The Best Resource Allocation Software List
Here’s a shortlist of the best resource allocation software:
- monday.com
Best for businesses that need a wide selection of customization options
- Wrike
Best for flexibility & customizability
- Parallax
Best predictive resourcing & forecasting tools
- Productive
Best for agencies and consultancies
- Resource Guru
Best for small businesses that want to scale
- Saviom
Best for its focus on reducing resourcing costs
- Runn
Best for real-time resource tracking, allocation and forecasting
- BigTime
Best resource allocation software for managing time and expenses
- Kantata
Best for large enterprises
- Forecast
Best for automating work distribution
Identifying available resources for a project is difficult without resource allocation software. Especially in cross-functional projects, since you risk overlooking another assignment coming in simultaneously and having an overallocated person.
The software options on this list can help you see your pool of resources, their estimated workload, and timelines where you can see the dates when a resource will be free. This helps you perform resource forecasting to ensure all your future project resource needs are met.
Having all of these features and capabilities in the palm of your hands gives you the tools to prioritize the allocation of resources that might be under-allocated or on a bench.
How I Picked The Best Resource Allocation Software
After carefully researching the most popular tools on the market, I selected the ones that made more sense in the context of resource allocation. I then drafted criteria that could be used to evaluate this type of software and help with a good evaluation method of the top tools out there.
What do I look for when I select the best resource allocation software? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
Project Staffing Features
I look for all the ways in which you can improve your project staffing experience. One of the features I focused on was the skills database. Knowing what your team is capable of can help select the best team for the job. Another one I love is placeholders. This helps you with resource forecasting by creating allocations for resources in specific roles and use that information to analyze if you have the talent required or need to look for it. It helps inform all stakeholders and set priorities.
Visual Allocation Indicators
I look for software that has a visual way of distinguishing resources that need your attention. Therefore, most of the software on this list uses some variation of color shading to show over and under allocated resources.
Integrations
Modern businesses rely on a multitude of apps to get the job done. A good resource allocation software has to integrate seamlessly with a lot of different apps to extend its functionality and act as a hub to a range of tools from your current tech stack.
Pricing
Since it most probably won't be the only tool you use, the resource management solution has to be affordable. I looked at current prices per month on a monthly plan and information on free trials, demos and anything that lets you test the software.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Resource Allocation Software
Here’s a brief description of each of the best resource allocation software on my list showing what it does best, plus screenshots to showcase some of the software’s features.
monday.com
Best for businesses that need a wide selection of customization options
monday.com is a work management platform that specializes not just in project management but also in resource planning and allocation. Its Work OS is designed to streamline a wide variety of factors typically associated with projects and resource management, specifically workflows.
Why I picked monday.com: Its Work OS is equipped with several features that effectively address most of the resource management concerns many businesses deal with when managing multiple projects at varying complexities.
One of its main features is the resource management template, which features more than 200 selections. The resource management templates can be customized to provide users with a complete overview of their resources and how they are allocated and utilized. This kind of dashboard can also provide detailed information about the tasks that were assigned to specific individuals and the progress level of those tasks. This allows project managers to keep track of team member activities and the tasks they’re currently working on, resulting in more effective resource management.
Another key feature that works well with the resource allocation and management solution is the dashboard widget. monday.com is equipped with a highly customizable dashboard with widgets that can incorporate different boards for more comprehensive insights into the current resource status.
monday.com Standout Features & Integrations
Features include resource and project management, time tracking, collaboration, file management, collaborative docs and reporting dashboards.
Integrations include project management apps like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform and many more, accessible via Zapier.
Wrike
Best for flexibility & customizability
Wrike is a feature-rich project management tool with resource allocation capabilities that is highly configurable and allows you to fully customize dashboards, request forms, workflows, and reports.
Why I picked Wrike: You can uncover meaningful insights with the platform’s resource management and allocation feature, performance reporting, as well as its time-tracking tool. Wrike offers a level of visibility that enables you to maximize resources throughout the entire organization.
It features a basic but intuitive interface that allows users to easily switch between views, including interactive drag-and-drop Gantt charts, Kanban boards, lists, and conventional workload views, providing real-time resource management information at a glance.
Wrike also features a user-friendly interface and navigation system equipped with well-designed spaces, along with distinct tasks and folders. Users can simply toggle between the home screen and their calendars, timesheets, reports, and different dashboards. It even provides them with access to a stream for their messages and notifications. The cloud-based platform comes with a dedicated help center with interactive training features, user guides, videos, and other learning materials.
Wrike Standout Features & Integrations
Features include project management, task scheduling/tracking, resource management, expense tracking, budgeting, Gantt charts, marketing automations, collaboration support, and reporting.
Integrations include 400+ pre-built native integrations, including some of the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.
Parallax
Best predictive resourcing & forecasting tools
Parallax is a resource planning and forecasting solution designed for companies of all sizes that need to increase utilization. The software enables teams to take advantage of predictive resourcing and active forecasting to unlock the potential for measured business growth, better revenue, and stronger margins.
Why I picked Parallax: Its predictive resource management software empowers you to optimize and analyze current supply and demand. Its resource planning tool helps assess planned capacity and resource requirements with a higher degree of certainty. You can effortlessly evaluate utilization, balance workloads, and match the right resources to the appropriate projects for optimal performance.
In addition, Parallax’s predictive resource management software enables you to allocate available resources and best-matched team members through advanced search tools and custom tagging. These functions help identify open project roles and determine the best resource match according to the skills required and when the work will occur. Project leads can also use such tools for allocating the most qualified team members based on available capacity. They can then update their resource plans and forecasts automatically.
Apart from resource allocation, Parallax also allows you to balance workloads and track time and resource capacity. The platform’s People alerts feature notifies you so you can act on the most immediate issues that may impact team engagement before those issues become serious and costly.
Parallax’s predictive resource management software is also capable of tracking team members who may be dealing with potential burnout, people who are over- or underutilized, as well as personnel who are simply overdue for a change. Balancing workloads across teams and projects can be difficult without the right solution.
Parallax Standout Features & Integrations
Features include billable capacity planning, resource forecasting, assignments, real-time workload adjustment, financial snapshots, and timesheet actuals.
Integrations include Hubspot, Harvest, Asana, Slack, MS Teams, Tempo, Salesforce, and Jira.
Productive
Best for agencies and consultancies
Productive is a tool designed with agencies and consultancies in mind. You can use it to coordinate in-house resources with externalized services in actual time. They have simple graphs and charts that can chart multi-channel budgets and predict profitability week over week.
Productive has a good interface that’s easy to navigate. The software enables you to restrict your freelance collaborators' access to your projects and other digital resources without affecting their ability to track time.
This software enables you to forecast budget spend, track each project’s budget, and reallocate resources as you see fit.
Productive costs from $17/user/month and offers a free 14-day trial.
Resource Guru
Best for small businesses that want to scale
Resource Guru is a budget-friendly resource planning software that’s perfect for small businesses that want to scale.
Why I picked Resource Guru: This tool gives you a fast and simple way to manage digital resources. You can see what resources are allocated to a certain project and identify potential bottlenecks or pain points that might come up so you can plan ahead.
The software’s interface is user-friendly and anyone can learn it quickly. The color scheme makes it easy to manage the right resources across different projects. Each member of your team gets an availability bar, so you can learn how many hours of work you can allocate at a glance.
Resource Guru Standout Features & Integrations
Features include resource scheduling, resource management, leave management, project scheduling, capacity planning, and forecasting reports.
Integrations include calendar apps like Slack, Asana, Trello, Salesforce CRM, Microsoft Office 365, Hub Planner, Basecamp, Outlook calendar, Calendly, and Google calendar. Thousands of additional apps are accessible through Zapier.
Saviom
Best for its focus on reducing resourcing costs
Saviom’s multidimensional resource scheduler helps you allocate the right resource to the right job at the right time. It provides a Gantt chart view of resources with easy drag and drop to facilitate real-time allocation and meet dynamically changing needs.
Why I picked Saviom: The tool offers advanced filters that help you view multiple resource attributes, such as skills, qualifications, experience, cost, etc, for an optimized allocation. It helps maintain an up-to-date skill inventory of resources across the enterprise. Further, the tool provides an automated resource-requesting system that helps maintain an audit trail and makes allocation seamless.
Forecasting and capacity planning helps bridge the demand vs. capacity gap in advance for timely allocation of competent resources. Utilization heat maps provides multidimensional view of under and overutilized resources allowing managers to take corrective measures to optimize the workforce.
Another unique functionality of Saviom is its open-seat feature, where you can publish open positions along with project details, and qualified resources can show interest in these tasks. This lets you select best-fit resources by considering their interests before allocation.
Further, the tool's bulk booking feature allows businesses to manage multiple allocations and make bulk scheduling changes quickly. The tool also provides different real-time Business Intelligence (BI) reports and role-based customizable dashboards to track and adjust resource allocations if necessary.
Another distinctive characteristic of Saviom is its modeling and simulation technique that allows you to prepare multiple project scenarios in a sandbox environment. This enables you to choose the most viable resource plan to facilitate successful allocation.
Saviom Standout Features & Integrations
Features include a multidimensional resource scheduler and planner, advanced forecasting and capacity planning, and real-time business intelligence.
Integrations include Outlook, Google, Salesforce, Jira, and custom integrations you can build using its data exchange framework.
Runn
Best for real-time resource tracking, allocation and forecasting
Runn is a resource allocation and scheduling software with powerful visualization and analytics features. Its simple and intuitive interface makes it easy to keep track of who is assigned to what, spot overbookings, identify resourcing patterns, and more.
Scheduling allocations is incredibly easy in Runn. With a simple drag-and-drop, users can create project phases, resource allocations and time off. Unique to Runn are the real-time charts and scenario planning functionalities, which let users instantly see changes to workload, availability, and utilization in one place.
Runn’s built-in time tracking and timesheets let users monitor how their projects are going and compare how much time was worked with what was planned. Runn’s reporting and analytics provide up-to-date data in one place so users can keep tabs on insights like utilization, project variance, and overall financial performance.
Runn integrates with Harvest, WorkflowMax, and Clockify, and users can also use Runn’s API to build their own integrations.
Run offers a free 14-day trial. A freemium plan is available for companies of 5 or fewer people. For the Pro plan, Runn costs $10 per scheduled person per month. Annual and non-profit discounts are also available.
BigTime
Best resource allocation software for managing time and expenses
BigTime’s resource management software is tailored for professional service firms. It aims to make things easier for users, especially when it comes to optimizing their organization’s staff and resource capacity. The software helps to ensure companies and project teams avoid over/underutilizing their resources by providing complete project visibility.
Why I picked BigTime: The software provides a clear view of staff and available resources when planning projects and preparing schedules. A dashboard is available for admins and managers to use as a reference when figuring out which of their staff is available to work on a specific project and how much time they can allocate for each individual. Project managers can use that dashboard to course correct if they discover a potential issue, bottlenecks, or breakdowns in the pipeline.
Another key aspect of BigTime’s resource management solution is skills matching. This feature is crucial for companies that handle multiple projects that require unique skill sets and roles. The software allows them to configure categories so they can easily group different skills based on the needs of their organization. In addition to configuring different skill categories, users can also keep track of and access the profiles of staff members by their unique skill sets. With this, allocating personnel to each project based on their specific skills will be more efficient.
BigTime Standout Features & Integrations
Features include Project Budgeting, Tracking, and Alerts, Invoicing and Template Editor, Payment Processing, Client Portal, Revenue Recognition, Financial Reporting
Integrations include QuickBooks, Jira, HubSpot, Slack, Salesforce, and more.
BigTime Plans & Pricing
Pricing for BigTime starts at $10 per user/month with a minimum of five users, billed annually. A 14-day free trial is available for all premium plans.
Kantata
Best for large enterprises
Kantata is a tool that’s easy to integrate into an existing software ecosystem. The software connects with a large number of third-party apps and add-ons that you can set-up with ease. This makes them a great choice for enterprises that have many SaaS and on-premise tools on-the-go and need them to speak together seamlessly.
Why I picked Kantata: The software has everything you need to plan for and respond to project demands. While specific views can give you information on how booked a resource is, other features let you bring to your projects people who have the right skills. The skills database will also give you information on skill gaps you have, so you can address them before they become a problem.
You can use Kantata to set the right level of project visibility for each of your team members, which means you can see the project’s budget or percentage of completion, but regular users can see fewer details. The software enables you to track different aspects of every project, making it easy to allocate the necessary resources to get the job done quickly.
Kantata’s time management solution is easy to use, and you can see which specific tasks demand more of your team’s time to better plan ahead.
Kantata Standout Features & Integrations
Features include built-in reports, custom reporting and trend analysis, resource management features like real-time utilization, resource forecasting and capacity management, and accounting tools like project costing, budget management, and invoicing.
Integrations include pre-built integrations with tools like Expensify, G Suite, Netsuite, Jira, Hubspot, Xero, Salesforce, Slack, Concur, Qualtrics, Dynamics 365, and Quickbooks. They also provide an integration platform called M-Bridge to help you build your own integrations.
Forecast
Best for automating work distribution
Forecast is a resource management software that can help you keep track of allocated resources.
Why I picked Forecast: One of the things that make Forecast stand out from its competitors is the fact that it enables you to leverage AI to automate repetitive tasks or processes. The automation functionality helps you organize tasks and can distribute the work to your team members, removing some of the manual processes usually involved in project management.
Forecast creates charts that are advanced but simple to understand. You can see your team’s workload information in real-time to keep track of resource availability so you can allocate resources as you see fit. The software can also help you keep track of the activities and the profit created by each team member.
Forecast comes with a wide variety of helpful functions, such as project tracking, invoicing, and Kanban boards.
Forecast Standout Features & Integrations
Features include project management, project accounting, fully customizable dashboards, advanced warnings to mitigate risk, timesheets, smart invoices, and project financials.
Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, iCloud Calendar, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Outlook, Harvest, Trello, Asana, GitLab, Github, and dozens more using a paid plan through Zapier. Higher-tier subscriptions include native integrations with Timelog, Xero, QuickBooks Online, JIRA, Azure DevOps, Salesforce, Okta, OneLogin, and Azure Active Directory.
Need expert help selecting the right Project Resource Management Software?
We’ve joined up with Crozdesk.com to give all our readers (yes, you!) access to Crozdesk’s software advisors. Just use the form below to share your needs, and they will contact you at no cost or commitment. You will then be matched and connected to a shortlist of vendors that best fit your company, and you can access exclusive software discounts!
The 10 Best Resource Allocation Software Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | monday.com Best for businesses that need a wide selection of customization options | 14-day free trial + freemium plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Visit Website |
2 | Wrike Best for flexibility & customizability | Freemium version available | From $9.80/user/month | Visit Website |
3 | Parallax Best predictive resourcing & forecasting tools | Free demo | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
4 | Productive Best for agencies and consultancies | 14-day free trial | From $20/user/month | Visit Website |
5 | Resource Guru Best for small businesses that want to scale | 30-day free trial | From $3/user/month | Visit Website |
6 | Saviom Best for its focus on reducing resourcing costs | 60-day free trial | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
7 | Runn Best for real-time resource tracking, allocation and forecasting | 14-day free trial and free plan | From $10/person managed/month | Visit Website |
8 | BigTime Best resource allocation software for managing time and expenses | Each plan offers a 14-day free trial. | From $10/user/month for a minimum of 5 users | Visit Website |
9 | Kantata Best for large enterprises | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
10 | Forecast Best for automating work distribution | 14-day free trial | From $29/user/month | Visit Website |
Other Resource Allocation Software Options
Here’s a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- Netsuite Resource Management – Best for financial projects
- Meisterplan – Best for long-term resource planning
- Smartsheet – Best for collaborative spreadsheets
- Float – Best for cashflow management
- Monday.com – Best for SaaS project tracking
- 10,000 ft by Smartsheet – Best for human resource team allocation
- XCMscheduler – Best all-in-one solution for client tracking
- Bridgit Bench – Best for project portfolio management
- PhonEX ONE by MIND CTI – Best for call accounting
- OpenPages by IBM – Best for CRM integration
- Comindware Project Planning – Best for remote teams that use Android, iOS and Windows
- BSM Illuminate – Best for dispatch management
- Resource Centra by Add-On Products – Best for teams that rely on Microsoft Exchange infrastructure and Microsoft Outlook
- Asset Infinity – Best for real-time status updates
- ProjectPro by Netsmartz – Best for app development
- eResource Scheduler – Best drag & drop scheduler
- PortfolioQED – Best for tracking spend allocation in PPM advertising
- Kelloo – Best for schedule optimization
- Project Insight – Best for client progress visualization
- Balance by Allovue – Best for optimizing spending decisions
- ABAK360 – Best for expense reporting
- Runn - Best for real-time resource management and forecasting
Resource Allocation Software FAQs
Find answers to common questions about this topic.
What is resource allocation software?
What are the benefits of resource allocation software?
Why is resource planning important for resource allocation software?
What features should I look for when selecting resource allocation software?
Which software is used for resource management?

What's Next?
If you feel in need of best practices and methods, I recommend reading the 4 steps for effective resource allocation. If you are not convinced about how this software can help you and still want to use Excel, you can download a resource planning template to make that process a little less painful.
Related List of Tools: 10 Best Free Project Scheduling Software For PMs [2023]