Capacity planning where the leave system actually links to the sprint board
Most teams keep capacity in a spreadsheet and leave in a separate HR tool. Sprint planning happens with the manager guessing who's around. Infersync ties leave management to the capacity surface so when you drag a task onto someone, the board knows they're out next Wednesday and shifts the schedule automatically.
Why teams end up here
- Leave lives in a separate HR tool (BambooHR, Personio) that the engineering manager doesn't open during sprint planning.
- Capacity planning happens in a spreadsheet that's two weeks stale by the time the sprint starts.
- Someone's leave gets approved on Wednesday; nobody updates the sprint plan; the team finds out on Monday standup.
- Sprint commitments are made on optimistic capacity, then missed when leave + sick days + cross-team support work eat the buffer.
- When a manager wants to see 'who's actually free next week', the answer requires opening four tools and doing mental arithmetic.
Leave and capacity, one surface, no manual reconciliation
Leave requests in Infersync write back to the capacity board automatically. Approved leave shades the affected member's column on the sprint board. Drag a work item onto that person, and the schedule auto-shifts to skip over their leave days. Manager sees 'available 22h next week, leave Wednesday-Friday' as a single number, not a spreadsheet calculation.
Sprint board with per-person capacity columns
Each member's column shows today's hours, this-week hours, and remaining availability for the next 7-14 days. Leave days appear as shaded blocks.
Leave management linked to capacity
Leave requests submitted in-app, approved by manager or admin, then auto-shade the capacity board. No manual sync, no separate HR tool to remember to open.
Drag-and-drop assignment with leave-awareness
Drop a 5-day task on someone with 3 days of leave in that window; the schedule shifts the task end-date or surfaces a 'this won't fit' warning before the assignment lands.
Capacity forecasting per sprint
Total team capacity for the next sprint, projected against committed work, with a visual indicator if the team is over- or under-committed.
Daily clock-in reminders
Auto-pinged at scheduled start time so capacity data stays honest (under-clocked hours throw off the planning surface).
Organisational chart view
Toggle to org chart view to see capacity by team or sub-team for cross-team sprint planning.
Steps to get from zero to live
- 1
Connect GitHub + invite team
OAuth, invite members, set per-person working hours and weekly capacity in workspace settings.
- 2
Members submit leave in-app
Leave request from any page, approved by manager / admin. Approved leave shades the capacity board automatically.
- 3
Plan the sprint on the board
Drag work items onto people; the board respects their leave + remaining capacity. Over-commit warnings fire before the sprint starts, not at the retro.
- 4
Watch real-time hour tracking
Daily clock in/out, work-item timers, and break tracking keep the capacity numbers honest as the sprint runs. Forecasted close date updates live.
Available on the Operations plan and up
Time tracking and leave management ship on Base (£7/seat/month). Sprint-board capacity planning, forecasting, and the AI assignment ranker that consumes capacity data all live on Operations (£15/seat/month). The 14-day free trial gives every workspace Operations-tier features so you can see the leave-into-capacity loop on real data.
FAQs about capacity planning where the leave system actually links to the sprint board
How does the leave-to-capacity linkage actually work?
When a leave request is approved (by manager or admin), it's persisted as a date range on the member's record. The capacity board reads that range during sprint planning and represents it as shaded columns on the member's lane. The AI assignment ranker reads the same data to exclude leave days from availability scoring. There's no separate sync step — leave is part of the member's capacity record by definition.
Can leave requests need approval, or is it self-serve?
Per workspace setting. Default is 'requires approval from manager or admin'. Self-serve mode (auto-approve for members) is available for teams that prefer trust over process. Approval audit log captures who-approved-what-when for compliance.
What about sick days and unplanned absence?
Sick days go through the same leave system but flagged as 'sick' rather than 'planned'. The capacity surface treats them identically once approved (or marked taken). Unplanned absence on a specific day can be back-dated by manager or admin to keep the capacity data accurate after the fact.
Does this replace BambooHR / Personio for leave?
For engineering team leave specifically, yes — the in-app flow plus capacity link is faster than a separate HR system. For company-wide HR (payroll, benefits, broader employee records), no — keep your HR tool for that and use Infersync for the engineering-team capacity loop. Two-way sync to BambooHR / Personio is on the roadmap as 'marketing positioning only' today.
What if my team uses GitHub Projects for sprint planning?
Infersync's sprint board complements GitHub Projects. Work items sync into GitHub Projects via the existing integration, so the project view on github.com reflects what's planned in Infersync. The capacity overlay (leave-aware availability per person) is the bit GitHub Projects doesn't ship.
How does the AI know about capacity?
The AI COO assignment ranker uses (skill_fit × availability × cost_inverse). 'Availability' is the member's remaining capacity in the next 7 days, computed from working hours minus leave days minus already-committed work. When you ask the AI to 'assign this to the cheapest skilled person available', it reads the capacity board state directly. Leave changes propagate to the ranker on the next assignment without manual refresh.
See also: Engineering cost tracking • AI task assignment • GitHub time tracking • Capacity planning.