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 set up quickly and start seeing value right away. There’s no need to configure everything at once — you can refine and expand your setup over time.
When you start a trial, a new team is automatically created for you, with full access to all Pro plan features. In Float, a team is your shared workspace where your people, projects, and schedule live. The person who creates the team becomes the Account Owner, with full access to manage settings and permissions.
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.
If you are moving from another tool to Float, you can import your people from a CSV file.
📘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 and the Project plan pages.
If you are moving from another tool to Float, you can import your people from a CSV file.
📘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
Structure your projects
Use the Projects page to define how the work will be delivered. Structuring your project helps you plan more accurately, assign the right people, and track progress. Use stages to define your project lifecycle, and add phases, tasks, and milestones to map out the key elements of your work. Set your budgets and add rates to track performance and profitability. When ready, navigate to the Project plan and allocate the work.
📘Learn more: Project plan: Plan your projects
Review your team's performance
Navigate to the Report page to review comprehensive insights into your team’s work and project performance:
People Report - capacity, utilization, costs, time off, and logged time.
Projects Report - project performance, budget usage, and costs.
📘Learn more: People Report and Projects Report.
Invite your team
Inviting team members gives them access to Float so they can view the Schedule and stay aligned on project work. This makes collaboration smoother and reduces the need for manual updates. Float offers two types of user access:
People for anyone whose time you schedule
Guests for planners, managers, and stakeholders who need visibility and oversight without planning their own work.
You can adjust permissions for both at any time to ensure everyone has the right level of access.
📘Learn more: Inviting team members to Float
Learn more
That’s it! 🎉
You now have a working resource plan in Float! Add more people and project details, and explore how those changes affect your team in real time.
Want a deeper walkthrough?
If you’re setting up Float for the first time, check out A Kickstart Guide to Float for a step-by-step overview of building your team, structuring projects, and allocating work.
Need more help?
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!