Welcome to Float.com! The #1 solution for profitable resource management.
Float offers powerful features and flexible configuration options, but getting started is simple. This guide walks you through the essential first steps to help you set up quickly and start seeing value right away.
You don’t need to configure everything at once. You can refine and expand your setup as you go.
Sign up and create your team
Float offers a 30-day free trial with full access to all Pro plan features—no credit card required. When you start a trial, a new team is automatically created for you. A team at Float is your shared workspace where your people, projects, and schedule live. The person who creates the team automatically becomes the Account Owner, with full access to manage settings and permissions.
👉 Start a free trial here 👈
Add your people
Float is built around people. Its power comes from its visibility into who can work when. Everything else—capacity, projects, and reports—depends on having your team in place.
Start by adding the team members you need to plan work for.
To add people, use the keyboard shortcut E, or click on the blue + icon in the top right of the page and select Add person.
Add a few team members - just names are enough to start with. Don’t worry about other details like roles or rates yet.
Every person you add will automatically appear on the Schedule and on the People page.
Adding people does not automatically send them an invite to Float. Access is optional and can be granted later. You can plan your team's work without giving them login access.
📘Learn more: People
Add your projects
Projects give context to your allocations. Every piece of scheduled work must be linked to a project.
You can add projects before scheduling or create them on the fly while allocating time on the Schedule.
To add a project, use the keyboard shortcut P, or click on the blue + icon in the top right of the page and select Add project.
Add a few projects to start with. You don’t need a perfect project structure to begin. What matters is seeing work in context — you can refine naming, budgets, and other settings later.
Every project you add will automatically appear on the Projects page.
📘Learn more: Projects
Schedule project work on the timeline
Now that you’ve added a few people and projects, you’re ready to allocate time. The Schedule is the heart of Float—a live, real-time timeline showing everyone’s workload. This is where resource management happens.
Click an empty cell next to any team member to create an allocation. Set the hours per day or percentage of capacity, choose the date range, and assign it to a project.
Grab & drag horizontally to extend or shorten the allocated days.
Grab & drag vertically to extend or shorten the allocated hours per day.
Grab & move to relocate the allocation to another day or another person.
📘Learn more: Allocate time
Review and adjust the Schedule
Once work is scheduled, step back and review the timeline. You can instantly see who’s busy and what they are working on, spot gaps in availability, overbookings, and overlaps.
The default working days and hours are Monday to Friday, 8 hours per day. It can be customized as needed. Scheduling someone beyond their capacity creates an overallocation and indicates overtime.
Use date-range insights for high-level summaries and adjust allocations as needed. This is where potential issues become visible before they turn into problems, and where your planning becomes proactive.
📘Learn more: Resource scheduling and capacity planning
That’s it! 🎉
You now have a working resource plan in Float! Add more people and project details, and explore how those changes impact your Schedule.
If you need additional guidance, explore related articles in the Help Center or reach out to our Support team at support@float.com. We are here to help every step of the way!