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Planview Customer Success Center

Managing Resource Loads

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This page describes resource management in AdaptiveWork and includes the following sections:

Resource Management

About Resource Roles

AdaptiveWork resources are dynamically assigned roles in projects when they are added to projects.

A specific user may have multiple roles within a project or across multiple projects, and can easily filter through work items based
on their given roles.

  • Click here for information on roles in AdaptiveWork

About Resource Load Views

The Resource Load view shows work assignment and the planned workload for the selected resources day-by-day in accordance to the original planned work and also by remaining effort.
The view also sums up the load (in units or hours) for the resource, project and group level.

Monitoring Resource Schedules

A resource's AdaptiveWork calendar (Resources Calendar) graphically illustrates resource allocation over time.

The calendar provides an overview of resource usage within the organization for project managers, work item managers and Admin users.

The resource's calendar can be most helpful during the initial planning phase, as well for reviewing resource allocation during the execution phase of a project. Additionally, the personal calendar is useful for detecting resource overloads.

A resource's AdaptiveWork calendar is accessed via their Properties card.

To access a resource's AdaptiveWork calendar:

  1. Navigate to the People module and select a user in the grid .
  2. Click More Info located in the Relations Panel.The resources Properties card opens.
  3. In the Personal Details pane, click Edit located adjacent to 'Calendar'.

The resource's AdaptiveWork calendar opens.

Assigning Resources

Assigning resources by managers to a work item is achieved either via the Add Related Resources ribbon option, available in all work item modules and Work Plan panels, or via the Add Related link located within Relations Panels.

To assign resources to a work item:

  1. Open the Add Resources panel. This can be done in two ways:
    • From the ribbon, click Add Related and then Resources.
    • From the Relations Panel, click Add Related and then Resources.
  2. In the Available list, check the boxes for each resource you want to add.
  3. Click the right arrow button to add the resources your selections.
  4. Click OK.

Resource assignment is achieved.

  • Click here for information on team-centric views used for assigning resources to work items

Resource Load

Overview

Resource management is all about balancing the capacity and demand of people, so that you don't have benched or overloaded resources, thereby ensuring full resource utilization.

The Resource Load view is the one stop shop for your resource management needs, providing a fully interactive and editable reporting tool that allows you to simulate load by quickly filtering work items in and out, view loads by individual resources or groups, drag and drop to reassign tasks and projects. You can also review the full project plan for the projects where resources are assigned tasks, so that you can see the impact of any schedule changes made.

The Resource Load is the definitive tool for resource management, that aids in the exercise of balancing your resources and workload, by providing not only visibility to where resources have capacity, but also provide a means to update and reallocate work on the same page.

The Resource Load is a true work tool that aids in the balance and management of your resources and helps you understand what your team has the capacity to work on, and when.

In the example shown below, Guybrush is shown to be overloaded in October with 92 hours in total.

360035053713_mceclip0.png

Clicking the + sign next to the resource's name reveals the projects the resource is assigned to, clicking the project shows the actual tasks assigned as well.

resource_overload_1.png

Notice how the hours are aggregated from the individual tasks to project and then to the overall work assigned to the resource.

Overloads are indicated in red. When viewing the load on groups, skills, or job titles, if at least one user is overloaded, an orange indication will be displayed on the group level.

You can further investigate by clicking the magnifying glass on the month (or project) to drill down to a weekly view and again to drill down even further to a day by day review.

Now that you have established the source of the overload, you can reassign resources to relieve the load from Guybrush as explained below.

About the Resource Load View

The Resource Load view shows work assignment and the planned workload for the selected resources day-by-day in accordance to the original planned work and also by remaining effort.

The view also sums up the load (in FTE, Person (man) days, units or hours) for the resource, project and group level.

The Resource Load view enables you to:

  • See resource assignments per Task and Project per day / week / month - see below the default and maximum settings per selected timeframes to reduce real time data calculation and optimize the page load.
  • Easily identify group overload including partial load indication, which you can then drill down to the resource level.
  • Quickly identify the capacity and work load for each resource based on job title, user group association, or skill.
  • Detect individual resource overload and see the level of the over-allocation.
  • View and update any column from the work item, user, or resource directly in the resource load.
  • Create a split view display showing the work plan below the Resource Load table, for a specific project or task.
  • Freeze columns in order to maintain context of users and work items while analyzing load across time periods.
  • Drag and drop work items between team members to distribute assignments and balance the load more evenly between resources.
  • View data by Planned work or Capacity, and units in FTE, Person (man) days, hours, or % allocation.
  • Run Custom actions on users, groups, or work items from the resource load.

See also Resource Management Best Practices.

Related System Settings

To display parent work items and to view load variance according to Remaining Effort, your organization's Administrator must ensure that system settings 8.5 (Display parent work item in the Resource Load grid) and 8.6 (Display variance in Resource Load grid) are set to ON.

Launching Resource Load View

The Resource Load view can be accessed from the following modules, by clicking Utilities and then Resource Load:

  • Work Items module
  • Projects module
  • Tasks module
  • People module
  • Milestones module

And from the Skills, Job Titles, Discussion Groups, and User Groups module by clicking Resource Load from the Common menu.

The Resource Load view opens.

View Options

The view options allows you to determine what the resource load view displays and includes the following options:

Grouping

The grouping selector allows you to switch between the People load view, displaying the load at the resource level, and the Group load view displaying the load at the group level.

To toggle between People and Groups:

  1. Click on the dropdown selector next to the Resource Load heading.
  2. Select either People or Groups.

Effort View Type

The effort view type selector allows you to switch between Planned Work and Remaining Effort views.

When selecting Remaining Effort, it will show the load based on the remaining work. All work items already past the due date that still have remaining effort will be reflected on Today. This is done in order to show the remaining effort according to your organization's work policy.

To toggle between Planned Work and Remaining Effort:

  1. Click on the dropdown selector next to the number of people in the list.
  2. Select either Planned Work or Remaining Effort.

           

NOTE

Due to the fact that Remaining Effort can only exist in the future, you may see the remaining effort in the next time period.

           

Load View Type

The load view type allows you to switch between displaying actual work load and resource availability.

To toggle load view types:

  1. Click on the Load/Availability dropdown selector.
  2. Select either Load or Availability.

When Load is selected, the display will show the total load on a user or group rolled up from individual tasks.

When Availability is selected, the display will show the remaining availability on a user, calculated by subtracting the assigned work from the total hours a user works in any given date (as set in the user's calendar). This shows how underutilized a group or specific person is, allowing you to quickly analyze how much, if any, additional work you can add.

Units

The Units selector allows you to define what unit you wish to see for the load calculation, the available options are:

  • Units – shows the load status in percentages (%)
  • Hours – shows the load status in hours
  • FTE – shows the load status in FTE (Full Time Equivalent), calculated by dividing the units a user is assigned to on a task by 100 (Units/100). The units on a task is based on the total working hours of a user from the user's calendar
  • Person (man) days – shows the load status in Person days, calculated by dividing the hours a user is assigned to work on a task divided by the total working hours on the organization level (hours/hours per day from organization calendar)

To toggle unit types:

  1. Click on the Units dropdown selector.
  2. Select an option from the dropdown list.

The dropdown selector label changes to reflect your current selection.

Time frame

You can define the time frame on which to calculate the work load. The period calculated can be set between 2 and 14 days, 2 and 12 weeks / months. You may also define a custom time frame.

To define the calculated time frame:

  1. Click the time frame menu located on the top right of the resource load window
  2. Select between Day, Week, and Month.
  3. Define the period to show using the Show arrows (between 2 and 12)
    Timeframe Starting Default (when the user switches in the date filter, default is set to) Max
    Day 14 14
    Week 4 12
    Month 4 12

               

    NOTE

    Any value selected will remain in memory until you change it manually. For example, if you've selected 10 under days,  6 for weeks and 12 for months, you can switch between the time frames while maintaining the period.

               

  4. (Optional) Create a custom time frame by typing in the period desired or use the calendar view and associated arrows.

               

    NOTE

    If you made a selection for the time frame, you can choose only the start or end date in the custom fields (or calendar) and the system will use the values selected to define the time frame unless you choose to enter both the start and end date manually.

               

  5. Click OK to approve your selection

You can also use the left and right arrows adjacent to the menu to scroll between time frames based on the selected options above.

Search and Filter

In addition to the time frame filter, the resource load view supports a variety of search and filters to better locate the information you require:

Quick Filter

Work items can be easily included/excluded from any level, which will affect the calculation of the Resource Load.

Excluding tasks updates the calculation to give you a better picture of how to allocate your resources.

To exclude a work item:

  1. Click the resource load exclude.png icon in the row of the item you want to exclude.

Excluded work items are marked by resource load excluded.png. Once excluded the work item is grayed out, and its load no longer rolls up into the project, user, or group level. Rows with several work items where one or more items are excluded are indicated by the resource load demoted exclude.png icon

Excluded work items can also be seen in the filter pane

Additional filters

In addition to the quick filter, columns from any field from the work item, user, or resource link can be added into the table or directly into the filter pane, once added, filters can be applied to the fields which can affect the load, allowing for more precise load scenarios.

To view additional filters:

  1. Click the filter button to the left of the search bar in the upper-right corner of the grid.

You can use the filter options in the menu that appears to control what data appears in the grid.

Search Bar

True to AdaptiveWork's user experience the search bar is also available where you can include any string in the search bar to narrow the results based on your selection.

View management

You can choose whether to display 10, 15 or 25 resources on the screen, using the pagination.

You can control the way the resource load is displayed even further by opening the management menu. The available management options include:

To open the management menu:

  1. Click the Gear icon.

The Manage menu opens.

The Save as default setting is turned ON by default. Unless this is turned off, each time the user changes date filters, the page size for pagination or filters, these new default settings will be updated automatically and used the next time the same page is opened.

Columns

Define the columns that will be available in the Resource load table.

  • Click Columns to open the Choose Fields window, see Column Sets for further details

Load based on Project Assignment

Shows the load based on Project assignment rather than by Task assignment. Choosing how to show the load does not affect which Labor Budget option you defined for your projects.

Show work plan

Define whether to allow a split screen view displaying the work plan when selecting a project or task in the resource load view.

The split screen view is only available if a project or task is selected in the resource load screen

If the split screen is active, the work plan setting options are added to the view management menu.

Wrap titles

Define whether to wrap the text in the column headers.

Freeze/Unfreeze columns

For a clear view, you can freeze the Name column so any column to the left of the Name column will remain frozen as you scroll through the resource load dates using the horizontal scroll bar.

Settings

You can control the calculation of the schedule properties for the task assigned to the resource.

To define the start date and duration policies:

  1. Click Settings to open the Settings window
  2. Select a Start Date Setting:
    • Change the Start Date of the task to match the selection
    • Ask before changing the Start Date of the task to match the selection
  3. Select a Duration Setting:
    • Change the Duration of the task to match the selection
    • Use task Duration
    • Ask before changing the duration of the task to match the selection
  4. Click Save.

Adding a User/group to the view

You can manually add users or groups (based on the User level selected) to the resource load view.

To add a user/group:

  1. Click Add User to View or Add Group to View to add new—or remove existing—resources to the report. The Add People/Groups multi-find window opens.
  2. Configure as necessary.

           

NOTE

Resources can be removed or added back to a reports at any time.

           

Navigating between Overloaded Resources

You can easily navigate between overloaded resources to quickly find problematic loads.

To navigate between resources:
  1. Click Navigation.
  2. Use the Previous Overloaded Resources and Next Overloaded Resources buttons to scroll and jump between overloaded resources.

Reassign Resources

You can reassign resources to various tasks and projects directly from the resource load screen.

           

NOTE

This functionality can also be used to replace placeholder resources with named resources. See Resource Management Best Practices and Inviting New People.

           

Use the common menu Assign and Unassign buttons to reassign resources to work items. Clicking the buttons when on a user will open the Select Task window where you can select a task you wish assigned to the resource.

Alternatively you can drag and drop work items and people in the resource load screen to reassign and add resources to work items.
Below are the different drag and drop options and their results:

  • Drag and Drop a Task onto a User
    When dragging and dropping a task from one user onto another, it will replace the original user with the new one
  • Drag and Drop a Project onto a User
    When dragging and dropping a project from one user onto another, it will replace the original user with the new one on all the relevant project's tasks
  • Drag and Drop User onto a Task
    When dragging and dropping a user onto a task, it will add the user as a task resource
  • Drag and Drop User onto a Project
    When dragging and dropping a user onto a project, it will add the user into the project pool

A confirmation message will appear confirming the change. A warning appears if the change made will cause the resource to be overloaded, including an indication on the specific day they will be overloaded.

Exporting and printing Data

The resource load view can be easily exported to an Excel file or printed.

To export the resource load data:

  1. Click Export.

  2. From the dropdown, select one the following options:

    • Email Excel - Emails the exported Excel file.
    • Download Excel - Download the exported Excel file to your computer.

           

NOTE

AdaptiveWork supports Excel 2007 and above.

           

To print the resource load data:

  1. Click Print. The print preview window opens
  2. Review the data.
  3. Click Print to complete the process.