Enhanced interface

Resource scheduling overview

Resource scheduling is more than just assigning resources to a project or task. It's an intelligent way to staff your projects by selecting resources based on their skills, availability, and other criteria.

Using resource scheduling, you can:

Search for employees who possess the right skills, or narrow the search to employees that are fully or partially available during the requested timeframe, employees at a particular location, and so on.
Assign a resource to a task and specify their time commitment.
Let employees enter their own Out of Office periods and keep track of their schedule.
Review the assigned tasks, holidays, and Out Of Office events of other employees.

Subscription	Projects Project & Resource Management module
User type	Business user with Admin privileges Project manager Employee
Permissions	Research capacity (List) If you are a Business user or Project Manager user, you can view the schedule status for a particular Project or Task, even if you're not the manager of the assigned employees. Additionally, your administrator can give you permission to view the status for all employees. With this permission, you can view any manager's employees, or leave the Manager field blank to see all employees. If you are an Employee user, you can see schedule status only for projects that you manage. If you don't manage any projects, the Manage Resource page displays your schedule status only.

Subscription

Projects Project & Resource Management module

User type

Business user with Admin privileges

Project manager

Employee

Permissions

Research capacity (List)

If you are a Business user or Project Manager user, you can view the schedule status for a particular Project or Task, even if you're not the manager of the assigned employees. Additionally, your administrator can give you permission to view the status for all employees. With this permission, you can view any manager's employees, or leave the Manager field blank to see all employees.
If you are an Employee user, you can see schedule status only for projects that you manage. If you don't manage any projects, the Manage Resource page displays your schedule status only.

Enable resource scheduling for your company

By default, the Projects application lets you assign resources to projects and tasks. However, to take advantage of advanced resource management features, enable the Project & Resource Management module of the Projects application.

Once you've enabled the Project & Resource Management module, you'll see a new section on the Projects menu labeled Project & resource mgmt. You'll also see new resource searching and scheduling features for projects and tasks.

To use resource scheduling for projects, a user with admin privileges must subscribe to the Project & Resource Management module of the Projects application:

Go to Projects > Setup > Configuration.
In the Project and resource management section select to Enable project and resource management.
Edit the permissions to the Projects application for users to give them access to lists and activities related to resource scheduling.

Define positions and skills for employees

To select the right resources for a project, you need to be able to search for available employees based on their skill and expertise. For example, a project might require a landscape designer with certain skills.

To help you track, categorize, and search for employees according to skills and expertise, you can:

Create a Positions and Skills list that includes the positions, skills, and certifications that are important to your business.
Assign positions, skills, and certifications to employees.

Find and schedule resources

When you enable resource scheduling, you get new features in projects and tasks that let you:

Select project resources based on their skill, availability, and other factors: Using Resource Search in the Resources and billing tab of a project, you can search for resources based on criteria of your choice, and select the ones you want to add to your project.
Assign resources to a task and specify their time commitment: You can do this when adding or editing a task, either from within a project or from the Tasks list. This books the time, which keeps the resource's schedule up-to-date and helps avoid overbooking. You can also use Resource Search to search for resources from the Task Information page.

Track Out of Office periods for resources

An Out of Office period is any time that an employee is on vacation or otherwise unavailable to work on projects or tasks. Using the Out of Office list , you can edit the Out of Office schedule for you or any employee who reports to you. These Out of Office entries appear on the employee's schedule, along with any time that they are booked on tasks.

View resource schedules

View the schedule for an individual employee in a list format.

The Resource Schedule for an employee shows when an employee is booked on tasks for a project, as well as any holidays or Out of Office periods. For times when the employee is booked on a task, the list includes the project and task, along with details about the duration and hours.
Employees can track their own schedule using the My Schedule list. In addition, users who can access the Employees list can view the schedule for other employees by clicking the Schedule link for the employee.

Get a visual overview of resource schedules across multiple employees.

The Resource capacity page gives you an at-a-glance view of time commitments across multiple employees. For each date, icons show who is fully booked, over booked, partially available, out of office, on company holiday or even over budget on a task.