We have a customer who needs to review resource availability at different levels within the organization.
The first level of output will provide the overall Availability/Occupancy Rate for the entire organization. The second level will drill down into the operational team level, breaking the data down by teams such as Functional, Technical, System Admin, etc. The third level will then break down the operational teams further into domain-specific categories, such as the relevant resource groups (e.g., combining DM leads into the DM team for clarity). The fourth level will further refine the data by breaking it down into roles such as lead and consultant levels within the relevant resource groups, for instance, showing Tech leads, DM leads, and Software Engineers in the technical team. Finally, the fifth level will display individual occupancy rates, providing the most granular level of detail for each resource.
I understand that we could facilitate this requirement by adding employee allocation to resource planning in the project module. However, resource planning at the employee level may become a burden for Project Managers in their day-to-day tasks.
Hence, is there any guidance or advice on how to fulfill this requirement in IFS?
Best answer by desilvasachitha
Hi @RASFE, I’m sure you already know this, but starting from the beginning just in case. Here’s how I would go about solving this question, for the first 4 levels you can have a Resource Structure and 3 child Resource Groups which cascades down as follows. As the 5th level Individual Person Resources (against which an employee record is also connected) can be connected to the Master structure (the highlighted row below)
Thereafter you can use the “Resource Analysis” view for the same structure to assess the “Capacity versus Demand” switching between each level.
Managing the Resource Capacity But first you will need to execute the command ‘Generate Capacity for the Resource Groups” and set the “Capacity Calculation Basis” accordingly (Group or Individuals, if it is Group make sure to set the “Resource Qty for Calculation”). Please note that in my example I have set the “Capacity Calculation Basis” as “Individuals”.
Managing the Resource Demands For this example I am simply using only the ‘Project based demand’ against these resource groups, but depending on the demand generating sources available at your organization (e.g., Work Task, Shop Order, PM Action, Production Schedule, Training, Absences, Misc. Allocations, Crew and etc.) users will see demand allocations coming from all those sources and can compare the ‘demands’ against the ‘capacity’.
I have planned for a Project demand on the 4th level Resource Group as follows.
If you use the “Resource Analysis” view now, you would see that this demand could be viewed from the 1st level = Structure level through to the 4th Level = specific Resource group level that was planned on a Project as demand gets rolled up.
However, there will be nothing under the 5th level as there are no specific demand allocations made. But you can still view the capacity on the individual resource.
As you’ve mentioned on your original statement going for employee allocation on Project level could prove to be quite laborious for PMs or any other liable planners plus if there are work coming from sources other than projects this could prove to be challenging.
Having said that for you to get the granularity at the 5th level (individual level) you would still need to make an employee allocation from projects as otherwise system has no way of associating demands at that lowest level. If it is a smaller team you could still manage with employee allocations given that lowest level details at the individual level is a must. Assuming if you go ahead with employee allocations Resource Analysis view will show that at the 5th (lowest level) of the structure as follows.
Perhaps you could check if “Resource Shift Gantt” works for you to get an idea on the individual level resource allocations. However, it is important to note that this Gantt will only show you Normal Shifts, On Call shifts, Break, Lunch, Absences not any demand allocations as you would see on the ‘Resource Analysis” view.
This is a long shot but alternatively, you can use “Resource Monitoring Gantt” to check the allocations coming from the Work Order/Task side for the specific individual resource purely based on the WT allocations.
Hi @RASFE, I’m sure you already know this, but starting from the beginning just in case. Here’s how I would go about solving this question, for the first 4 levels you can have a Resource Structure and 3 child Resource Groups which cascades down as follows. As the 5th level Individual Person Resources (against which an employee record is also connected) can be connected to the Master structure (the highlighted row below)
Thereafter you can use the “Resource Analysis” view for the same structure to assess the “Capacity versus Demand” switching between each level.
Managing the Resource Capacity But first you will need to execute the command ‘Generate Capacity for the Resource Groups” and set the “Capacity Calculation Basis” accordingly (Group or Individuals, if it is Group make sure to set the “Resource Qty for Calculation”). Please note that in my example I have set the “Capacity Calculation Basis” as “Individuals”.
Managing the Resource Demands For this example I am simply using only the ‘Project based demand’ against these resource groups, but depending on the demand generating sources available at your organization (e.g., Work Task, Shop Order, PM Action, Production Schedule, Training, Absences, Misc. Allocations, Crew and etc.) users will see demand allocations coming from all those sources and can compare the ‘demands’ against the ‘capacity’.
I have planned for a Project demand on the 4th level Resource Group as follows.
If you use the “Resource Analysis” view now, you would see that this demand could be viewed from the 1st level = Structure level through to the 4th Level = specific Resource group level that was planned on a Project as demand gets rolled up.
However, there will be nothing under the 5th level as there are no specific demand allocations made. But you can still view the capacity on the individual resource.
As you’ve mentioned on your original statement going for employee allocation on Project level could prove to be quite laborious for PMs or any other liable planners plus if there are work coming from sources other than projects this could prove to be challenging.
Having said that for you to get the granularity at the 5th level (individual level) you would still need to make an employee allocation from projects as otherwise system has no way of associating demands at that lowest level. If it is a smaller team you could still manage with employee allocations given that lowest level details at the individual level is a must. Assuming if you go ahead with employee allocations Resource Analysis view will show that at the 5th (lowest level) of the structure as follows.
Perhaps you could check if “Resource Shift Gantt” works for you to get an idea on the individual level resource allocations. However, it is important to note that this Gantt will only show you Normal Shifts, On Call shifts, Break, Lunch, Absences not any demand allocations as you would see on the ‘Resource Analysis” view.
This is a long shot but alternatively, you can use “Resource Monitoring Gantt” to check the allocations coming from the Work Order/Task side for the specific individual resource purely based on the WT allocations.
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