The Resource Manager is where Unifier users can set up and manage a company’s or shell's personnel resources. These resources are always maintained at the company level, to be distributed among the company’s projects or shells. Resources can also include those of a partner company.
Notes:
- The Resource Manager has limited functionality in generic shells:
- Users cannot allocate resources in a generic shell. This means they cannot view the Allocation and Utilization sheets.
- The Resource Booking business process is not available; however, users can book resources directly onto the Resource Summary sheet in a generic shell.
Using the Resource Manager, Unifier users can classify job functions into roles that can then be allocated to projects/shells. These roles will be used to define billable rates, which are used in budgeting, and can also be used in planning for resource demands across projects. Roles are filled with personnel resources—the people who can perform these roles in a project/shell. The Resource Manager is where users can assign personnel to roles and projects/shells.
In the Resource Manager, personnel can serve multiple roles, depending on their skills or interests. For example, a construction role and a plumbing role might be served by one person who has both carpentry and plumbing skills.
The Resource Manager supports Timesheet business processes for capturing and tracking actual resource costs associated with activities and assignments at the project, shell, and the company level. The manager also supports hard and soft Resource Booking BPs using a calendar that shows what project/shells a resource has been booked for, as well as the times during which the resource is unavailable.
The Resource Manager automatically creates the following sheets users need to manage resources, bookings, and certain budgeting and forecast functions:
Allocations Summary | Master allocation sheet that shows role allocations at the company and project level. Read-only. |
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Resource Allocation | Allows manual entry of role allocations against projects from company level so users can balance resources across projects. The Resource Allocation Sheet rolls up to the Allocations Summary Sheet at both the project and company level. |
Booking Summary | Shows hard resource bookings across projects in both hourly and currency views. |
Actuals Summary | Shows resource actuals from timesheet data for the company. Read-only. |
Utilization Summary | Shows current total utilization of resources as a percentage of the total at the company level. Read-only. |
Bookings vs. Actuals | At both the company and project/shell level, shows hard resource bookings across projects/shells in both hourly and currency views, similar to the Booking Summary Sheet. Also shows columns per resource for booked hours, actual hours, and the variance (booked, minus actual hours). Read-only. |
Availability | At the company level, shows current availability of each resource across projects/shells. The resource availability equals the resource’s total capacity, minus the total bookings across the projects/shells, minus the non-project times specified. |