Time Allocation Dashboard
Quick Summary
I led the end-to-end design of a role-based internal dashboard to help a growing consultancy better allocate time toward billable client work.
The Dashboard replaced time-consuming spreadsheets, helped Skylight increase billable hours, and improved visibility into individual and team utilization.
Utilization Dashboard
Delivered real-time insights via a dashboard built on IBM’s Carbon Design System
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100% product adoption among both executives and employees
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12% increase in average billable hours across individual contributors
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75% decrease in executive time spent managing performance data
- $240K in additional annual revenue through increased billable hours
The Dashboard allows administrators to quickly adjust utilization targets and PTO settings for the entire company, or tailor them to individual contributors.
Individual contributors get real-time insight into how their time is allocated across projects and activities. They can easily see which hours count toward utilization, how much time off they’ve taken, and whether they’re maintaining a healthy utilization rate.
Team & Timeline
Throughout my process, I collaborated with a product manager, a software engineer, and company leadership.
Problem
As Skylight entered its fifth year, leadership relied on spreadsheets and manual calculations to track utilization — the ratio of time spent on billable work versus internal efforts. This approach was error-prone, inconsistent across roles, and time-intensive for executives and individual contributors.
Left unaddressed, the inefficiencies would continue to cost the business hundreds of hours each year in both unbilled work and administrative overhead.
Goals
- Eliminate manual spreadsheet-based tracking
- Improve time allocation accuracy with real-time QuickBooks data
- Provide actionable, role-based insights for both leadership and individual contributors
Design Process
Research
I kicked off research by leading interviews across company roles. Rather than just collecting feature requests, I dug into pain points to inform prioritization down the line.
Throughout research, I came to understand that admins tracked utilization by manually updating spreadsheets with data pulled from QuickBooks. The process was tedious and difficult to manage, especially when balancing global and individual utilization targets. Individual contributors were often unclear on how utilization was defined and how time off factored into it.
To adress confusion about utilization, I worked with leadership to write documentation that defines how utilization was calculated and how billable hours, time off, and internal work were categorized.
Next, I partnered with our engineer to map out the variables used in the spreadsheets. This technical reference clarified how inputs like PTO, job codes, and individual targets were driving calculations. It directly informed both the product’s data logic and interface design.
Dashboard viariables + company policy
Designing Role-Based Dashboards
With a clear understanding of the underlying variables and how they influenced both data and user behavior, I partnered with our product manager to define user stories to guide feature prioritization and early wireframes.
I needed to design two distinct dashboards to meet the specific needs of admins and individual contributors.
IC’s needed real-time insight into how their daily work affected performance metrics, while admins needed high-level oversight and control and ability to adjust targets with ease.
Testing Wireframes
The early wireframes focused on establishing the right information architecture for each role.
At its core, the admin dashboard lets leadership view company-wide utilization at a glance, and adjust targets for individuals.
Executive Dashboard iterations
For ICs, I visually prioritized the metrics they valued most: PTO, utilization, and tracked hours.
IC Dashboard iterations
Individual Contributor: “I need to quickly understand my status and know if I am on track, not just interpret raw numbers.”
To address this, I introduced a utilization health indivator. This component contextualizes their current utilization current rate using color and iconography to help them understand their status at a glace.
Once the designs were tested and refined, I worked closely with our engineer to bring the dashboard to life. We chose IBM’s Carbon Design System to ensure consistency, accessibility, and scalability as the tool evolved.
User Feedback
After the Dashboard MVP launch, I created dedicated Slack channels to gather real-time feedback from both admins and ICs. This input helped validate our early decisions and shape the next phase of the roadmap with high-impact improvements.
User Feedback
Impact and Reflection
The Utilization Dashboard was released iteratively and adopted company-wide, supporting Skylight’s growth as it nearly doubled in size over three years.
- 75% reduction in time spent by leadership updating performance data (from over an hour per pay period to under 15 minutes).
- 12% increase in average billable hours across individual contributors, contributing to an estimated $240K+ in additional annual revenue.
- Individual contributors reported feeling more in control of their time and less anxious about performance expectations.
One of the biggest challenges was designing alongside a shifting company policy. As the definition of utilization evolved, I worked closely with C-suite leadership to ensure the interface accurately reflected updated expectations.