# Staffing projects
Staffing a project means putting the right, available people on it — matching the skills the work needs with who has the capacity to do it. You do this in the **project staffing** modal, which has two views: an **overview** of who is assigned and when, and a **staffing view** for finding and assigning the right people.

:::lock{title="Required rights"}
Project management — on the specific project you're staffing.
:::

## Open the staffing modal

The staffing modal can be opened from any project's context menu. On the [Clients & projects board](/guides/clients-and-projects-board) (or wherever a project's **⋯** menu appears), open the menu and choose **Plan**. This opens **Project staffing** for that project.

![](/images/guides/staffing-projects/image-mqqlx6y0.png)

## Read the planning overview

The overview lists the people planned on the project. Each row shows that person's planning across the timeline alongside their availability:

* **Grey pills** are the assignments on the project currently open in the modal.
* **Coloured smaller pills** are that person's assignments on *other* projects.
* The **background blocks** show capacity per planning unit (a day or a week): the **taller** the block, the **less** capacity the person has left in that unit. When a unit is overbooked the block turns **orange** (warning) or **red** (critical). These thresholds are set in the project settings.

Hover a row to see the exact capacity for each planning unit. **Expand** a row to see the other projects the person is planned on.

The **number** on each row is the hours planned for that person on this project within the scope; the **total** shown by the Find control (e.g. *168*) is the total planned hours in scope.

![](/images/guides/staffing-projects/image-mqqm0d24.png)

The **property panel** on the right shows the planning-related properties of the project — or of the project currently selected in the table:

* **General** — Client, Super project, Budget type, State, Health, Duration, Lead.
* **Planning** — Planning budget, Future planned, Planned (in scope), Tracked, Unplanned.
* **Future planned** — the planned hours per person.
* **Milestones**.

## Set the scope and viewport

The **scope** is the planning window you're working in. The range picker attached to the scope/timeline handle sets the **scope** date range, while the secondary range pill sets the **visible viewport** within it. When set to **Automatic**, the two match. Use the **Custom** scope and the arrows to move the window.

## Find and assign staff

Switch to the staffing view with **Find staff**. This opens the list of available people, with a **donut** showing each person's availability (as a percentage) within the planning scope. Two column headers describe what you're sorting and reading by: **gem \= skill matching** and **clock \= capacity**. **Sorting** orders the list.

### Filter the list

Click **Search** to filter for **staff, teams, skills and labels**. Selecting a skill (for example *Kubernetes* or *Docker*) narrows the list to people who have it and activates the **bar-chart icon** next to each person — it shows how well that person's skills match the active skill search, and is only enabled while a skill search is running.

![](/images/guides/staffing-projects/image-mqqm65d3.png)

### Create and save assignments

Plan a person on the timeline to create an assignment. New assignments are **not applied** to the planning until you click **Save assignments**; **Cancel** discards them. As you change the search or filter terms, people who already have **unsaved assignments persist** in the list (grouped as *Assigned users*) until you save or cancel.

:::tip
Skill-based staffing relies on skills being assigned to your staff — see [Assign skills to staff](/guides/assign-skills-to-staff).
:::

## Related

* [Project planner](/guides/project-planner) — the project-side planning workflow.
* [Utilization planner](/guides/utilization-planner) — plan from the people side.
* [Skills overview](/guides/skills-overview) — what skills are and how they're set up.
* [Assign skills to staff](/guides/assign-skills-to-staff) — get skills onto your team so they're searchable.