Overview
Resource management helps teams plan who does work on their initiatives. Project Managers record the resources they need - the skills, teams, and people - and how much of their time is required. Resource Managers can then compare that demand against the time the organisation's people actually have available.
Demand is recorded on each initiative, in the Resource Demand section. Every entry starts with a skill (for example "Backend Developer"), and can also include the team and the person expected to do the work. For each time period, a Project Manager enters how much work is needed. Demand can be recorded as FTE, days or hours.
The supply and demand overview pulls demand and capacity together across every initiative in the portfolio. A Resource Manager uses it to identify where too much or too little work is planned across the organization, to spot where re-prioritization or hiring may be needed.
Permission
Action | Permission |
|---|---|
View resource demand on an initiative | View access to the initiative |
Create, edit, or delete resource demand on an initiative | Edit access to the initiative |
Open the supply and demand overview | Strategic Portfolio Member or above |
Edit resource demand and action request status across the whole portfolio | Resource Manager |
Configure resource terminology | Strategic Portfolio Administrator |
Fields on resource demand
These fields are available on every resource demand entry in Kiplot.
Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
Skill | Dropdown | The skill needed to do the work, for example Backend Developer. Every entry must have a skill - it's the starting point for planning demand, capacity, and availability. Required. |
Team | Dropdown | The team expected to do the work. Optional. |
Person | Dropdown | The person expected to do the work. Optional, and available when person-level capacity planning is turned on. |
Demand | Number | How much work is needed from this resource in a given period. A value is entered for each period across the timeline. Kiplot enables you to track this as FTE, hours or days. |
Status | Calculated | When the resource request workflow is turned on, this shows where each value has got to: Requested, Soft Allocated, Hard Allocated, or Rejected. Each row also shows an overall status, making it easy to see which rows still need attention. |
The same combination of skill, team, and person cannot be added twice on the same initiative.
Key terms
Term | Description |
|---|---|
Resource | A combination of skill, team, and person that can do work. Team and person are optional. |
Resource FTE | The total amount of resource employed in a period, measured in FTE, before leave and holidays are taken into account. |
Resource capacity | The actual working time people have available in a period, once leave, holidays, and other absences are taken off. Also referred to as supply. |
Resource demand | How much work an initiative needs in a period, measured in the same units as capacity. |
Resource request | A request for more resource that a Resource Manager reviews and then allocates, rejects, or changes. Only used when the resource request workflow is turned on. |
Resource allocation | The resource a Resource Manager commits to a request once they approve it. Only used when the resource request workflow is turned on. |
Resource Manager | A user with the Resource Manager flag, responsible for reviewing requests and deciding how resource is committed across the portfolio. |
Project Manager | A user with edit access to an initiative, who records demand and raises resource requests. |
Configuration
Resource management is a paid feature enabled by Kiplot. Contact your Account Manager to turn it on for a portfolio.
It is possible to use the resource management feature with or without the allocation workflow. The allocation workflow allows project managers to request demand and resource managers to allocate or reject requests for their teams. If you would like this switched on or off, please contact your Account Manager.
Strategic Portfolio Administrator permissions are required to configure terminology.
Administrators can rename the resource term. The word "Resource" used in actions such as "Add resource" is configurable, so it can be renamed to match the units being planned in - for example FTE or Estimate. This is managed on the Terminology page.
Managing resource demand
Edit access to the initiative is required to create and edit resource demand. View access is required to see it.
Resource demand is recorded on the initiative in the Resource Demand section. Changes are made across the table and applied together on save.
Add a resource demand entry
Open the initiative and go to the Resource Demand section.
Press "Add resource".
Select the skill, and optionally a team and person.
Enter the demand value for each period needed.
Press Save.
Assign demand to a team or person
On the resource demand row, select the team, and optionally the person.
Press Save.
Work can be planned for a team without choosing a specific person. If that combination of skill, team, and person already exists on the initiative, Kiplot shows an error instead of creating a duplicate.
Edit demand values
Click into the cell to change and enter the new value.
Repeat for any other cells.
Press Save to apply the changes, or discard them to revert.
When the resource request workflow is enabled, edits follow the request rules described in the Managing resource requests section.
Change the skill or assignment on a row
On the resource demand row, open the table actions and select change skill or change assignment.
Choose the new skill, team, or person.
Check the row - every period that has a value is highlighted in orange and these are the cells that your change will affect.
Press Save to apply, or discard to cancel the change.
Changing the skill or assignment updates the existing row rather than creating a new one. When the resource request workflow is turned on, it replaces what was committed before and raises a new request for every period that has a value in the row.
Delete a resource demand row
On the resource demand row, open the table actions and select delete.
Confirm the deletion.
Deleting a row removes it from view. If the row has resource committed to it, that resource is removed too and the time it was using is freed up. A row can be deleted whatever its status, and whether or not it has values in past periods.
Save or discard changes
All changes are made across the table and then applied together with a single Save button. Press Save to apply everything at once, or discard to undo it. If something isn't right, Kiplot shows the error next to the affected value or row so it's clear what to fix before saving.