The main alternatives for scheduling people across projects are lightweight team schedulers, planning tools that add timesheets or forecasting, and heavier platforms for larger or portfolio-level teams. Choose by team size first, then check whether the tool compares planned hours with the hours people log, because a schedule that never meets reality goes stale fast.
Who's free next week, and who's already booked twice over? If your scheduler can't answer that at a glance, it's time to look around. These nine tools are what agencies and project teams compare when they're moving on from Resource Guru, whether they've outgrown it or want something simpler.
They're in no particular order. Some are pure schedulers, some fold in timesheets, leave or forecasting, and a couple are built for much larger organisations than a typical agency. The grouping further down shows which is which.
Planned hours versus logged hours
Scheduling who works on what is only half the job. The other half is knowing what happened: did the designer booked for three days on the rebrand spend three days on it, or one? Without that comparison, every plan is a guess, and every new schedule repeats the old mistakes.
Tools differ here more than their homepages suggest. Teamdeck's page puts resource scheduling, timesheets and leave in one calendar, so the plan and what people logged sit side by side. Others here focus on the plan alone, and you'd need a separate time tracker to close the loop.
So ask every vendor three things. How are planned hours compared with logged hours, and where does that report live? How do leave and holidays show up on the schedule? And how are part-time hours handled, so a colleague who works three days a week isn't shown as free on the days they're off?
Nine schedulers compared
| Tool | Kind of tool | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Avaza | All-in-one work management with scheduling | A wider work suite with scheduling built in |
| eResource Scheduler | Scheduling for project-driven teams | Real-time availability with a mobile schedule |
| Float | Resource planning for delivery teams | Seeing who's on what across delivery teams |
| Ganttic | Visual planner for people and equipment | People and equipment, with no overbooking |
| Harvest Forecast | Simple team scheduling from Harvest | Simple project staffing alongside Harvest |
| Meisterplan | Portfolio-level capacity planning | Portfolio-level capacity planning |
| Retain | Resource planning for larger organisations | Larger organisations with big delivery teams |
| Runn | Capacity planning and forecasting | Capacity versus demand and forecasting |
| Teamdeck | Scheduling with timesheets and leave | Schedule, timesheets and leave in one calendar |
The right tool for each kind of team
Alphabetical, so the order says nothing about which is better.
Avaza
Best for: Professional service teams that want resource scheduling bundled with projects, chat, time tracking, expenses and invoicing on one platform (vendor claim).
eResource Scheduler
Best for: Project-driven teams in any industry that need real-time availability across teams and projects, with a mobile view of the schedule (vendor claim).
Float
Best for: Delivery teams and professional services firms that want to see who's working on what, whether work is on track and what they can take on next.
Ganttic
Best for: Planners scheduling equipment as well as people, with views from lightweight to in-depth and a focus on avoiding overbooking (vendor wording).
Harvest Forecast
Best for: Teams already in the Harvest suite who want a clear plan of who's staffed on upcoming projects and how heavy each person's workload looks.
Meisterplan
Best for: Organisations planning many projects against capacity at portfolio level, aligning teams and optimising capacity across the whole portfolio (vendor wording).
Retain
Best for: Medium to large organisations running project delivery that need resource management and scheduling built for their size (vendor wording).
Runn
Best for: Capacity planners who need to balance capacity against demand in real time and forecast workloads before making staffing decisions (vendor wording).
Teamdeck
Best for: Agencies and IT teams wanting scheduling, capacity planning, timesheets and leave together in a single calendar (vendor claim).
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Small agency, growing studio or large organisation?
Lightweight schedulers. Harvest Forecast is tied to the wider Harvest suite, so it makes most sense if you already track time there. Ganttic is the one to look at if you book equipment as well as people, and eResource Scheduler adds a mobile view of the schedule for teams who aren't at a desk all day.
Planning with timesheets or forecasting. Float and Runn both look ahead: who's free, what's coming and whether you can take it on. Avaza goes wider than either, bundling scheduling with projects, time, expenses and invoicing, so it's tied to its own suite in the same way. Pick this group if your big question is whether to say yes to the next project.
Heavier tools for larger teams. Retain is aimed at medium to large project delivery teams, while Meisterplan works at portfolio level, planning many projects against capacity at once. Both suit larger organisations; for a ten-person agency, either is more tool than you need.
My advice before you move your schedule
Be honest about the size of the problem. If you're a small agency and the pain is double-booking, a lightweight scheduler fixes it in an afternoon. If the pain is not knowing whether you can take on the next client, you want forecasting. If you're juggling dozens of projects and several departments, that's when the portfolio and enterprise tools earn their place.
Whatever you choose, decide where logged hours will come from before you move, because that's the piece most switches leave out. My list of time tracking software helps if your logged hours need a home, and my piece on smart resource management for small teams covers the planning habits behind any tool.
Run a fortnight's pilot first
- Pick two tools from the same group, not one from each.
- Load one real project with its real team, including part-timers and anyone on leave.
- Ask each person to log their hours for the two weeks.
- At the end, compare what was planned with what was logged in each tool.
- Keep the tool where that comparison took the least effort to see.
Two weeks is short enough that nobody gets attached and long enough to hit a real clash, a sick day or a rush job. That's when you find out how each tool copes.
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Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between resource scheduling and project management software?
Project management software tracks tasks and deadlines. Resource scheduling tracks people: who's booked on what, for how long, and who has room for more work.
Do I need timesheets in my scheduling tool?
Not always, but you need logged hours from somewhere. If the scheduler doesn't track them, connect it to a time tracker so you can compare the plan with what happened.
How do resource schedulers handle part-time staff?
Most let you set working hours or days for each person. Check how that shows on the schedule, so part-time colleagues aren't shown as free on days they don't work.
Can I schedule equipment as well as people?
Some tools here handle equipment and rooms alongside people. If you book kit, test that in the pilot, because not every scheduler treats it as a resource.
When should a team move to portfolio-level planning?
When you're planning many projects across departments and the question is which projects to run at all, not who's working on Tuesday. Smaller teams rarely need it.
How long does it take to move to a new scheduler?
For a small team, setting up people and current projects takes days, not weeks. The longer job is getting everyone into the habit of updating it.
