Resource Center Overview – Kantata Knowledge Base

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.

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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

Note: If you are in the early access Team Members tab, you can also use the Configure Columns feature to customize which columns appear, change how the list is sorted, and adjust the width of individual columns or the width of entire list side.

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.

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.

Note: Report Viewer or higher Account Permissions are required to see skills information for team members.

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 quick summary of project, resource, and allocation 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 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.

Note: By default, you can only view up to 100 tasks in Resourcing areas. You can use specific project, resource, and task filters to narrow your focus to only tasks that are important to see at that time. For example, you can select a specific Team Member and view only tasks with statuses of In Progress and Not Started.

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.

To reduce unnecessary scrolling and visual clutter, as well as making it easier to manage multiple projects and team members, some information in expanded rows is shown or hidden by default. By default, the Resource Center hides resources (in the Projects tab) and projects (in the Team Members tab) when they do not have assignments, allocated hours, or scheduled hours.
Applying specific filters may completely prevent some top-level rows from displaying while hiding some secondary or tertiary rows. For more information on how filters affect what displays in the Resource Center, see Resource Center Filters.
When rows are hidden, you can click Show to reveal the hidden information and then click Hide when you are finished reviewing the hidden rows.

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

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, allocation type, member, role, and skills. 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 select the Assignees (“ ”) icon to see who else is assigned to a task.

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, and color. 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) 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.

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.

Note: When scheduled hours per day and allocated hours are the same for consecutive days, the bars will combine to create a longer bar. If the hours per day are different for consecutive days—for example, the first two days in a week have 2 scheduled hours and the next three have 4 scheduled hours assigned—the bars will be separate.

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.

The Hours View Preference section gives you three choices for viewing the timeline:

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

Red-highlighted cells quickly show you when someone is:

Overallocated—In the Allocated Hours and Compare Scheduled vs. Allocated views, the red highlighting indicates that a resource has allocation hours assigned to them that are higher than the number of hours they are allotted to work in a day, week, or month based on their workweek hours.
Overscheduled—In the Scheduled Hours and Compare Scheduled vs. Allocated views, the red highlighting indicates that a resource has scheduled hours assigned to them that are higher than the number of hours they are allotted to work in a day, week, or month based on their workweek hours.

Note: Depending on which Resource Center tab you are viewing, the red highlighting behaves differently.
In the Team Members tab, there is only red highlighting if the hours exceed the maximum number allowed in the selected time period. For example, 45 hours in a week where a resource has a 40-hour workweek when the Week view is selected.
In the Projects tab, there is red highlighting if the hours exceed the maximum for the currently selected time period view or lower. For example, 12 hours in a day where a resource has an 8-hour workday whether the Day, Week, or Month view is currently selected.

Overallocated and Overscheduled Red Highlighting.png

In the Projects tab, the Compare Scheduled vs. Allocated and Scheduled Hours selections allow you to click on a named resource’s scheduled hours to see the following information:

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

Note: You can see the same scheduled hours availability and red highlighting in the new Resourcing tab as well.

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 scheduled hours they have during a specific period of time.

Resource Availability Window.png

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.

The Start Date bracket (“ [ ”) shows the earliest Start Date of their assigned tasks in the project, while the Due Date bracket (“ ] ”) shows the latest Due Date of their assigned tasks in the project.

In the task row, you can also see brackets that indicate a task's Start Date (" [ ") and Due Date (" ] "). Hover over a bracket to see the Start and Due Date of a task.

Note: The appearance in the task row does not change based on your Hours View Preference selection.

Allocated Hours (default)

Depending on if you are on the Team Members tab or Projects tab, allocated hours will display differently:

When the Team Members tab is selected, you can see an overview of workloads and availability. Each bar is a visual representation of how your resources are allocated over a selected period of time. You'll be able to see the percentage of time and number of hours allocated to each resource, including those which are overallocated. Stripes indicate that the team member has a soft allocation during this timeframe. The shading of each bar gets darker as the total allocated time for the resource increases.

When the Projects tab is selected, the time allocated to each resource is displayed. At a glance, you’ll be able to see workloads and availability across multiple projects, as well as an up-to-date Estimate at Completion (EAC).

Compare Scheduled vs. Allocated

The Compare Scheduled vs. Allocated option allows you to see where scheduled hours and allocated hours are assigned to resources and to projects (based on resource hour assignments):

When the Team Members tab is selected, you’ll see the allocated hours for each team member, along with their scheduled hours just below that, giving you the ability to instantly see how your project schedule aligns with your allocated hours. When a member’s scheduled hours are more than their allocated hours across all projects for the selected period of time, the bar will turn red.

When the Projects tab is selected, the total scheduled hours for each project, for the selected period of time, are displayed beneath the project summary bar. Click the arrow to the left of the project name to expand it. You’ll see the allocated hours for all team members and unnamed resources that have been assigned to the project.

Scheduled Hours

Depending on if you are on the Team Members tab or Projects tab, scheduled hours will display differently:

When the Team Members tab is selected, you’ll see the number of hours each team member is scheduled to work for the selected period of time. The shading indicates how many scheduled hours the individual has compared to their capacity; light blue indicates that scheduled hours are below capacity, blue indicates that scheduled hours are at capacity, and red means scheduled hours are over capacity.

When the Projects tab is selected, the timeline displays the number of resource hours scheduled for each project. Click the arrow to the left of the project name to expand it. You’ll see the scheduled hours for all team members and unnamed resources that have been assigned to the project. Red shading indicates that scheduled hours for a resource are over capacity.

Rows and Pages

You can set the Resource Center so that you're viewing 10, 25, 50, or 100 rows at once. Just select your preference from the bottom-right of the page; changes are automatically saved. 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.