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Placements and allocation

Placements and allocation

Placements are how Orgonaut answers a critical question: where does each actor sit in the organisation, and how much of their capacity is allocated there?

What a placement represents

A placement links an actor to an org unit and stores:

  • whether it is the actor's primary placement
  • allocation percentage
  • effective dates

This makes organisational membership explicit, not implied.

Primary vs secondary placement

  • Primary placement: the actor's home in the structure
  • Secondary placement: additional contribution to other units

Use primary placement to answer home-department questions. Use secondary placements to model cross-functional work.

Allocation and Effective FTE

Allocation and FTE represent different concepts in the model:

  • Actor FTE represents the total available capacity of the contributor (e.g., 1.0 for full-time).
  • Allocation % represents the portion of that capacity assigned to a specific org unit.
  • Effective FTE is a derived value calculated as: Actor FTE * (Allocation % / 100).

In some cases, total allocation across all placements can exceed 100%. Orgonaut keeps this visible so you can identify over-allocation instead of hiding it.

Why placements are the source of truth

Placements let you model structure and contribution consistently across:

  • people, robots, and agents
  • departments and teams
  • Live and scenario contexts

That consistency is what makes rollups and deltas reliable.

Workflow: update a placement

  1. Open the actor, team, or department context where the placement is managed.
  2. Set primary flag when defining home placement.
  3. Set allocation percentage based on the actual operating model.
  4. Add effective dates for future or historical transitions.
  5. Save and review updated rollups.

Quality checks to run

  • Does each actor have one clear primary placement?
  • Are allocation totals realistic for the role?
  • Are outdated placements end-dated?
  • Do rollups align with stakeholder expectations?

Common mistakes

  • Using team metadata or budget ownership to infer home structure.
  • Leaving stale placements active after reorganisations.
  • Modeling temporary changes as permanent primary moves.