Resource Side Panel Overview

 
 
Project Permissions: Project Administrator, View Financials, Edit Financials, Schedule Hours for Others

Overview

Available from the Resource Center, the Resourcing tab of a project, the Rates & Roles page, and the Activity tab of a project, the Resource side panel allows you to define and fill resource needs by Role, Skills, and Custom Fields. Using posts in the Activity Feed, a resource manager can also communicate directly a project manager or other project members when more information is needed (e.g. confirming availability dates for a resource or timelines for specific tasks assignments) to fill an opening for an unnamed resource.

This side panel consists of the following tabs:

• Details
• Approver (only appears when Resource Requests are enabled)
• Activity
• Skills
• Organizations (only appears when Organizations is enabled)
• Custom Fields

You can expand or collapse each section individually, depending on whether it contains information relevant to your workflow.

Kantata OX remembers both the section you were in and what information you have entered, so if you close the side panel, you can continue from where you left off the next time that you open the Resource side panel.

Access and Permissions

You can open the Resource side panel anywhere you can see unnamed resources in Kantata. With the appropriate permissions, you can access the Resource side panel from the following places:

• Resource Center (from both the Team Members and Projects tabs)
• A project’s Resourcing tab
• The Rates & Roles page in a project (accessible only to Project Administrators)
• The Team tab of the Project Admin box (located in a project’s Activity tab)

Depending on where you are accessing the side panel from, different permissions may be required to view or edit specific resource information.

By default, Account Administrators can edit any section of the Resource side panel within all Resourcing areas and all project pages that they have access to. All other Account Permission levels require specific Access Group selections or Project Permissions.

The table below specifies the permissions that allow you to edit information in the Resource side panel from various locations in Kantata:

To edit the Resource side panel, project members with non-financial Project Permission levels need additional permissions for editing unnamed resources within the Resource Management Access Group set.

• Their projects—Allows members to edit resources within all of their projects in the project workspace and Resourcing areas.
• Their projects and joinable projects—Allows them to edit resources within all of their projects and joinable projects in the project workspace and Resourcing areas.
• All projects—Allows them to edit resources even when they aren’t participating in a project from anywhere they can see the Resource side panel.

Resource Side Panel Header

The Resource side panel header is anchored to the top and is always visible, displaying key information such as the name of the Project, Resource Label, Role, number of hours allocated, and the start and end dates.

You can close the side panel by clicking Close (“   ”) or pressing ESC on the keyboard.

When Resource Requests are enabled, the status bar at the top lets you know where the request is at in the process (e.g., Draft, Submitted, Approved).

With Resource Requests enabled, clicking the Request History (“   ”) icon lets you see the timeline of a resource request from submission to approval or rejection, as well as details such as Skills, Custom Fields, and Allocations.

Use the Copy URL (“   ”) icon to copy a shareable link to the resource request to the clipboard.

The Duplicate (“   ”) icon to the right of the Resource Label field appears only for unnamed resources. This action allows you to quickly duplicate unnamed resources when you have open demand for the same role in a project. You can even choose to copy over the same allocated hour assignments and their attributes—skills, custom fields, and organizations designations.

Use the tabs just below the Resource side panel header to quickly jump to the associated section.

Details

If Resource Requests are not enabled and you are a Report Viewer with Cost or above, then the Details tab is visible and lets you fill resources normally.

If Resource Requests are enabled and you are an Approver, the Details tab is visible and is where you assign a member to fill a request. As an Approver, you can directly allocate a Resource instead of making a request.

If you made the request and it’s been approved, the Details tab replaces the Approver tab, and includes the name of the person selected to fill the Role along with a link to view their profile.

Approver

If Resource Requests are enabled, then each request requires an Approver. This is where you’ll find a drop-down list of all the Members who have the ability to accept or reject requests. You can scroll through the list, or search by name.

Activity

The Activity section serves two functions:

• Lets you add posts to communicate about your resource needs
• Acts as a record of who has submitted, cancelled, approved, or rejected requests (only when Resource Requests are enabled)

Both of these items are extremely helpful when staffing resources, capturing a record of any constraints, unique project needs, or other resource information that needs to be considered for staffing.

Posts created in the Resource side panel only appear in that side panel and not in the project’s Activity feed. By default, these posts are public, which means anyone who opens the Resource side panel can view those posts.You can choose to make a post Private if you don’t want anyone to view it or you want it to be visible to only a select few people. Only selected recipients in private messages receive email notifications for posts.

You can edit or delete any posts that you have created.

Skills

The Skills section lets you add Skills listed in Settings > Skills, and select a desired level, if allowed, to help the Approver more accurately fulfill the request.

Skills that are associated to the resource’s role appear under the Associated Skills section.

Organizations

If Organizations is enabled, you can select the projects you would like this resource to access based on their department(s) and region(s). They can access projects for every Department or Geography going up the hierarchy from their current selection, but cannot see across or down unless the checkbox for that department or has been specifically selected.

Custom Fields

This section displays all the User Custom Fields (arranged alphanumerically) previously created by Account Administrators in Settings > Custom Fields that have been made available to Resources. Account Administrators can change what fields appear for resources in Settings > Custom Fields.

Any custom fields that have been marked as required appear at the top of the Custom Fields section and they must be filled out before a Resource Request can be submitted or an unnamed resource can be staffed.

Remember that custom fields in the Resource side panel do not follow standard User custom field permissions but are instead dependent on the Resource Management Access Group permissions. In other words, if you can view a resource, you can view all their custom fields. If you can edit a resource, then you can edit their custom fields.