Skills Overview

Default Account Permissions: Account Administrator, Report Viewer with Cost

Overview

Account Administrators in Kantata OX have the ability to create a library of custom skills that are relevant to your industry or organization. Once created, these skills can be assigned to individual team members and unnamed resources in the following places:

Skill side panel—To access this side panel, go to Settings > Skills, then select a skill.
Account Member side panel—To access this side panel, go to Settings > Members, and then select an account member’s profile picture.
Resource side panel—To access this side panel, select a named or unnamed resource from the Resourcing tab of a project, a project's Rates & Roles page, or the Projects tab in the Resource Center. You can also access this side panel by selecting an unnamed resource from the Team Members tab in the Resource Center.
User side panel—To access this side panel, select the member’s name or profile picture from anywhere—with the exception of the Account Members page, the Resourcing tab of a project, a project's Rates & Roles page, and the Projects tab in the Resource Center.

Note: Only an Account Administrator can add and edit skills in the Skill side panel, Account Member side panel, and User side panel. To add or edit skills in the Resource side panel, you must have access to edit unnamed resources through the Resource Management Access Group.

You can adjust skills and proficiency levels as users gain experience or requirements for your unnamed resources to accurately reflect demand. Skills can also be associated to specific roles from the Skill side panel, Resource side panel, and User side panel.

Keeping your users’ skills up to date and indicating what specific skills are needed for the unnamed resources on your projects can help you to better staff your projects with the most qualified people available to perform the work. When combined with Resource Center, resource managers can find exactly who they are looking for based on a specific skill set.

Adding Skills

Before you can assign skills to an account member or unnamed resource, an Account Administrator must create them in the account settings. Each skill can be created individually or a list of skills can be imported from a CSV file.

How to Add a Skill

Hover over Settings in the left navigation and select Skills.
On the Skills page, click the Add a Skill button.
When the Skills side panel appears, provide a name for the new skill.
In Details section, use the Type drop-down menu to help categorize the default skill type; you can choose from Certification, Language, Other, or Skill.
If you would like to assign proficiency levels (1-5) to the skill, check the Use Levels box. Some skills, such as Certifications, don't generally have skill levels.
You may also add an optional Description to clarify information about the skill.
In the Associated Roles section, you can specify this new skill as a core skill for certain roles. Using the Roles drop-down menu, select the roles that you would like to apply the skill to.
Note: When you associate a role to a skill, the skill appears as an Associated Skill in the Resource side panel and User side panel, making it easier for account members to select the relevant skills for their named and unnamed resources.
When you are finished, click Create.

After you’ve created your skills, you can assign them to account members, named resources, and unnamed resources.

How to Import Skills from a CSV File

You can also use a CSV (comma-separated values) file to bulk import skills to Kantata OX. For convenience, you can download and use the provided sample CSV template.

Hover over Settings in the left navigation and select Skills.
On the Skills page, click the Import CSV button.
When Import Skills from a CSV appears, you may choose to download and modify our example template by clicking the Download our sample CSV file link.
Verify that your CSV file contains these five columns:
- Name (required)—Enter the name of the skill you are creating. Keep the name brief so that it’s easy to identify.
- Description—Clarify what the skill entails.
- Type—Choose from Certification, Language, Other, or Skill.
- Max Level (i.e., Use Levels)—Depending on their type, a skill may or may not have a proficiency level. If you later want to assign a proficiency level to a skill, enter "5" as the value. If you don't want to assign a proficiency level to a skill, enter a value of "1". This is essentially the same as checking or unchecking the Use Levels box in the Skills side panel.
  Note: Although the numbers are the same, the "5" and "1" (i.e., "on / off" ) have nothing to do with the minimum or maximum (1-5) level for a skill.
- Associated Roles—Enter the role ID of each role (separated by commas) that you would like to associate this skill with.
  Note: If the role IDs you enter do not match any existing roles in your Kantata account, the skills are created without any associated roles.
In each row of the CSV file, enter the information for each skill that you would like to add.
When you’re ready to import, click the Choose a File button to open a standard operating system finder/explorer window where you can locate and select your .csv or .txt file.
Once the file is uploaded, click the Create Skills button to import.

Assigning Skills to Account Members and Unnamed Resources

Depending on your default account permissions and Access Group permissions, you can assign skills to account members, named resources, and unnamed resources.

How to Add Skills to Account Members

Account Administrators can assign all relevant skills to account members on a member-by-member basis in the Account Member side panel.

Hover over Settings in the left navigation and select Members.
On the Account Members page, select the member you would like to assign a skill to.
In the Account Member side panel, click on the Add a skill field from the Skills section and select a skill from the drop-down menu.
After you’ve added the skill to the member, you can change their proficiency level by clicking on the blue number to the right of the skill (in the Level column).
To remove a skill from a member, click the Remove (“ ”) icon to the right of the Added By column.

How to Add Account Members to Skills

Account Administrators can assign all relevant account members to a skill on a skill-by-skill basis in the Skill side panel.

Hover over Settings in the left navigation and select Skills.
On the Skills page, select the skill you would like to assign members to.
In the Skill side panel, click on the Add a person field from the People section and select someone from the drop-down menu.
After you’ve added the member to the skill, you can change their proficiency level by clicking on the blue number to the right of their name (in the Level column).
To remove a member from a skill, click the Remove (“ ”) icon to the right of the Updated column.

How to Add Skills to Resources

Account Administrators—and users that have access to edit unnamed resources through the Resource Management Access Group—can add skills to unnamed resources via the Resource side panel.

Hover over Settings in the left navigation and select Resource Center.

Note: You can also access the Resource side panel from the Rates & Roles page or the Resourcing tab in a project.
Select the Team Members or Projects tab.
Expand the role or project, and select the named or unnamed resource you would like to assign a skill to.
In the Resource side panel, select the Skills tab.

Note: Selecting a named resource in the Team Members tab opens the User side panel, which can only be edited by an Account Administrator. In the User side panel, the Skills section is located within the Details tab.
Select Add Skills.

Note: If the resource already has some skills assigned, you need to click Edit Skills for the Add Skills button to appear.
Select each skill you would like to assign to the resource, then select Save. Any skills that are associated to a specific role will appear in the Associated Skills section.
If you want to associate a skill to this role from the Resource side panel, click the Add (“ ”) icon in the Associated column.
After you’ve added skills, you can change the resource’s proficiency level by selecting the number in the Level column, then choosing the desired proficiency.
To remove a skill, click the Remove (“ ”) icon to the right of the skill.

How to Find Specific Skills in the Resource Center

The Resource Center allows you to filter team members by Role and Skills to identify resources that have specific skill sets or proficiency levels, as well as the projects to which they are currently allocated.

Note: Only users with Report Viewer or higher Account Permissions can see a user's skills in the Resource Center.

Hover over Resourcing in the left navigation and select Resource Center.
On the Resource Center page, select the Team Members tab.
Select the Filters button in the toolbar to open the Filters modal, then select Skills.
In the Values section (the middle pane), select each skill you want to filter by, entering specific skill levels if desired.

TIP

By default, All—which requires resources to have all of the selected skills—is selected. If you want to find resources who have at least one of the selected skills, select Any instead.
If you’re looking for a particular role with a specific set of skills, select the Roles filter, then choose each role you want to filter by.
Select Apply Filters.

How to Export Users’ Skills Information

If you have Insights, you can export skills information for your users with the Export: Skill [Names] report in the Exports dashboard, which includes user name, skill, level, and other details.

ACCESS & AVAILABILITY

Insights reporting is available for Enterprise plans that meet the minimum user license requirement. To get started, please reach out to Customer Success or Kantata Support.

Hover over Insights in the left navigation and select Exports.
In the Dashboards tab, select the Go To URL (“ ”) button inline with Exports.
Use the arrows at the top of the page to locate the Skills tab, then select the tab.
Use the filters to modify the information that appears in the report.
Scroll down to the Export: Skills [Names] report, and then select the More (“ ”) icon.
In the Download As drop-down, you can select PDF, XLSX, or CSV. Once selected, the exported file downloads to your computer.