees or several projects, your value applies to each single combination by default. A checkbox lets you split it instead. From the project view it is called Split by employee, from the employee view Split by project. The value you enter is then the total and is divided evenly. Below the value field, ZEP shows live what this means in practice. The checkbox does not appear when you edit an existing planning or when only one item is selected.

If a planning for the same project already exists in the selected period, ZEP reports an overlap and lists the affected people with their existing plannings. You then have to decide how to proceed.

Saving stays blocked until you have chosen one of the two. If adding on top would exceed the maximum of the selected unit, ZEP points this out and suggests replacing instead or reducing the value.

While you fill in the form, ZEP checks your entries continuously in the background. The check distinguishes between errors, which prevent saving, and warnings, which merely point out a consequence.

ZEP collects errors in a red box above the form and blocks saving. They occur when the planning would not be possible in practice. The message Metrics could not be updated is a different matter: it appears in a window of its own after saving. The planning has been created in that case, only the key figures in the sidebar are out of date until you reload the view.

Warnings sit in a separate yellow box and can be ignored. They point out that the planning is possible but exceeds a limit. With many messages the box becomes scrollable.

You change existing plannings directly on the timeline without opening the form. You move a bar, drag its edges to make it longer or shorter, and use the handle to adjust its height and therefore its value. Percentage values move in steps of ten, hour values in steps of one.

Every change is saved immediately. If someone else changes the same planning at the same time, ZEP detects this and reloads the view with the current state instead of overwriting the other change.

If a person is not yet assigned to the project, you can add the assignment directly from the planning without leaving the view. Depending on the view, the button is called Assign Additional Employees or Assign Additional Projects.

In the dialog you define whether the assignment applies to the whole project duration or to a custom period. The first custom period is prefilled with today through one month ahead. Up to three periods are possible. You add another one with Add another period once all existing ones have an end date. If prices are stored, you additionally choose the price group. Without a choice, the default price group of the person applies. In the Planning field you can optionally enter a percentage.