Absence Management

Why integrate Outlook with MS Project for absence management?

In order for a project to be completed as planned a project manager requires an accurate forecast of the absence time like vacation, sick leave and parental leave for the duration of the project.

HR systems only capture a portion of the actual absence time, usually only planned vacation. Therefore, even when integrated with MS Project they fail to provide accurate information a project manager requires for the successful completion of a project.

Excel based solutions or a wall planner are not integrated with MS Project. This results in a double entry and possible data entry errors.

The Outlook calendar is where most team members will choose to record their absence times.

2. Mark appointment as absence

That team member then marks the appointment as absence in the side pane of the Outlook appointment.

3. AUTOMATIC CATEGORISATION

A linked appointment is assigned to the category Allocatus and displayed in grey in the calendar.

4. Scheduling conflict in MS Project

When the project manager plans a task in MS Project during an employee's absence, he immediately sees the conflict by the red person in the indicator column.

5. Solve resource bottlenecks

The project manager can use the levelling feature of MS Project to automatically interrupt the task during the time of absence or resolve the conflict in another way.

Advantages

Team members can enter absences into their usual calendar without the need for duplicate entry. This eliminates duplicate data entry and potential errors associated with multiple entries.
Project managers maintain a reliable schedule without resource conflicts.
Allocatus automatically updates Microsoft Project absences, and the project manager is informed of all absences from the project and can plan accordingly.
Allocatus supports both project and resource managers in their daily tasks by capturing absences in one place and making them visible across all projects.

Get started with Allocatus now

If you want to get started, schedule a meeting with an expert from our team. We’ll check whether the solution is right for you and give you tips on how you can benefit from it as quickly as possible.