Resource Center Overview

Overview

The Resource Center streamlines resource management with a single, easy-to-use, visual interface. Unbound visibility into your resources lets you quickly manage change and make better business decisions based on resource supply and demand. After all, we know that effectively managing your resources is one of the primary factors that contribute to the success of your business.

The Resource Center gives you the ability to:

• Manage allocations on projects for all resources throughout your organization
• Manage scheduled hours for resources' tasks
• Manage resource estimated hours for resources' tasks
• View workloads and availability across multiple projects at a glance
• See a cross-project view of your resources’ tasks and scheduled hours assignments
• Easily see how efficiently your resources are being used in projects
• Adjust overallocated and underallocated resources as necessary
• Assign and unassign resources from tasks
• Reassign a portion of scheduled hours or allocations from one resource to another
• Track changes to projected budgets in real-time
• Submit requests for resources

With the Resource Center, you can see how estimated hours from your initial project timeline translate into actual resource schedules. This allows you to more efficiently staff your projects, set baseline resourcing strategies, and assign resources to tasks based on allocations. You can even use performance and historical data to update templates and continually improve future resource management processes.

You can also use the Configure Columns feature to customize the information that you see (including the addition of custom field columns), change how the list is sorted, and adjust the width of individual columns or the width of the entire list side. For more information on configuring columns, see Configuring Columns in Resource Center.

How to Use the Resource Center

The visual Resource Center interface gives you a comprehensive overview of resources, project timelines, planned and projected budgets, and team member information—including skills, roles, and allocated hours.

The page is divided into two sections, with the Team Member or Projects list on the left and the timeline on the right. When initially collapsed, each row in the list provides a summary of project, resource, and hours information. However, each row can be expanded to see additional information, such as the individual projects to which resources are allocated or scheduled (and whether they are over or underallocated) and the individual tasks they are assigned to.

If Project Colors are enabled in General Settings, the color assigned to each project appears to the left of the project name and task name, as well as in the timeline where allocations and scheduled hours appear. These colors—whose meaning your team defines—can be used to represent project types, phases, clients, etc.

The functionality of the list and the timeline change depending on whether you've selected the Team Members tab or the Projects tab that are located just below the title of the Resource Center page.

You can also leverage the following features in the toolbar to change how information displays:

• Filters—Hide specific projects, resources, or tasks or remove them from view completely based on the filters you apply. Click All, Unnamed, or Named in the toolbar to quickly switch between the different types of resources you want to see information for.
  
• Views—Save different combinations of filters and column configurations that you can select and quickly view as needed. You can set one view as the default and save up to 200 unique views in each tab of the Resource Center.
  
• Calendar Controls—Select whether you’d like to see hours within day, week, or month periods. Use the left and right arrows to move forward or backward in time, selecting the Calendar (“   ”) icon if you want to jump to a specific date or clicking Today to return to today’s date.
  
• Display Preferences—Control how EAC is calculated and how scheduled hours and allocated hours display in the project and resource rows.
  

Team Member and Projects List

The list on the left side of the Resource Center displays resource, project, and task information in separate rows. When you navigate to the Resource Center, these rows are collapsed by default and only the primary row appears. The order in which these different types of rows appear depends on if you are in the Team Members tab or Projects tab, displaying either resources or projects at the top level. The task row is always the third-level row.

As you expand each row, you reveal further information about the resource or project. Select the Expand (“   ”) icon above the list to automatically expand the primary row and reveal the secondary row.

Clicking All, Unnamed, or Named in the Resource Center toolbar also affects what type of resources display.

For more information on the Team Members or Projects list, see Resourcing Lists Overview.

Team Members

When the Team Members tab is selected, the Team Member list displays a list of team members that can be filtered by availability, remaining hours, member, role, skills, and more. You can expand the individual team member row to see the projects people are participating in and the corresponding project details—such as their allocated, scheduled, or actual hours on the project.

You can expand the project row to see the tasks people are assigned to and the corresponding task details, such as task type and task status, as well as their estimated, scheduled, or actual hours on the task.

You can also view information for custom fields, with Resource and User custom fields available in the Team Members tab.

Projects

When the Projects tab is selected, the Projects list shows a list of unarchived projects that can be filtered by group, provider lead, allocation type, status, color, and more. Each project row shows the project's budget (if your Account Permission is Report Viewer and above, or your Project Permission is View Financials or above), EAC, and the number of named resources on the project.

You can expand these rows to see the individual team members and unnamed resources allocated to each project, then expand again to see the tasks they are assigned to and the corresponding task details—such as task type, task status, and their estimated, scheduled, and actual hours on the task.

You can also view information for custom fields, with Project and Resource custom fields available in the Projects tab.

Timeline

The Resource Center timeline shows the workload and availability of resources by displaying allocated hours, scheduled hours, or both. Each bar in the task row is a visual representation of how many hours per day each resource is scheduled to work on a given task in a project. The color of each bar corresponds to the project color, with overallocated and overscheduled bars in the top-level row changing to a pink color and the top-level row in the Team Members tab being a bluish-gray color.

The information displayed on the timeline is largely determined by the Display Preferences accessible from the Actions (“ ”) menu located to the right of the calendar controls:

• Allocated Hours (default)
• Compare Scheduled vs. Allocated
• Scheduled Hours

For more information on these display preferences, see Resourcing Timeline.

In the Projects tab and the Resourcing tab in the project workspace, you can Compare Scheduled vs. Allocated click on a named resource’s scheduled hours to open the Availability Inspector to see:

• Total number of scheduled hours or allocated hours across projects
• Scheduled hours or allocated hours broken down by project—limited to a view of the projects that you have permission to see
• Details on each scheduled hours or allocated hours bar, including red bars that indicate a resource may be overscheduled or overallocated

You can review their availability in a day, week, or month view and use the arrows to move forward and backward. This information can help you determine a resource’s current capacity for work based on the number of hours they have been assigned during a specific period of time.

Depending on which Resourcing area you are in, the Allocated Hours and Compare Scheduled vs. Allocated selections may display Start Date and Due Date brackets in different rows:

• Team Members tab—Project row
• Projects tab—Resource row
• Resourcing tab in project workspace—Resource row

These brackets only appear if Start and Due Dates have been entered for a resource’s assigned tasks. For more information on the start Start Date and Due Date brackets, see Resourcing Timeline.

Rows and Pages

You can set the Resource Center so that you're viewing 10, 25, 50, or 100 top-level rows at once. Just select your preference in the bottom-right corner of the page; changes are automatically saved and persist even if you refresh the page. This can be set separately for the Team Members tab and the Projects tab.

Rows that exceed your selected number are added to subsequent pages. You can scroll through these from the bottom-center of the page.

For secondary and tertiary rows, you can load a maximum of 50 resources, projects, or tasks on a page by default, then you can click Show More to drill into a specific resource or project, loading more rows in increments of 100.

Resourcing Agent

Launched via the Agent (“   ”) button, which appears in the lower-right corner by default, the Resourcing Agent is an AI-powered conversational tool that surfaces risks, analyzes data to optimize staffing, and automates complex resourcing tasks.

For more information, see the Resourcing Agent Overview article.