At Float, an allocation refers to the planned assignment of a person's time to a specific project. When you create an allocation, you can assign time directly to a project or further down to a phase or task. This flexibility allows you to plan broadly at the project level or get more specific for reporting and tracking purposes.

To bring up the scheduling menu and create an allocation, click a specific date on the Schedule, click and drag across multiple days, or use the keyboard shortcut “T”.​

​To allocate time, set the allocation hours or percentage, select the project, and click Create allocation.

Other elements on the allocation menu can be adjusted as needed when you create the allocation or later.

The standard allocation unit at Float is hours per day. By default, the h/day field is prefilled based on the person’s availability (e.g., if a teammate's availability is set to 8 hours per day, each new allocation defaults to 8 hours), but you can adjust it at any time.

📝Note: Specific time is based on your team’s time zone. An allocation set for 10 AM will appear as 10 AM for everyone, regardless of their location. We do not currently support enabling individual time zones in Float.

For multi-day allocations, the Total hours field reflects the full duration. If the allocation's Duration is longer than 1 day (e.g. July 1 - July 31), the Total hours field becomes editable and can be manually set.

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By default, the allocation's Duration has a flexible end date.

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This means Float automatically adjusts the end date to maintain the hours per day you’ve set.
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If you enable Fixed end date, the date range stays locked, and Float distributes the total hours evenly across the available workdays within that period.

The total number of hours you’ve set for the period (e.g. 200) will automatically calculate the Hours/day value to spread it evenly across the available workdays while keeping the duration (e.g. July 1 - 31).
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​ 📝Note: If time off is added after a fixed end date allocation is created, the system reduces the total hours accordingly and notifies the allocation creator and Project Owner.
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📝Note: After enabling the Fixed end date option, it is saved and set as the default for all future task allocations, but you can always modify it as needed.

The fixed end date is only available when assigning an allocation to one person. If the Fixed end date is enabled, you won't be able to assign allocation to multiple people, and doing so will trigger an error.

Instead of hours, you can choose to allocate a percentage of a person’s working time. 100% represents their full capacity within the selected date range, excluding public holidays and full-day time off. This approach is useful for high-level planning.
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​📝Note: Other allocations scheduled during the selected date range and part-day time off do not reduce total work hours. This is because the percentage reflects the total working hours within the date range, not the remaining capacity. Use the date range insights feature to view remaining capacity as a percentage for a specific time period.
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​📝Note: Percentage allocations always use a fixed end date and can only be assigned to one person.

When allocating by percentage for team members with custom work hours, Float bases the daily hours on the shortest workday within the selected date range. You can increase the allocation, but this will result in overtime on the shorter workday(s).
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​Example:
A person’s availability is set to 8 hours per day from Monday to Thursday and 4 hours per day on Friday.
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Allocating in percentage across the week, the default allocation is 55.56% (20 hours total), based on the shortest day (4 hours).
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If you increase the allocation beyond this default, overtime will occur on the shorter workday(s).
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📝Note: As a workaround, you can use the split option to adjust your allocation on days that trigger overtime.

Every allocation in Float must be linked to a project. Depending on your access rights, you can allocate time to any project (Account Owner, Admins) or only to those that you have access to (Managers, Members).

You can allocate time directly to a project, or optionally allocate time for a specific project task.

Any time allocated to the project directly, without selecting a task, will be labeled as No task allocation in the reports.

If the task list is locked, you will see the padlock icon next to the Task field, and you will be forced to choose one of the existing tasks.

If your project has phases, you can optionally allocate time to a specific phase by selecting it from the dropdown under the project name.

If phases exist but time is allocated to the project directly, it will be labeled as No phase in the reports.
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If the selected phase has tasks, you can choose to allocate time directly to the phase (no task allocation) or to a specific task within the phase.
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If the task list is locked, choosing one of the existing tasks is mandatory. 

If a project or phase includes tasks, you can allocate time to a specific task. Assigning allocations to tasks helps group allocations in reports and improve tracking of effort across the team.
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Leaving the task field blank assigns time at the project or phase level directly. Those allocations are displayed as No task allocation in the reports.
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If the task list is locked, choosing one of the existing tasks is mandatory. 

📝Note: Float stores the last used project, phase, and task per person. When creating a new allocation, the project, phase, and/or task fields may be completed automatically based on the last project, phase, and task names used. You can always modify it! When updating an existing allocation and changing the project, the task field is blanked, so you can add or select a new one as needed.

Allocation’s billability is determined by the billable/non-billable setting of the project, phase, or task it belongs to.

​📝Note: If the project budget is set to by phase, any time scheduled or logged at the project level (not assigned to a specific phase) counts as non-billable, even if the project itself is billable.
​Similarly, if the project budget is set to by task, any time not assigned to a specific task (scheduled/logged at the project or phase level), is treated as non-billable, even if the project or phase is billable.

By default, all the new allocations for confirmed projects are created as confirmed and displayed on the Schedule as colored tiles. The color of each tile depends on the project it belongs to. 

​You can change the status of a confirmed allocation at any time by marking it as Completed or Tentative in the allocation menu.
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Some teams decide to mark the allocation as Complete to indicate that the work has already been completed. When marked as complete, a checkmark is displayed, and the allocation color becomes translucent.

Tentative allocations represent work that is yet to be confirmed. On the Schedule, tentative allocations appear as outlined tiles to distinguish them from confirmed work.

Notes are a place for unstructured information, where you can add details specific to the allocation. The character limit for allocation notes is 1500.
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💡Here's a tip: To mention a person, type "@" followed by their name on any allocation note. Depending on their personal notification settings, they will receive a notification via email, Slack, or mobile push. 
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You can assign the same allocation to multiple people at once by adding their names to the Assigned to field, or to the whole team by choosing Select all. The only exception is when using a fixed end date or allocation in percentage - these can only be assigned to one individual.

If you regularly schedule the same work, such as weekly meetings or ongoing project tasks, you can set allocations to repeat. This helps save time and keeps schedules consistent.

Find out more about repeating allocations, time off, and statuses here.
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Float allows time to be scheduled on any day, including non-working days such as weekends and public holidays.

When you allocate time on a non-working day, Float determines capacity based on the person’s usual working hours for that day.

If a holiday falls on a day the person normally works, Float applies capacity equal to their usual working hours for that day. For example, if someone normally works 7.5 hours on Mondays and you allocate time on a Monday public holiday, Float will add 7.5 hours of capacity for that day.

If work is scheduled on a day where the person has 0 hours of capacity (for example, a Sunday for someone who doesn’t work weekends), Float maintains the 0 hours of capacity, and all scheduled time is counted as overtime.

If you schedule over a person's capacity for the day, the background behind the allocation will turn red to indicate overtime.
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​If you use date range insights, the hours figure next to the person's name will also change colors when the person has any overtime scheduled in the current date range.
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​Overtime hours can also be reviewed on the people report.