outallocated

Outallocated is a term used in resource management and project planning to describe resources that are allocated to work outside the internal scope of an organization, or that are planned to be allocated to external parties. In planning reports, an item labeled outallocated indicates that the resource is tied up with external commitments rather than internal tasks.

Etymology and usage: The term is a compound of out and allocated. It appears in some capacity-planning and enterprise resource planning (ERP) documentation and in various project-management tools to distinguish internal allocations from those assigned to vendors, contractors, or partner teams. It is not universally standardized and may be referred to as externally allocated or external allocation in some systems.

Relationship to other states: Outallocation differs from over-allocation (where a resource is scheduled for more work than its capacity) and from unallocation (the absence of a current assignment). It is typically considered a temporary planning status indicating pending confirmation or contracting with external parties.

Examples: A project plan shows two weeks of outallocated resource time for a designer who is expected to work for a contractor rather than internal staff. In quarterly capacity planning, certain developers are tagged as outallocated to external product teams.

See also: allocation, external allocation, resource management, capacity planning, over-allocation.