Resourcing in Ruddr involves aligning future work assignments to workspace members. This enables you to project the amount of work the organization will need to deliver in the future and identify the people and skills needed to do the work. Effective resourcing helps your organization maximize billable utilization and deliver optimal revenue performance.
Resourcing is increasingly vital as an organization scales its headcount. With small organizations, a formal resourcing system may be unnecessary, as the leadership can manage resource allocation using a spreadsheet. But, when a team grows to dozens or hundreds of members, a more robust resourcing system is needed.
The primary business benefits of a proper resource management system are:
- Optimal Revenue Generation - Resourcing helps ensure that all team members have enough work. This enables the organization as a whole to achieve its billable utilization and revenue goals for the period.
- Proactive Recruiting - Resourcing helps you understand the future demand on your resource supply for months into the future. This information informs internal recruiters as to the specific skills and roles needed by the organization.
- Higher Client Satisfaction - Without a resourcing system, new projects sometimes don't start on time because team members are still working on other projects. With a resourcing system in place, projects are more likely to start on time which protects client satisfaction.
- Lower Turnover and Better Morale - When an organization lacks a resourcing system, it periodically creates "feast or famine" situations for the team members. Sometimes team members have more work than they can possibly deliver and other times they have very little work. Both of these extremes result in lower morale and higher turnover.
Enabling Resourcing in Ruddr
The resourcing feature in Ruddr can be enabled or disabled within the Features section (Figure 1) of workspace Settings. Since smaller organizations may not need resourcing capabilities, Ruddr allows this feature set to be turned off. To enable or disable resourcing, simply click the Resource Allocations toggle (Figure 2) in the Features section.
Figure 1 - Access Features from Ruddr Workspace Settings
Figure 2 - Turn on Resource Allocations via the Features Section of Workspace Settings
When resourcing is turned on, a new Resources navigation option (Figure 3) will show in the nav bar on the left of the screen. This nav bar option will only be visible to workspace members who are assigned a security role that has access to resourcing. Clicking this nav option will bring up the resource allocations screen (Figure 4).
Figure 3 - The Resources Navigation Option will Display when the Feature is Enabled
Figure 4 - Resource Allocations Screen
Resource Allocation Permissions
There are two security role settings that determine if a workspace member can view or administer resource allocations. These settings exist within the Resource Allocation Permissions section (Figure 5) of the security role definition. A Workspace Admin can access the workspace security roles by navigating to Settings from the nav bar and clicking on the Security Roles section.
The two security role options relevant to resource allocation are shown below.
Figure 5 - Set Applicable Resource Allocations Permissions when Defining Security Roles
When a workspace member's assigned security role has the View all member resource allocations permission checked, that member will be shown the new Resources nav bar option (Figure 3). On the Allocations screen, the member will be able to view all resource allocations across all members and projects within the workspace. The member will not be able to create, edit, or delete allocations. The member will also be able to view allocations on the Allocations tab of each project dashboard.
To create, edit, or delete resource allocations, a member's security role must have the Administer all member resource allocations permission checked. These allocations can be edited from the Allocations screen (Figure 4) or from the project dashboard.