This articles explains the various menu options for viewing and building resource plans.
Add Booking
Click the Add Booking button. The Booking form will load. Complete the form.
- Select Resource: Begin typing the Resource Name, whether a named user or generic. Available matching names will show. Make your selection.
- Booking Dates: date range for the allocation. Select a From & To month & year.
- Allocation Type: Enter the value in ONE of the allocation types, either hours per month, % allocation, or total hours. If you select total hours, the hours will be divided evenly across the time selected between the booking dates.
Click Add when done.
Add Resource
To quickly add a new row to your Resource Plan, begin typing the resource name into the Add Resource box.
Select the name to add the row. You may add both generic resources and named users this way.
Resource Pane
Click the Resource Pane icon to toggle showing/hiding the Resource Pane in the lower half of your screen. This is where you can see how else the resources are allocated. This is beneficial to first see who is already booked or has availability before or after adding to your plan.
For more details how to navigate and use the Resource Pane, refer to the Resource Pane article.
Planning Unit Modes
Hours Mode
% Mode
FTE Mode
Select the planning unit modes, either Hours, %, or FTE. When viewing or building your resource plan, use this icon to toggle between different units modes. The system calculates between hours to FTE, which stands for Full Time Equivalent, in other words 1 full time person, and FTE %, or the percentage of a full-time person.
Be sure to verify your unit mode select PRIOR to entering any resource allocation values. For example, if you enter 50 and the planning mode is hours, that would be 50 hours, which could calculate to 27% of time, or .27 FTE for a given month. Instead, if you entered 50 and the planning mode is %, that would be 50% of the resource's time.
Cost Types
Select the Cost Types drop down menu to toggle to another cost type. Cost types allow organizations to calculate, evaluate and monitor how resources are being allocated. There are possible (and often likely) differences between how our resources’ time is initially planned, booked onto specific work, and then actually spent. The Resource Plan allows multiple cost types so you may analyze the differences. You can toggle from one cost type to another.
The reason these groupings are called “cost” types is because the resource plan hours may be converted to costs when they are imported into the financial plan. The rate for each resource, according to their role or other cost category factor would be multiplied by the number of hours to get the financial value of that resource’s time.
Your organization may have similar or different cost types depending on business use cases and configuration. Here are some example use cases that may apply.
- Committed Hours would be the initial plan generally estimated at a high level. This is also referred to as top-down planning.
- Scheduled Hours cost type would be the totals from the detailed task schedule. You could import the task schedule hours into this resource plan cost type.
- Actual Hours cost type would be the time spent on this plan. You could import the timesheet hours into this resource plan cost type.
NOTE: Resources must be assigned a role to import their timesheet hours into the resource plan.
Dates
Change the Date Range of your view as needed. Select one of the preset date ranges such as Last Year, This Year, Next Year, or Next 5 Years.
Or, set a custom range, zoom to Months, Quarters, or Years, then select the time frame desired. Then, click the Apply button.
Monthly
Quarterly
Yearly
Weekly
If your group has weekly planning enabled, you may change the date range to be as detailed as weekly. If the resource plan bookings go in at the monthly level, the total for the month will show on the 1st of each month. The values are not spread across all days in the month. However, if the bookings get entered for each week, the view can also be totaled for summary at the month/quarter/year levels.
Filters
Select the Filter menu to filter your resource plan view. Hover over any resource-level field to expand that field's options to filter. Each filter you select stays, so you may make multiple selections to further filter what you are seeing. Any selections will have a check mark next to the name.
If the Negotiations feature is enabled for your group, a filter for row status (i.e. Proposed, Committed) will be available as a filter option as well.
Deselect any single filter at a time by selecting it again or select Clear Filters to remove all filter selections.
Make Public
If the public/private feature is enabled, an additional column with show. If the row is public, the eye icon will show. If the row is private, the eye icon will have a little circle with a line through it covering part of the eye. You may change any private row to public by clicking directly on the private eye icon for the desired row.
Or, to change all rows to public, select Make Public from the icon menu & confirm if you want to make them all public.
Note that only public rows will show in the reports and on the All Plans Resource Plan page.
Import
When needed, resource allocation can be imported from elsewhere in the system. For example, the timesheet hours can be imported into a resource plan cost type, such as Actual Hours. If no applicable import option has been configured by your admin, the import icon will not show.
Be sure you’re in the right cost type, then click on Import.
Export
To export, first select the view settings, such as cost type, unit mode, dates, filters, etc. Then select your desired format from the Export menu.