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# Use other staffing profile features

Staffing profiles have other features that are useful for resource managers.

In this topic:

## Staffing profiles and Portfolio Management

Portfolio Management allows you to create proposals, projects, and assets to build and monitor your portfolio. If a staffing profile is associated with one of these Portfolio Management entities (proposal, project, or asset), then the dates on that staffing profile are determined by the entity to which it has been linked. If the dates for that entity change, the staffing profile's start and finish dates are also altered.

## Default resource pools for staffing profiles

The Default Resource Pool field is used to specify a default resource pool from which a staffing profile makes requests. This can be a convenient way to save time when creating new lines for a staffing profile.

## Hide staffing profile user data field name

When the description of the user data field is started with "!", the user data field name is the value behind the "!". Therefore, if you want to hide the user data field name, set the field description to "!" only.

## Special command for baseline staffing profile

You can use the system special command `ksc_create_baseline_staffing_profile` to create baselines for staffing profiles that are associated with projects. This special command includes the following two default parameters:

- STAFFING_PROFILE_ID
- SP_BASELINE_NAME

You can configure the special command in the following entities:

- Object types
- Request types
- Report types
- Validations
- Workflow step sources

Note: To use this special command, you must have the edit special command access grant. For details about how to use special commands, see Commands, Tokens, and Validations Guide and Reference.

Exceptions

If you run this special command in the following scenarios, you receive errors:

- You do not have the permission to create baseline in the project.
- You create a base line for a staffing profile which is not associated with any project.

## Calculate forecasted labor costs from staffing profiles

Financial Management enables you to organize and track costs. You can roll up actual costs from a work plan to the financial summary. If you choose to calculate forecasted labor costs from the staffing profile position forecasts and allocations, lines are created in financial summaries for planned labor costs that are automatically calculated using cost rate rules.

For details on cost rate rules and financial summaries, see the Financial Management User Guide. For details about Financial Management settings in the Cost and Effort policy, see Project Management User Guide and Financial Management User Guide.

PPM keeps two decimals when calculating forecasted labor costs and thus may lead to tiny deviation in Financial Summary.

Note: For example, there are 23 working days in May 2012. You fill 10 hours as labor costs in this month. PPM stores data by working day, so the average labor cost per day is 10 / 23 = 0.434782608695652. When PPM calculates forecasted labor costs in Financial Summary, the forecasted labor costs in May 2012 is 0.434782608695652 * 40.45 * 23 = 404.4999999999998382 not 10 * 40.45 = 404.5.

For more examples of Unmet Demand Calculation, see Unmet demand calculation sample scenarios.

## Enter actuals directly

You can specify actual load or effort for a position directly from the Legacy UI of the Staffing Profile page.

Note: You cannot enter actuals in the position dialog box opened from the New UI of the Staffing Profile page. It is read-only.

1. Open the staffing profile.

2. Click the position for which you want to enter actuals.

3. In the Assignments Needed table, scroll down to the user for which you want to enter actuals and provide the actual effort.

4. If you want to add actuals for additional users, click Save. Otherwise, click Done to save your data and exit the dialog.

The actual effort can be viewed in the Analyze Assignment Load portlet.

Note: Data display format inconsistency between the staffing profile page and the Analyze Assignment Load portlet: the staffing profile page displays data by hours in the format of one decimal place, while the Analyze Assignment Load portlet displays data in the format of two decimal places.

If the staffing profile is associated with a project, the actual effort can be used to track resource usage. This is controlled through the project's settings in the Cost and Effort policy. For more information on project settings and policies, see the Project Management User Guide.

## Allocation time period adjustment

When a project (with a staffing profile associated with it) changes its start/end date, the last viewed forecasts and allocations (either hours or FTE) is maintained while the non-viewed allocation is adjusted. For example, if a project (starting in January and ending in February, viewed in FTEs with one FTE per month) is adjusted back by one month (starting in December and ending in January), the allocation time period for each month is maintained at 1 FTE per month while the hours are adjusted to equal 1 FTE per month. Or, if the project (for the month of January is viewed in hours with 80 hours) is adjusted ahead by one month (to February), the allocation time period for February is maintained at 80 hours while the FTE is adjusted to equal 80 hours.

## Promised allocations

Promised allocations are resource allocations who are not specifically named or identified. They can be used when a resource is allocated but the resource is not defined in PPM (for example, a subcontractor). Or, they can be used to commit resources and then assign a specific resource at a later time. Actuals cannot be entered for promised allocations.

This feature must be enabled and can be used from the staffing profile and Resource Allocation Management page. To enable this feature, set the `ENABLE_PROMISE_RESOURCE_ALLOCATION` parameter to TRUE. To add, assign, modify or delete promised allocations, the user must have the Resource Mgmt: Promise Unspecified Resources access grant.

Calculations, such as unmet demand, current demand, and remaining capacity, always include promised allocations. Even if this feature is disabled, if promised allocations exist (that is, values were entered before the feature was disabled), then promised allocations are used in all calculations even though they are not viewable from the interface.

Calculations that rely on a calendar (such as recalculating a promised allocation from hours to FTE or when rolling up forecasted labor costs from the staffing profile to a financial summary) use the regional calendar of the resource pool of the position to which the promised allocation belongs. The regional calendar determines the promised allocation's working and non-working days. A resource calendar cannot be set up for a promised allocation.

## Synchronize staffing profile dates with project dates

Prerequisites: Enable the feature Synchronize Staffing Profile Dates with Project Dates.

When a project's Planned Start and Finish Period change, the Start and End Period of its associated staffing profile are updated automatically.

You can manually adjust staffing profile Start and End Period to be different from those of a project. The staffing profile Start and End Period will be synchronized when the project's Planned Start and Finish Period are changed next time.

If project dates are changed after staffing profiles are created and resources are allocated, PPM detects the existing allocations and prompts you with options to:

- Clear. Clears existing resource allocations without sending resource requests.
- Clear and Request Resource. Clears allocations and sends resource requests to resource pools.
- OK (when both start and end dates change). Keeps existing allocations unchanged.

These options give project managers better control over how resource assignments are handled when project timelines shift.

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