KB

Resource Management

2022-09-15 19:45:09

(Some features are only available on Premium level plans or higher)

Resource management involves getting a clear picture of who is available and when, in order to utilize your team’s full capacity and meet goals. You can determine how many tasks are assigned to someone, how much time they have available in a given period, the actual time or progress logged to work, and more. This article covers some of the options available to manage your resources.

The workload view

The workload view is a work view located in your tasks/tickets application. This view helps you visualize and understand the availability and overall workload of users in your organization. It shows the amount of work hours assigned to the user during the selected time period. The assigned work hours are compared with their total capacity (in hours) for that period. Under-booked time periods are indicated in green while overbooked are indicated in red.

For detailed information on the workload view, see: Workload View

For detailed information on user capacity: User Availability & User Calendar

The assignee window

The assignee window (the popup where you assign tasks to a user) has a helpful workload view built into it. The assignee window’s workload view allows you to see your user’s availability, assign a task, and set the task’s schedule – all in one place.

Accessing assignee window & assignee workload

Go to a task detail panel.

Click the 'Assign' button and you will be greeted with the assignee window.

The assignee window has a number of functions including assigning a task to someone, viewing user availability, and scheduling or rescheduling a task.

Click 'Show Workload' on the top right of the window to display the workload view. (Click 'Hide Workload' to hide the workload section).
Click the arrow on the right side, beside the dates, to show the next 7 day period.
Click the check box beside the user's name to assign a task. Clicking the checkbox will only assign the user. This action will not schedule or re-schedule the task. In other words, the user will be assigned a task at whatever it was previously scheduled. (You can still proceed to schedule/reschedule the task using any of the other scheduling options).
You can set the schedule for the task and simultaneously assign the task by clicking on the bubble(s). The light blue highlighted column(s) indicate the day(s) the task is scheduled for. Tip: Dates marked in gray are company days off. Company as well as Individual users' non-working days are indicated by the dashes (--).

Assigning and scheduling tasks from the assignee workload

Click the workload bubbles, beside the user, to simultaneously assign and schedule the task. First click the bubble under the desired start date then click the bubble under the desired finish date to schedule across multiple days. (If not already assigned, the user will be assigned to the task).

If you click the arrow located on the right side beside the dates you can move to the next week. If you click the start, then click the arrow to the next week you are able to schedule the task across multiple weeks.

To schedule for one day, click the date then click the date again to confirm.

Tip: The schedule and assignment will be changed and saved upon clicking out of the assignee window.

Note: It is NOT possible for two users to be assigned the same task on different days. In other words, two users CAN be assigned to the same task however the schedule date(s) for the task must be the same for both users.

The Gantt chart

The helpful option when using the Gantt chant for resource management is to group or filter your chart in order to see user or team tasks. The default Gantt view is grouped by project, but you can create your own customized Gantt chart and save it for use anytime.

Gantt chart grouped by user or team

Create a new saved view, by clicking the icon beside ‘My Views’ on the side panel of your tasks application. Select Gantt chart from the layouts. Select Group By → Assignee (for users) or Assignee Team.

On the blue bar directly beside the user’s name you will see that the bar gets darker or lighter blue depending on how many tasks are scheduled at that time. If it is white the user has nothing scheduled at that time. If it is dark blue the user has many tasks scheduled at that time. Green bars represent the 'actual progress,' generated by timesheets, allowing you to compare plans to actuals.

To get a better understanding of workload you can also use filters on the Gantt. Try filtering by lifecycle status to see only in progress tasks, or filter by a requester (organization) to see the tasks designated to a customer organization.

More details on custom views: Creating Custom Views

More details on timesheets: Tracking Work: Timesheets & Timers

The shared calendar

The calendar is located in your tasks application and (by default) displays all scheduled tasks. Like other views, you can narrow the view to a certain project, filter to a certain team or user, and more. The calendar view can be a helpful tool to see all your team’s schedule and tasks for a given time period. You can also create and schedule new tasks on the calendar. For full details see: Calendar view

The user calendar

The user calendar is located on each user’s profile. The user’s calendar shows the individual’s working hours, regular time off, and vacation or absence events. You can also see the tasks assigned specifically to that user and the actual work logged on those tasks.

For details see: User Availability and User Calendar.

Chart widget

The chart widget is a series of small charts at the top of your tickets and tasks applications. The chart widget provides an overview of ticket or task progress, workload, priority levels, and more.

You can click many of the chart components in order to filter your view to the property.

Tip: The chart widget corresponds to your view level. In other words, if you apply a filter or narrow to a specific project, your charts will reflect the information you are currently viewing.

Charts & Analytics

The analytics app is located on the far left side panel. Here there are a variety of charts and graphs that give insights into project burndown, velocity, workload, unsolved tickets/tasks, and more. Explore charts in the chart series drop down. Newer accounts will have some bootstrapped dashboards called ‘Team workload' and 'Resource Management.' You can create your own dashboard of the charts you like or edit existing ones.