Set up resources

Before using Resource Management, you must first define your resources. A resource is someone assigned to work. Each PPM user can be considered as a resource. To set up resources, you first create a user and then assign resource attributes like roles and skills to the user.

Resource attributes

Resources can have many attributes such as:

  • First and last name

  • Phone number

  • Email address

  • Direct manager

  • Department

  • Role

  • Skills

  • Region

  • Time sheet approver

Key resource attributes

Table 3-1. Key resource attributes describes resource attributes that are especially useful. To take full advantage of Resource Management functionality, these attributes should be defined for every resource.

Table 3-1. Key resource attributes

Attribute

Utilization

Role

Used in resource booking and building staffing profiles and resource pools (see Use resource pool to track resource capacity), roles can define responsibilities to describe resource requirements.

For details, see Create, modify, and delete a role.

Skills

Describes resource requirements for tasks and staffing profile positions, including abilities or areas of knowledge beyond the role description.

For details, see Create, modify, and delete a skill.

Region

Determines a resource's regional calendar and currency settings. A resource can inherit their region setting from their primary organization unit, or have it specified directly.

For details on regions and regional calendars, see Set up a regional calendar.

For details on currency settings, see Financial Management.

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Set resource attributes

A new resource cannot be created from scratch. Each resource corresponds to a PPM user in a one-to-one mapping. You first create users and then assign resource attributes to the user. You can set attributes for a resource or multiple resources simultaneously.

Note: The system takes into account users' start and end dates for resource capacity calculations and visualizations. For example, a user scheduled to leave the company cannot be assigned to tasks or staffing profiles beyond their end date. Similarly, users starting work in the future can be selected for future tasks.

In addition, the system takes into account a resource's participation in a resource pool for resource capacity calculations and visualizations. If a resource belongs to one or more resource pools, their capacity is non-zero.

Set attributes for a single resource

To set attributes for a single resource:

  1. Log on to PPM.

  2. Select Search > Administrative > Resources from the menu bar.

  3. On the Search Resources page, the Search for Resources area, specify any search criteria and click Search.

  4. Click Username of a resource to open the Modify Resource page.

  5. On the General tab, set attributes for the resource.

    When financial summary settings are set to calculate forecasted labor costs from the staffing profile, the cost category is used to categorize costs of work allocations.

    The Organization Information area lists the primary organization unit to which the resource belongs.

    Note: If a resource is assigned to a position and you change the resource’s full name, the change is reflected on the Staffing Profile page, but not reflected in the Resource Forecast Cost chart of the Cost tab on the Project Overview page.

  6. To add a role and skills for the resource, click the Role / Skill tab, and specify attributes in the corresponding fields.

  7. Click Save.

  8. (Optional) To view the history of changes made to the resource, click View Audit Trail.

    The Resource Audit Trail dialog box tracks changes to the resource's cost-related attributes: resource category, org unit, department, region, role, and time sheet policy.

Set attributes for multiple resources

You can modify attributes for multiple resources simultaneously, such as assigning a role or region, without updating each resource individually.

To set attributes for multiple resources:

  1. From the menu bar, select Search > Administrative > Resources to open the Search Resources page.

  2. Specify any search criteria in the Search for Resources area and click Search.

  3. Select the checkboxes of resources you want to modify and click Modify Checked Resources.

  4. Provide data for the desired resource attributes.

  5. Click Save to save all changes to the resources.

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Set up resource calendar

A resource's calendar specifies working and non-working days for the resource. By default, a resource inherits all non-working days from the regional calendar the resource uses. You can modify the resource's calendar from the Modify Resource page.

Note: Resources that are part of a security group with the Edit My Calendar access grant can edit their own calendars.

To set a resource's calendar:

  1. Open the resource's Modify Resource page as described in Set resource attributes.

  2. Click the Calendar tab.

  3. Select a day or range of days by using Shift + click or Ctrl+ click.

  4. Choose the Non-Working day option to mark the selected days as non-working.

    Optionally, select a Reason and provide a Description.

  5. Click Save.

    The resource's calendar is set and is used to calculate that resource's capacity in Resource Management visualizations.

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Resource security

Resource information can have various layers of security applied to it. Depending on a user's access grants, they can view their own resource information, view information of other resources, edit information for resources they manage, or edit all resources in the system. These access grants also apply when using the Analyze Assignment Load visualizations. Table 3-2. Resource information access grants describes these access grants in more detail.

Table 3-2. Resource information access grants

Access Grant

Description

View my own personal resource info only

Users with this access grant can only view their own resource information.

View all resources

Users with this access grant can view information of all resources in the system.

To use the following RESTful web service, you must also have this access grant:
http://<PPM_Server_IP>:<port>/itg/rest/tm/user?name=<usename>
Otherwise, you can only view the information of yourself.

Edit only resources that I manage

Users with this access grant can view and edit information of resources that they manage.

Edit all resources

Users with this access grant can view and edit information of all resources in the system.

Edit My Calendar

Users with this access grant can edit their own resource calendar.

Promise Unspecified Resources

Users with this access grant can add, assign, modify, and remove promised allocations.

To view promised allocation, the ENABLE_PROMISE_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION parameter must be enabled.

View Only Resources That I Manage in My Resource Pool

Provides view-only access to resource profiles. Users with this access grant can view the resource profiles for resources in the resource pools (including child pools) that they manage. When the user opens the View Resource page, all information is read-only.

Note: This access grant is for scenarios where resource information is imported from an external system. Assigning this access grant to users (resource pool managers and direct managers) maintains data integrity between PPM and the resource source.

View Only Resources That I Manage as a Direct Managera

Provides view-only access to resource profiles. Users with this access grant can view the resource profiles for resources that they directly manage. When the user opens the View Resource page, all information is read-only.

Note: This access grant is for scenarios where resource information is imported from an external system. Assigning this access grant to users (resource pool managers and direct managers) maintains data integrity between PPM and the resource source.

Access grants are linked to a user through their security group membership. For more information on user security, see Get started with the PPM Security Model.

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See also: