How to Use Monday.com for Resource Management: Complete Guide (2026)

Why Monday.com Works for Resource Management

Most resource management tools exist as standalone platforms that require double entry: you assign work in your PM tool, then update availability in your RM tool. Monday.com eliminates this gap by building resource management directly into the same boards where work is planned and tracked. When you assign a task with estimated hours and a timeline, the Workload view automatically calculates that person's allocation — no separate system to maintain.

For remote teams especially, Monday.com's visual approach to resource management is highly effective. The Workload view shows each person's capacity as a color-coded bar chart across a timeline, making it immediately obvious who is overloaded (red), who is near capacity (yellow), and who has bandwidth (green). Managers do not need to ask "Are you busy?" — the data speaks for itself. Add Monday AI's allocation suggestions and automated capacity alerts, and you have a resource management system that actively prevents problems rather than just documenting them.

Step-by-Step: Setting Up Resource Management in Monday.com

1. Set Up Effort Estimation on Your Boards

   Add a Numbers column labeled "Estimated Hours" to every board where work is tracked. Ensure each task has an assignee (People column) and a timeline (Timeline column with start and end dates). These three data points — who, how long, and when — are the minimum requirements for workload visualization. Without all three, the Workload view cannot calculate allocation accurately.

2. Enable the Workload View

   Open any board and add the Workload view from the views menu. Configure it to use "Estimated Hours" as the effort column. Set each team member's weekly capacity — typically 30 to 35 productive hours out of a 40-hour week, accounting for meetings and admin. The Workload view now shows a timeline with each person's allocation visualized as colored bars: green for under capacity, yellow for near capacity, red for overloaded.

3. Create a Cross-Board Resource Dashboard

   Build a dashboard that aggregates workload data from all project boards. Add the Workload widget to see team capacity across every active project in a single view. Add the Battery widget to track overall team utilization percentage. Add a Chart widget showing allocation by team or department. This cross-board view solves the most common resource management failure: people appearing available on one board while being overloaded by commitments on another.

4. Configure AI-Powered Capacity Alerts

   Set up Monday.com automations that monitor workload thresholds. Create rules like: when a team member's total estimated hours exceed 35 for the upcoming week, send a notification to their manager and flag the status column as "Over Capacity." When a project's total estimated hours exceed available team capacity, trigger an alert to the project lead. These automations catch overallocation the moment it happens, not after someone burns out.

5. Build a Resource Allocation Board

   Create a dedicated board specifically for resource planning that serves as your master resource register. Add groups for each team or department. Include columns for team member name, role, available hours per week, current allocation percentage (formula column), skills and certifications, and current project assignments. Project managers reference this board before assigning new work to verify that their target resource is actually available.

6. Use Monday AI for Smart Allocation Suggestions

   Leverage Monday AI assistant to analyze workload patterns and recommend optimal task assignments. When planning new work, ask the AI which team members have available capacity in the relevant timeframe and possess the required skills. The AI considers existing commitments across all boards, role tags, and historical task completion velocity. This eliminates the manual process of checking multiple boards before making every assignment.

7. Set Up Time Tracking for Actual vs. Estimated Analysis

   Enable the Time Tracking column on your boards so team members log actual hours. Create a dashboard widget that compares estimated versus actual hours by person and by project type. Over three to four months, this data reveals systematic estimation patterns — which task types are underestimated, which team members consistently deliver faster than estimated — and improves future capacity planning accuracy by 20 to 30 percent.

Tips and Best Practices

• Set realistic capacity at 75 to 80 percent of total hours. A 40-hour work week does not mean 40 hours of productive task time. Meetings, emails, context switching, and unplanned requests consume 20 to 25 percent. Set weekly capacity to 30 to 32 hours to prevent the Workload view from showing false availability that leads to overcommitment.
• Use the Workload view in your weekly planning meetings. Pull up the cross-board Workload widget at the start of every weekly planning session. Review who is at capacity, who has bandwidth, and where upcoming deadlines will create pressure. Making workload data visible in the meeting prevents the "I did not know they were busy" problem that derails resource allocation in every organization.
• Tag team members with skills for smarter AI allocation. Add a Tags or Dropdown column for skills (e.g., frontend, backend, design, copywriting) to your Resource Allocation board. When Monday AI suggests assignments, it factors in these skill tags alongside availability. A person with 20 free hours but no design skills should not be assigned design work, even if the numbers say they have capacity.
• Create separate Workload views for different planning horizons. Build a "This Week" view zoomed to daily granularity for tactical decisions and a "This Quarter" view zoomed to weekly granularity for strategic planning. The same data serves both short-term execution and long-term capacity conversations without requiring separate boards.
• Review estimation accuracy monthly. Use your actual-vs-estimated dashboard data to calibrate team estimation skills. If your team consistently underestimates by 30 percent, apply a 1.3x multiplier to future estimates until accuracy improves. Data-driven estimation beats gut-feel estimation every time.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Skipping effort estimation because it feels tedious. The Workload view is only as good as the data behind it. If half your tasks lack estimated hours, the view shows misleadingly low allocation. Make effort estimation a required field on your boards using column permissions. A rough estimate (even rounding to the nearest 2 hours) is vastly better than no estimate.
• Not accounting for non-project time. Team members attend meetings, handle support requests, mentor juniors, and do admin work that does not appear on project boards. If your Workload view shows someone at 70 percent capacity but their actual availability is 50 percent, you will consistently overallocate. Either track non-project time on a separate board or reduce nominal capacity to account for it.
• Using resource management data punitively. If team members feel that capacity data will be used to prove they are not working hard enough, they will game the system — inflating estimates, padding timelines, hiding availability. Position the Workload view as a protection tool that prevents burnout and ensures fair distribution, not a surveillance mechanism.
• Ignoring the mismatch between board-level and portfolio-level allocation. A person assigned 20 hours on Board A and 15 hours on Board B and 10 hours on Board C is at 45 hours — well over capacity. Single-board Workload views miss this. Always use the cross-board dashboard for allocation decisions, not individual board views.

Alternative Tools for Resource Management

Monday.com delivers strong visual resource management for mid-size teams, but other tools may fit better depending on your context. For resource allocation in enterprise environments with complex project portfolios, Wrike (91/100) offers deeper resource management with built-in utilization tracking, workload charts, and effort-based scheduling that integrates with Gantt charts and dependency management.

Smartsheet (88/100) provides Resource Management (formerly 10,000ft) as a dedicated module with advanced capacity planning, skills-based allocation, and forecasting — ideal for professional services firms that bill based on resource utilization. For agile teams that need resource awareness within sprint planning, ClickUp (93/100) offers workload views with story point-based capacity tracking. See our best AI project management tools guide for the full comparison.

Frequently Asked Questions