Extend a Resource Assignment
A guide to extending a resource assignment's end date and effort in Resource Management — the different ways to do it, what to expect from each, and how to resolve common messages.
Contents:
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What Extend means?
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Before you begin
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About this task
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Procedure – Extend from the Resource Management Workspace board
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Worked examples
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Behavior referenced
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Frequently encountered messages
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Limitations and known constraints
What “Extend” means
Extend lengthens the end date of a resource assignment – the record that says “this person (or group) is booked on this task or work from date A to date B” – and lets you add more effort (hours, FTE, or person-days) to cover the new time. It does not create a new assignment. It regenerates the new resource allocation dailies to match the new end date changes.
Before you begin
Role required: resource_manager to use the Extend button.
The assignment must be a top-level assignment -- one with no parent. Extend option is not available for internally created resource assignments (which gets created for each resource when the resource type is chosen as group).
For task based (non-operational) assignments, the parent task must already have valid start and end dates. If the task’s dates are empty, the Extend modal will not open and shows an error instead.
The new end date you enter must be after the assignment’s current end date, and – for task based assignments – on or before the parent task’s end date. Operational (non-project) assignments skip the task-date entirely, since they have no parent task.
About this task
Extend is reachable from more than one place, and the different entry points don't all behave the same way. The table below is the map; each row is expanded into a full procedure later in this article.
|
# |
Entry point |
Where |
What it changes |
Confirmation step? |
|
1 |
Extend (row menu) |
Resource Management Workspace board, both the top grid (assigned work) and bottom grid (unassigned/group work) |
End date + additional effort |
Yes — opens a modal, nothing is saved until you select Extend |
|
2 |
Inline-edit the End date cell |
Resource Management Workspace board grid (a directly editable date cell on the assignment row) |
End date only — but the existing total effort is redistributed across the new (wider) date range, not added to |
No — the edit commits as soon as you leave the cell |
|
5 |
Extend (form button) |
The Resource Assignment's own record form |
Same end date + effort modal as entry point 1 — just reachable from the record form instead of the board |
Yes |
Procedure — Extend from the Resource Management Workspace board
This is the entry point most Resource Managers will use day to day.
- Navigate to Resource Management > Resource Management Workspace.
- Find the assignment row. If it's nested under a person's summary row, select the chevron (›) to the left of the person's name to expand it and reveal the individual task/assignment row underneath.
- Select the ⋮ (more actions) icon at the left of the assignment row.
- Choose Extend — the sublabel reads "Add duration and effort."
- In the Extend Assignment modal:
New end date is pre-filled with the assignment's current end date. Change it to the date you want.
Effort (labeled "Hours," "FTE," "Person days," or for operational (non-project) assignments — "% Capacity," depending on how this assignment tracks effort) is pre-filled with 0 — this is deliberate: it is the additional effort you're adding on top of what already exists, not a redisplay of the current total. Enter the extra amount, or leave it at 0 if you only want to push the date out without adding effort. For % Capacity specifically, the number you enter is a percentage of the resource's available capacity for the new date range, not a fixed hours value.
- Select Extend to submit, or Cancel to close without changes.
- If the date you entered is invalid (before/equal to the current end date, or past the task's end date), an inline error appears in the still-open modal and nothing is saved — see "Frequently encountered messages" for the exact wording.
- On success, the board refreshes the row automatically. Allow roughly 30–60 seconds before checking downstream data — the day-by-day breakdown, weekly/monthly summaries, and cost are regenerated in the background.
Worked examples
Every example below shows Resource Allocation Daily — the day-by-day record generated for the assignment — before and after the action, with exact hours, so you can see precisely what changes.
For all the cases below FTE/Hours/Person days let’s consider below scenario as starting point and we will see the impact of Extend afterwards:
Initially: The task tied to Resource Assignment had planned start and end dates as 2026-08-05 08:00:00 and 2026-08-25 17:00:00, Resource Assignment had start date and end date given as 2026-08-05 08:00:00 and 2026-08-18 17:00:00. Also, the FTE value was 1, With this we get below Resource Allocation Daily
|
Date |
Day |
Resource Allocation Daily — Hours |
|
2026-08-05 |
Wed |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-06 |
Thu |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-07 |
Fri |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-08 – 08-09 |
Sat–Sun |
(no record — not a working day) |
|
2026-08-10 |
Mon |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-11 |
Tue |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-12 |
Wed |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-13 |
Thu |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-14 |
Fri |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-15 – 08-16 |
Sat–Sun |
(no record — not a working day) |
|
2026-08-17 |
Mon |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-18 |
Tue |
8.0 |
|
Total |
80.0 hours (10 × 8.0) |
|
Extend via the modal — FTE effort type
New Setup: Assignment on a standard 8-hour/day, Monday–Friday schedule. You extend the end date to match the task end date 2026-08-25 17:00:00 and enter an additional effort of 0.5 FTE.
Formula: hours per working day = FTE entered × hours in a full schedule day = 0.5 × 8 = 4.0 hours/day, for every working day added.
|
Date |
Day |
Resource Allocation Daily — Hours |
|
2026-08-19 |
Wed |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-20 |
Thu |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-21 |
Fri |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-22 – 08-23 |
Sat–Sun |
(no record — not a working day) |
|
2026-08-24 |
Thu |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-25 |
Fri |
4.0 |
|
New Total |
20.0 hours (5 × 4.0) |
|
On the Resource Allocation, FTE would be 0.83 and Confirmed/Allocated hours would be 100.
FTE recalculation = (Allocated Hours/(Average daily FTE * Working days))
= (100/(8 * 15))
= 0.8333
Extend via the modal — Hours effort type
New Setup: Same initial state Resource Assignment, but effort type is Hours and you enter an additional effort of 20 for new end date as 2026-08-25 17:00:00
Formula: for the Hours effort type, the value you enter is the cumulative hours for extended amount of days. So, Hours per working day = 4 (total hours entered/working days).
|
Date |
Day |
Resource Allocation Daily — Hours |
|
2026-08-19 |
Wed |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-20 |
Thu |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-21 |
Fri |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-22 – 08-23 |
Sat–Sun |
(no record — not a working day) |
|
2026-08-24 |
Thu |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-25 |
Fri |
4.0 |
|
New Total |
20.0 hours (5 × 4.0) |
|
Extend via the modal — Person Days effort type
New Setup: Same initial state Resource Assignment, but effort type is Person Days and you enter an additional effort of 2.5 for new end date as 2026-08-25 17:00:00
Formula: for the Person Days effort type, the value you enter is the cumulative Person Days effort for extended amount of days. So, Person Day effort per working day = 0.5 (total Person Days entered/working days).
|
Date |
Day |
Resource Allocation Daily — Hours |
|
2026-08-19 |
Wed |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-20 |
Thu |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-21 |
Fri |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-22 – 08-23 |
Sat–Sun |
(no record — not a working day) |
|
2026-08-24 |
Thu |
4.0 |
|
2026-08-25 |
Fri |
4.0 |
|
New Total |
20.0 hours (5 × 4.0) |
|
We know that 1 FTE = 8 Hours/day = 1 Person Days
So, 0.5 Person day = 4 Hours/day
Extend via the modal — beyond the task's end date (rejected)
Initially: The task tied to Resource Assignment had planned start and end dates as 2026-08-05 08:00:00 and 2026-08-25 17:00:00, Resource Assignment had start date and end date given as 2026-08-05 08:00:00 and 2026-08-18 17:00:00
New Setup: Try to extend Resource Assignment beyond the end date of corresponding task which is 2026-08-25 17:00:00, say in the modal we select 2026-08-26 17:00:00
Result: Rejected. Example message: "The new end date 2026-08-26 17:00:00, cannot be after the task end date 2026-08-25 17:00:00."
|
|
Before the attempt |
After the attempt (rejected) |
|
Assignment end date |
2026-08-18 |
2026-08-18 — unchanged |
|
Resource Allocation Daily rows after 2026-08-18 |
None |
None — still zero new rows |
|
Effort field |
Unchanged |
Unchanged |
Nothing downstream is touched at all — no Resource Allocation Daily rows are created, no aggregates change, no cost changes. The modal simply stays open with the error until you enter a valid date.
Inline-editing the End date cell — effort is redistributed, not added
This is the clearest way to see how differently the inline-edit entry point behaves compared to the modal.
Before: The task tied to Resource Assignment had planned start and end dates as 2026-08-05 08:00:00 and 2026-08-25 17:00:00, Resource Assignment had start date and end date given as 2026-08-05 08:00:00 and 2026-08-18 17:00:00 and 1FTE (10 working days on an 8-hour schedule)
|
Date |
Day |
Hours |
|
2026-08-05 |
Wed |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-06 |
Thu |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-07 |
Fri |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-08 – 08-09 |
Sat–Sun |
(no record — not a working day) |
|
2026-08-10 |
Mon |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-11 |
Tue |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-12 |
Wed |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-13 |
Thu |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-14 |
Fri |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-15 – 08-16 |
Sat–Sun |
(no record — not a working day) |
|
2026-08-17 |
Mon |
8.0 |
|
2026-08-18 |
Tue |
8.0 |
|
Total |
80.0 hours (10 × 8.0) |
|
After: you inline-edit the End date cell directly in the grid, extending the assignment to 2026-08-25 17:00:00. The same 80 total hours still available but you will notice that FTE value on Resource Allocation changed to 0.67 and there is no new Resource Allocation created for those period. This is explained below:
FTE recalculation = (Allocated Hours/(Average daily FTE * Working days))
= ((80)/(8 * 15))
= 0.67
Notice that Total Allocated Hours hasn’t changed but the Working days has changed from 10 to 15 after inline cell edit of end date on Resource Assignment from grid.
The assignment's total Effort field still reads 80 hours both before and after.
Practical takeaway: if you want to add more work when you extend, use the Extend modal. If you inline-edit the end date directly in the grid, the total stays the same only the FTE value changes.
Why no new dailies appear: the "Redistribute on Extend or Reduce" property
- This behavior — keeping the total effort fixed and recalculating only the FTE, without creating new daily records for the extended window — is controlled by the "Redistribute on Extend or Reduce" property (com.snc.resource_management.redistribute_effort_on_extend_reduce, default: false).
- Disabled (OOTB / false) — this is what the example above shows: the originally allocated hours stay where they were allocated; only the summary FTE is recalculated against the new, wider date range. No daily records are created for the days added by the extension.
- Enabled (true) — the existing effort is redistributed across the entire new date range instead, and Resource Allocation Daily records are recreated to cover it. For the same example (80 hours, extended from 10 to 15 working days), the overall FTE still comes out to 0.67 — but it now appears as 15 individual daily records instead of the original 10, each carrying its share of the redistributed hours, rather than as one unchanged summary total.
Practical takeaway: the property doesn't change how much work the assignment is credited with overall — only whether that work is visibly spread across the new days or left where it was. Check with your system administrator which setting is active on your instance before relying on day-level numbers after an extend or reduce.
Partial allocation when the person's employee profile ends early
Setup: A user's employment end date is 2026-03-13 (Friday). Their 1 FTE, 8-hour/day assignment is extended from 2026-02-27 through 2026-03-27 — two weeks past that employment end date.
|
Date |
Day |
Resource Allocation Daily — Hours |
Why |
|
2026-03-09 |
Mon |
8.0 |
Before employment end date |
|
2026-03-10 |
Tue |
8.0 |
Before employment end date |
|
2026-03-11 |
Wed |
8.0 |
Before employment end date |
|
2026-03-12 |
Thu |
8.0 |
Before employment end date |
|
2026-03-13 |
Fri |
8.0 |
Last day of employment — still allocated |
|
2026-03-16 |
Mon |
0.0 |
Past employment end date |
|
2026-03-17 |
Tue |
0.0 |
Past employment end date |
|
2026-03-18 |
Wed |
0.0 |
Past employment end date |
|
2026-03-19 |
Thu |
0.0 |
Past employment end date |
|
2026-03-20 |
Fri |
0.0 |
Past employment end date |
|
… through 2026-03- 27 |
|
0.0 |
Past employment end date |
The assignment record itself now spans the full extended range (through 2026-03-27), and an info message is shown noting the resource isn't allocated for the complete duration — but no meaningful hours are ever planned past the employment end date. This is true regardless of effort type: the cutoff is driven by the person's availability, not by the effort-type math above.
Custom schedule (Monday/Wednesday/Friday only)
Setup: A user's schedule only has working hours on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (8 hours each — no Tuesday/Thursday/weekend hours at all). Their assignment is extended with 1 FTE of additional effort.
|
Date |
Day |
Resource Allocation Daily — Hours |
|
2026-03-02 |
Mon |
8.0 |
|
2026-03-03 |
Tue |
0.0 — not a scheduled day |
|
2026-03-04 |
Wed |
8.0 |
|
2026-03-05 |
Thu |
0.0 — not a scheduled day |
|
2026-03-06 |
Fri |
8.0 |
|
Week total |
24.0 hours (3 scheduled days × 8.0) |
|
Compare this to the FTE example above: the same 1 FTE of effort on a standard 5-day schedule would produce 40.0 hours for the same calendar week. Daily allocation always follows the person's actual working schedule — a custom 3-day-a-week schedule produces noticeably fewer hours per week than a standard one, for the identical effort input.
Behavior reference
By assignment type
|
Assignment type |
Extend (modal) behavior |
|
Standard task-based user assignment |
Full flow: modal opens, task-end-date and duration checks apply, new daily allocation is generated for the extension. |
|
Group / unassigned (bottom grid) assignment |
Same Extend flow is available from the bottom grid. |
|
Operational (non-project) assignment |
Extend is available; the task-end-date check is skipped since there's no parent task. |
|
Child assignment (created by splitting a parent) |
Extend is not shown in the row menu at all. |
|
Migrated resource plan (now an attribute-based assignment) |
Shows Extend on its own record form once migration completes, since any top-level assignment qualifies for Extend — migration itself doesn't gate it. |
Validation messages (Extend modal)
All of the following are checked before anything is saved; a failure keeps the modal open with an inline message.
|
Situation |
Message |
|
No date entered, or an unparseable date |
"Select a valid end date." |
|
New end date is before the current end date |
"The new end date [X], cannot be before the current end date [Y]." |
|
New end date equals the current end date |
"The new end date [X], cannot be same as the current end date [Y]." |
|
New end date is after the parent task's end date (task-based only; skipped for operational) |
"The new end date [X], cannot be after the task end date [Y]." |
|
Total assignment span exceeds the configured maximum duration |
"The duration of the assignment is more than [N] which is the maximum number of days set in the resource properties." |
|
Effort value isn't a valid positive number |
"Enter a valid value." |
Cost behavior
|
Situation |
What happens |
|
Assignment/plan has a rate model |
Cost is recalculated using the rate model for the new date range. |
|
Assignment/plan has rate override enabled |
The overridden rate is used as-is; cost scales with the added hours at that flat rate. |
Tasks, projects, and demands
|
Parent type |
Extend behavior |
|
Project, sub-project, project task, epic |
Standard flow; task-date validation applies. |
|
Demand |
Supported; the task-date validation uses the demand's own dates. |
|
Operational / non-project work |
Task-date validation is skipped entirely, since there's no parent task to bound it against. |
Frequently encountered messages
|
Message |
Meaning |
|
"Select a valid end date." |
The date field is empty or not a recognizable date. |
|
"The new end date [X], cannot be before the current end date [Y]." |
You entered a date earlier than the assignment already ends. |
|
"The new end date [X], cannot be same as the current end date [Y]." |
You entered the same date the assignment already ends on — Extend requires an actual change. |
|
"The new end date [X], cannot be after the task end date [Y]." |
The date runs past the parent task's own end date. Either pick an earlier date, or extend the task's dates first (extending only the project's dates is not sufficient — the task itself needs updated dates too). |
|
"The duration of the assignment is more than [N] which is the maximum number of days set in the resource properties." |
Your requested span exceeds an administrator-configured cap. (com.snc.resource_management.plan.max_duration, default 3660) |
|
"Enter a valid value." |
The effort value isn't a valid positive number. |
|
An info message noting the resource "is not allocated for the complete duration" |
Shown when the new end date runs past the person's employment end date — the extend still succeeds, but allocation stops at their availability boundary. |
Limitations and known constraints
Child (split) assignments cannot be extended directly — the option is hidden. the toplevel assignment instead.
