Individual capacity planning is here

Most managers have some version of this problem. You've got a team of 8 to 12 people, three or four big efforts running at once, some people on leave, and a chunk of time going to on-call or operational work. So you build a side tracker – a spreadsheet, a separate tool, something outside of Jira that works until you forget to sync it. As it’s disconnected from Jira, your work items are text that you must reconcile, you don’t see if someone’s time is committed to another team, and spotting over allocation means maintaining visibility into cross-team plans consistently.

Capacity planning is a new capability in Jira that brings this entire workflow inside the tool where the work already lives. Your team, your work items, your allocations – all in one place, always current, and connected to real Jira data.

How it works

1. Plan from the people side or the work side

Capacity gives you two ways into the same plan. The People view starts with your team: each row is a person, and you can see and adjust their allocations across work items week by week. The Work view starts with the work: each row is an epic, Atlassian Project, or work item, and you can see who's assigned and whether it's adequately resourced.

Use whichever one matches the question you're trying to answer. "Is Sarah overcommitted next month?" starts with People. "Do we have enough people on Project X?" starts with Work.

2. See the full picture, including the work that doesn’t ship

One of the biggest problems with spreadsheet-based planning is that non-project work disappears. Leave, on-call rotations, training, maintenance, and "running the business" work all take real capacity, but they rarely make it into the plan. Capacity lets you account for all of it. When you mark two weeks of leave for someone, their available capacity adjusts automatically.

3. Spot overallocation before it becomes a problem

As you assign work and set allocations, a capacity bar updates in real time for each person. When someone’s total exceeds 100% for a given week, the bar turns red so you can adjust the plan and redistribute work before it turns into a missed deadline or a burnout conversation.

4. Edit like a spreadsheet, connected to Jira

The Capacity view works the way you'd expect if you've spent any time in Excel or Google Sheets. Select multiple cells, copy and paste, drag to autofill values across weeks. Bulk-remove rows, reorder them, resize columns for longer names. You can allocate in percentages, hours, or days, depending on how your team thinks about time.

The difference is that you’re working with real Jira work items and team members, no second tool to maintain. The plan spans site level, so allocations are visible across spaces, and overallocation signals update as you plan.

5. Get started with spreadsheet import

If you already have a capacity plan in a spreadsheet, you don't have to start from scratch. Import your CSV directly into Jira, and it will parse and map your data to Jira work items and team members. You can review, accept, or dismiss each suggestion (either in bulk or individually) and adjust the plan further once it’s loaded. Most teams can go from spreadsheet to working capacity view in a few minutes.

How to get started

1. Navigate to any business project in Jira

2. Look for the Capacity tab in the navigation (if it’s not visible, click the + to add it)

3. Add your team members, assign work, and start setting allocations

Capacity is available to all Premium and Enterprise customers.

For admins: Capacity tab will appear in the space navigation, no configuration required, to all Jira Premium and Enterprise customers. The new tab will be accessible to anyone with the appropriate space permissions.

Get started with individual capacity planning

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