Find and schedule project resources

Search for project resources based on their expertise, availability, and other factors. Searches can be performed from within a project or task, or independently.

• If you search for resources from within a project, you can find employees that fit your needs and assign them to the project. You can then assign the resources to tasks and estimate their commitment to the task by duration and hours.
• If you search for resources outside of a project, you have access to the same search criteria, but cannot assign resources to a specific project or task.

Prepare to schedule resources

To be able to schedule resources, you need to know the expertise and availability of employees. Be sure to:

• Categorize your employees by their position, skills, and certifications. Learn more about Define employee positions and skills.
• Have employees track periods when they’ll be on vacation or otherwise unavailable to be assigned to projects. Learn more about Track when an employee is out of office.

Find and assign resources

You can search for and select resources for your project from the Resources and billing tab of the project information page. When you're ready to assign those resources to do specific work on the project, you'll do that at the task level.

Search for project resources

After resource scheduling is turned on for projects, you'll see Resource Search on the Resources and billing tab for your project.

Why add resources to a project?

• If you selected project options that restrict time entry to only resources assigned to the project, only the resources added to the project will be able to enter time for the project.
• You can give the resource a billing rate for the project.

1. Display the Projects list and edit the project.
2. On the Resources and billing tab for the project, select Resource Search.
3. Use the filters at the top of the Resource Search page to look for resources based on criteria such as their availability, location, department, or manager.
   • If the resource needs to be available during certain dates, enter those dates in the Available From and Available To fields.
   • From the Availability Search dropdown menu, select whether you want to search for All resources that meet your criteria (the default) or only resources that are Partially Available or Fully Available during the date range you entered. You can also see who is Not Available during that time period.
   • Select other criteria as needed, such as the resource's department, location, manager, employee type, earning type, or class.

4. In the Required Position, skill, or certification section, select the positions, skills, or certifications that the employee needs to have.

   • The items on the dropdown list come from the Position and Skills list.
   • If you specify multiple positions, skills, or certifications, the resource search will return only those employees that meet all requirements.
5. When you're finished specifying your search criteria, click Search.

   The employees who meet the criteria are displayed at the bottom of the page.

6. To add one or more resources to your project, choose the resources and select Apply Selection.

Assign resources to tasks and specify their time commitment

You can assign resources to tasks and enter details about the estimated hours and duration of their work on the task. You can assign a resource for multiple time periods for multi-segment scheduling. For example, you may want to schedule a resource to work on the task full-time in one month, and part-time during the following month.

Tracking this information keeps the employee's schedule up-to-date and helps ensure that employees don't get overbooked.

1. Edit the task.
   • If you haven't already added tasks to your project, click the Tasks tab on the Project Information page.
     This tab appears only if you've saved the project at least once.
   • If you've already added tasks to the project, you can edit them from either the Tasks tab of the Project Information page or from the Tasks list.
2. Click the Resource Scheduling tab.
3. Assign resources to the task.
   • To select from the resources assigned to the project, select the resource in the Proj Resources section and click the right arrow.
   • To select resources by performing another resource search, click Resource Search and then search for and select resources.

   • You can also use the down arrow in the Task Resource field to select a resource. If you select a resource that's not already assigned to the project, it will automatically add the resource to the project when you click Save .

4. Optionally, to assign a resource multiple times to the task in separate segments of time, just add the resource again from the Task Resource field and enter a Start Date and End Date for that segment of time.
5. For any resources that you assign, enter details about the duration and hours for the task.

   • The start and end dates default from the task’s start and end dates, but you can edit the dates for this assignment. If you use Resource Search, and you select a resource, the date range used in the search will be the default start and end dates.

   • In the Estimated Hours field, enter the number of hours that you estimate that the resource will be working on the task. When you enter the number of hours, you'll get you a warning message if you are overbooking the resource. If you don't enter the Estimated Hours, the Planned Hours will be used instead. However, planned hours aren't checked for overbooking.

   • If you want the resource to be consider fully booked on this assignment (regardless of the number of hours you estimate), select the Full-time option.

   • If you don't enter any hours for the resource, the resource will not be considered to be booked during the time period.

   How do resource assignments affect the Estimated Hours and Planned Hours for the task?

   The hours that you assign to resources automatically roll up and update the Estimated Duration and Planned Duration for the task. If you want both a task budget that is not effected by assignments and a roll-up of assigned hours, you can enter just Estimated Hours in the Resource Scheduling tab, and leave the Planned Hours blank or zero. Then, Planned Duration at the task level will not be updated. This can be useful if you want to view the task and see the difference between your budget for the task, and how much of that budget has been assigned.

6. Save the task.

Search for resources outside of a project

Although you can't assign resources outside of a project or task, you can still search for employees that meet your criteria and view their contact information.

1. Go to Projects > All > Project & resource mgmt > Resource search.
2. Use the filters at the top of the Resource Search page to look for resources based on criteria such as their availability, location, department, or manager.
   • If the resource needs to be available during certain dates, enter those dates in the Available From and Available To fields.
   • From the Availability Search dropdown menu, select whether you want to search for All resources that meet your criteria (the default) or only resources that are Partially Available or Fully Available during the date range you entered. You can also see who is Not Available during that time period.

   • Select other criteria as needed, such as the resource’s department, location, manager, employee type, earning type, or class. You can also search by employee group, location group, or department group.

3. In the Required Position, skill, or certification section, select the positions, skills, or certifications that the employee needs to have.

   • The items on the dropdown list come from the Position and Skills list.
   • If you specify multiple positions, skills, or certifications, the resource search will return only those employees that meet all requirements.
4. When you're finished specifying your search criteria, click Search.

   The employees who meet the criteria are displayed at the bottom of the page.

Search for resources in a multi-entity environment

If you have resources that perform tasks for more than one entity, you'll need to search for resources at the top level of your company. If you search for resources from within an entity, the results will be based only on projects created for that entity, which may lead to conflicts and overbooking of resources.

1. Go to the top level of your company.

   Do not slide into an entity.

2. Display the Projects list or Tasks list, depending on whether you're searching for resources at the project or task level.
   • Click the Include private option at the top of the Projects or Tasks list to include projects and tasks created at the entity level.
   • Edit the project or task, and then search for resources.

What is a placeholder resource?

When you search for resources, you can also choose to include “Placeholder Resources." Placeholder resources are those that are not real, but represent a role or a "to-be-hired.". For example, you might create placeholder resources for "Project manager," "Engineer," and "Tester" and then use those to plan staffing for future projects.

To create a placeholder resource, you add an employee to the Employees list and select the Placeholder Resource option on the Employee Information tab.

How do I turn on resource scheduling for projects?

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

1. Go to Projects > Setup > Configuration.

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