Resource requests submitted from Projects and Programmes (as explained in section Resource Demand) will be pushed to the Resource Approval board. This will be used by the Resource Manager to see all requests, evaluate capacity, assign named resources and approve days. These updates will be returned back to the requesting Project/Programme.
Resource Approval Board Feature Summary
The Resource Approval board is accessed via the Resource Management area.
It shows requests to be approved in the top section. The bottom section shows resource capacity. As you click into a row at the top, the capacity section dynamically positions on the respective Team Member. When entering Approved Days at the top, the related resource capacity is reduced at the bottom.
Processing a Resource Request
NOTE: Resource Approval requests will only appear if the Resource Manager is logged in with an Account that has permissions to approve that Role. The Approval permissions are set in the Approvals tab of the Project Role:
In the above example only Ben or Gero will be able to approve Resource Demand for the Tester Role.
Take the following steps to work with a request:
Assessing and Changing Team Members
Click on Request row to position the Capacity grid on the requested Role and show associated team members and their capacity.
Review the ‘Demand’ days requested against Team Member capacities shown.
Click on Team Member and change it to the one you wish to assign. Click again to position on the related Capacity row.
In the Request, click into a cell within a specific month – the related Capacity value will be shown with a blue frame.
Entering Approved Days
For each request, enter the number of Approved Days next to the Demand Days within the respective month. The variance between the two will be calculated.
As you enter Approved Days, the related remaining capacity for the team member will be updated in the Capacity grid below.
Approving the Resource Request
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Click this button to approve the resource request with the Approved Days you have entered, then click to Confirm. IMPORTANT Be aware that you need to hit Save at the top to finalise the transaction. If you refresh the browser (after saving), any approved request rows will disappear, as by default only rows with status ‘Requested’ are shown. |
Recall and Revise
By default, only Resource Requests with status ‘Requested’ are shown.
To reveal requests previously approved use the Filters section in the top grid and select the ‘Approved’ status.
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On an ‘Approved’ row, this button is available to revise the request. Click it to change the status to ‘Revision’, which will make Approved Days available for editing. Make changes as required and click Approve again (then click Save to finalise). |
Change Tracking
Request level change tracking is available when hovering (for a tool tip preview) or clicking on the comment icon under the Changes column for full details. Note: This feature is available both at Resource Approval stage, and on the Resource Demand page of a Project.
The Change Tracking screen can also be expanded (line by line) to show full historical data:
For Resource Demand entries that have been Re-Requested, changed Demand numbers will be highlighted in light blue and the previously requested number can be seen when hovering over each cell.
Skills
Skills can be requested as part of the Resource Demand entry at Project level (See previous article) and any such requests will appear in the Skills column:
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In order to accommodate this request, the Resource Manager will be assisted by the use of filters to identify the most appropriate resource to assign to each Project. The Capacity section (bottom half of screen) will be filtered based on where you click in the Resource Demand section (top half of screen).
For example if the request specifies both French AND Programming as Skills required for the Project to be resourced, the Resource Manager can simply click on the Skills Column next to the relevant Project, and only those rows with one or both of these Skills will be displayed:
Resource Demand can now be approved as required.
Further Tips
To make your work more productive:
- Apply a filter to work with Requests relating to one specific resource role at a time and review those requests in combination, assessing their total impact.
- There is no ‘Reject’ feature – entering zero Days Approved has the same effect.
- Sorting by Last Status Change date/time column makes it easy to see.
- Which requests have come in most recently.
- Which requests are the oldest and therefore require your attention most.
- Use the ‘Pop-up’ feature to expand your screen space as explained in Navigation and User Interface.
Resource Reports
We recommend that you use the Power BI Resource Reports as a companion tool to review resource remaining capacity and utilisation.