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There are so many different resource booking tools that making a shortlist of the best can be tricky. You want to prevent double bookings, eliminate scheduling conflicts, and ensure that resources are used effectively - and need the right tool to do it. I've got you covered! In this post I use my personal experience scheduling hundreds of projects, using many different booking platforms with large teams, and complex projects, to share my picks of the best resource booking software.

What is resource booking software?

Resource booking software is a specialized tool designed to facilitate the reservation and allocation of various resources within an organization. This software allows users to book and schedule resources such as meeting rooms, equipment, and personnel, ensuring efficient utilization and preventing conflicts.

Resource booking software is crucial for optimizing the allocation of resources throughout the project lifecycle. Project managers can use this software to schedule and reserve essential resources, such as meeting spaces for team collaboration, equipment for project tasks, or even personnel for specific project phases.

Overviews Of The 10 Best Resource Booking Software

You can use the simple overviews of each tool below to understand how each one stands out from the other.

Best for flexible resource management

  • 30-day free trial
  • From $4.16/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.7/5

Resource Guru offers resource management for teams seeking a system that’s simple yet fast and powerful. 

Why I picked Resource Guru: This platform offers drag-and-drop scheduling and waiting lists for in-demand resources. On top of that, booking your resources is great because you can use filters that they have built into the tool. These let you find resources based on their skills, department, location, or whatever custom field you have configured.

Daily schedule emails and personal dashboards ensure that everyone is in the loop at all times. And the leave management features help you track vacations, sick days, parental leave, and other absences. 

Resource Guru Standout Features and Integrations

Features include planning, resource allocation optimization, content & document controls, project management, and remote collaboration.

Integrations include Basecamp, Google Calendar, Google Sheets, Gmail, Jira, Maintenance Care, Outlook, Slack, Teamwork, and Wrike. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Clear, big-picture view
  • Quality reporting
  • Useful email updates

Cons:

  • No dark theme
  • Limited search features

Best for real-time project insights

  • Pricing upon request
Visit Website
Rating: 4.1/5

Kantata is a professional services cloud software that caters to businesses in a wide range of industries, helping them manage projects and other operational functions seamlessly.

Why I picked Kantata: The platform offers a suite of tools for resource forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling, which supports real-time decision-making for staffing and project delivery. With everything in a centralized space, you can easily assign resources to projects and monitor performance to help you understand overall progress.

Kantata also includes a skills inventory to align project demands with available talent and identify skill gaps. This feature helps ensure you have the right personnel for any given task. It can also help you identify opportunities for employee development.

Kantata Standout Features and Integrations

Features include resource forecasting, scheduling, skills inventory, timekeeping, utilization tracking, expense tracking, functionalities for managing internal and external talent networks, and more.

Integrations include Salesforce, Slack, Sage, NetSuite, QuickBooks, HubSpot, BambooHR, Jira, Expensify, and more.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Skills inventory to align talent with projects
  • Resource forecasting and planning
  • Detailed reporting capabilities

Cons:

  • Can be challenging to see who is responsible for a task if multiple people are assigned to it
  • Potential learning curve for new users

Best for resource forecasting

  • 14-day free trial + free demo available
  • From $26/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.5/5

Scoro is a comprehensive work management software designed to consolidate various business processes, from project management to financial oversight and resource management.

Why I picked Scoro: Its intuitive resource booking system allows users to schedule and allocate resources effectively. Scoro’s utilization reports help to forecast workloads and identify potential resource shortages in advance, enabling proactive decision-making.

Scoro's resource booking features include a dynamic calendar view that allows users to see the availability of resources at a glance. The system’s drag-and-drop interface simplifies the scheduling process, making it easy to adjust bookings as needed. Furthermore, Scoro’s resource management capabilities integrate with project timelines and budgets, providing a comprehensive overview of project progress and resource allocation.

Scoro Standout Features and Integrations

Features include project management, time tracking, invoicing, financial management, quoting and budgeting, sales and CRM, task management, collaboration tools, customizable dashboards, and detailed reporting. 

Integrations include Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange, Xero, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Exact Online, Expensify, Stripe, Jira, HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Drive, Dropbox, Okta, Azure AD, and Zapier. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Real-time tracking of projects and team progress
  • Comprehensive features for business management
  • Allows for customizable fields and workflows

Cons:

  • The mobile app lacks some functionalities compared to the web version
  • Some users find the platform complex when customizing it

Best for real-time resource visibility

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $5/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4/5

eResource Scheduler is a comprehensive resource booking software that allows organizations to effectively manage and schedule their shared resources. With its intuitive interface and powerful features, eResource Scheduler simplifies the process of reserving and tracking resources, leading to improved resource utilization and streamlined operations.

Why I picked eResource Scheduler: eResource Scheduler excels as a resource booking software due to its strong emphasis on real-time resource visibility and management and resource sharing. With its intuitive dashboard, organizations gain a clear and instant overview of resource availability, enabling them to efficiently allocate and book resources based on real-time information.

The software allows users to view and manage resource schedules, track conflicts or overlaps, and make adjustments on the fly. By providing accurate and up-to-date information, eResource Scheduler empowers organizations to make informed decisions, minimize downtime, and maximize the utilization of their shared resources.

eResource Scheduler Standout Features and Integrations

Features include its robust conflict management system that enables efficient resource allocation. The software automatically detects conflicts or overlaps in resource bookings and provides alerts, allowing users to resolve conflicts and prevent scheduling issues.

The platform also offers comprehensive reporting and analytics capabilities. Users can generate customized reports, track resource utilization, and analyze data to identify trends and make data-driven decisions.

Integrations include Jira and Microsoft Outlook. It also has a REST API available for your team to build custom integrations with your current tech stack.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Customizable reporting and analytics
  • Conflict detection and resolution
  • Real-time resource visibility

Cons:

  • Integrations are limited out-of-the-box
  • Steeper learning curve to set up

Best for agencies

  • Free trial available
  • From $9/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Bonsai Agency Software is an all-in-one platform designed to help agencies manage resources, projects, and client relationships.

Why I picked Bonsai Agency Software: Bonsai's resource planning and forecasting features let you book work based on your team's capacity and track utilization in real-time. This ensures that projects are assigned appropriately, preventing overloading and promoting balanced workloads. 

The time-tracking and timesheet functionalities allow your team to log hours easily, providing a clear view of project progress and individual contributions. Monitoring availability and utilization becomes straightforward, enabling you to set custom billable and cost rates for members, tasks, and projects. 

Bonsai Agency Software Standout Features and Integrations

Features include client management, proposal creation, contract management, expense tracking, income tracking, scheduling, forms and questionnaires, workload management, custom fields and properties, and a client portal.

Integrations include QuickBooks Online, Zapier, Calendly, Xero, Google Drive, Slack, Gmail, Trello, Google Sheets, Google Calendar, ClickUp, and Jira.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Integrates time and budget tracking
  • Good resource forecasting capabilities
  • Professional-looking client portal

Cons:

  • Mobile app could be enhanced with additional features
  • May not be suitable for businesses with high volume operations

Best for team capacity planning

  • 14-day free trial + free demo available
  • From $7/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.2/5

Hub Planner is a versatile, scalable resource management solution designed to optimize capacity planning and team scheduling.

Why I picked Hub Planner: Hub Planner allows you to view the availability and utilization of resources, schedule team members on various projects, and create accurate timesheets.

You can measure the actual time worked against the forecasted time, to get detailed insights into your teams’ performance. Using your dashboard, you can drill down to track individual resources and dig deep into project performance. 

Hub Planner Standout Features and Integrations

Features include resource scheduling, project planning, timesheets, approvals, reporting, analytics, and a mobile interface.

Integrations are available through the Hub Planner API or via Zapier. 

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Ability to add notes to ongoing work
  • Bird’s eye view of resource utilization
  • Excellent capacity planning

Cons:

  • Reports may be hard to customize
  • No notifications for timesheet approvals

Best for prefilled timesheets

Visit Website
Rating: 4.3/5

Float is a resource capacity and work scheduling tool that helps you make the most effective use of the resources at your disposal. 

Why I picked Float: Using Float, you can centralize all your people and projects into one live timeline, then assign work and resources according to the available capacity. 

Timesheets are prefilled with scheduled tasks so team members can log their hours easily, while managers can compare estimated versus actual time. You can sync events with your preferred calendar, import tasks from your project management system, and send hours to your billing software.

Float Standout Features and Integrations

Features include Gantt views, capacity planning, due dates, forecasting, corrections, templates, and reporting.

Integrations include Asana, Google Calendar, Jira, Outlook Calendar, Slack, Teamwork, Trello, WorkflowMax, and Zapier.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Single, comprehensive dashboard
  • Automatic reporting
  • Powerful team manager

Cons:

  • Limited customization options
  • No self-hosted solution

Best for professional services companies

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $27/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.2/5

Birdview PSA is a resource management, planning, and scheduling software with resource management features that will help you with your capacity planning.

Why I picked BirdviewPSA: This tool has everything you need to support your projects through its resource planning center. It allows you to access 3 main views. The first one is planning. This view gives you the option to book resources in advance and ensure your capacity meets the demands. Birdview PSA displays your team's skills and other useful information that will help you make informed decisions.

Then, you have the workflow view. This view shows current projects and resource allocations in real time. The system will automatically color-code for you those resources that are over or under-allocated and allow you to address conflicts with a simple drag-and-drop.

The last view is simulation. In this view you can assess the viability of working on a new project, run scenarios to inform your resource hiring, and create project drafts for a quick start. The simulator also allows you to alter resource allocation percentages and modify team members in case someone becomes over-allocated after you run the sim.

Birdview PSA Standout Features & Integrations

Features include 250+ ready-to-use dashboards and reports for business intelligence, including templates for executive summaries, project scorecards, demand projections, and expected vs actual budgets. It also has many features outside of resource management and can help you with project financials through time tracking and accounting integrations that will help you invoice clients.

Integrations include 2000+ pre-built connectors, including MS Teams, Jira, Adobe, Hubspot, Salesforce, Slack, Zoom, Olark, TimeCamp, Xero, and Invision. Additionally, you can connect to 5000+ apps using Zapier and Workato. Both of these need you to have a paid plan with them.

Best for Gantt-based workflows

  • 14-day free trial
  • From $25 month/20 resources/unlimited users
Visit Website
Rating: 4/5

Ganttic is a resource planning tool that creates a visual workflow of all your resources, tasks, and projects.

Why I picked Ganttic: Using Ganttic, you can quickly drag and drop new work into your schedule, then adjust quickly when conflicts arise. You can get a new perspective on your data and develop a clear action plan for your team. 

The flexible design makes it easy to rotate your Gantt chart and see plans from the perspective of tasks or resources. You can also use the high-level overview or separate points of view, to understand how your plans work together. 

Ganttic Standout Features and Integrations

Features include Gantt chart views, resource management, customizable project templates, drag-and-drop scheduling, collaboration tools, time tracking, multiple project views, reporting, analytics, an API, and a mobile app.  

Integrations include Google Calendar, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Outlook, and OneLogin. Other integrations are available via Zapier.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Makes it easy to see bottlenecks
  • Numerous color options
  • Great for planning multiple projects

Cons:

  • Tutorials could be improved
  • Outdated UI

Best for comprehensive resource management

  • 30-day free trial
  • From $9.50/user/month (billed annually)
Visit Website
Rating: 4.4/5

Silverbucket is a resource management tool that helps organizations efficiently manage and book their resources. It aims to optimize resource booking processes, improve resource allocation efficiency, and provide a comprehensive view of resource availability and utilization.

Why I picked Silverbucket: Silverbucket provides a centralized platform for resource allocation and capacity planning. This platform allows users to create and manage resource pools, assign resources to projects, and track resource utilization all in one place. For example, users can easily view and manage resource assignments, ensuring that the right resources are allocated to the right projects.

Silverbucket also allows users to define and manage competencies for their resources. This feature helps in identifying the skills and expertise of different resources, enabling better resource allocation and project planning.

Silverbucket Standout Features and Integrations

Features include forecasting and reporting tools, time tracking capabilities, capacity management, reports comparing current and future allocations, single sign-on, a SYNC function to import large amounts of data, a free guide on increasing profitability through resource planning, and a calculator that helps estimate the effects of using Silverbucket on invoicing rates and turnover.

Integrations include Visma Severa, Toggl Track, Power BI, Deltek, Microsoft Azure, ValueFrame, HubSpot, PlanMill, Millnet, and Marathon.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Offers responsive customer support services for users
  • Helps improve productivity
  • User-friendly interface

Cons:

  • Limited language support
  • Limited mobile functionality

The 10 Best Resource Booking Software Comparison Chart

Here is a table where you can compare the tools we just covered in the overviews.

Tool Best For Trial Info Price
1
Resource Guru

Resource Guru tracks all the important metrics in a way that’s easy to understand.

Best for flexible resource management

30-day free trial

From $4.16/user/month (billed annually) Website
2
Kantata

Kantata's resource management feature allows users to efficiently allocate and manage resources for projects.

Best for real-time project insights

Not available

Pricing upon request Website
3
Scoro

Scoro's resource planning feature allows users to plan and forecast work to ensure optimal utilization of resources.

Best for resource forecasting

14-day free trial + free demo available

From $26/user/month (billed annually) Website
4
eResource Scheduler

eResource Scheduler's platform makes it easy to view all resource allocations in real-time and prevent conflicts from occurring.

Best for real-time resource visibility

14-day free trial

From $5/user/month (billed annually) Website
5
Bonsai Agency Software

Bonsai provides comprehensive overviews of projects and resources, including budgets, team allocation, and schedules.

Best for agencies

Free trial available

From $9/user/month (billed annually) Website
6
Hub Planner

Hub Planner gives you a clear view of resource allocation.

Best for team capacity planning

14-day free trial + free demo available

From $7/user/month (billed annually) Website
7
Float

Float shows you exactly what each team member is working on.

Best for prefilled timesheets

Not available

Website
8
Birdview

Ensure the best resources are assigned to the most important projects.

Best for professional services companies

14-day free trial

From $27/user/month (billed annually) Website
9
Ganttic

Ganttic helps you track multiple projects simultaneously.

Best for Gantt-based workflows

14-day free trial

From $25 month/20 resources/unlimited users Website
10
Silverbucket

Silverbucket's centralized platform provides a comprehensive overview of resource allocation and availability.

Best for comprehensive resource management

30-day free trial

From $9.50/user/month (billed annually) Website

Other Options

Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best resource booking software list.

  1. elapseit

    For built-in time tracking

  2. Dayshape

    For AI resource scheduling

  3. ClickUp

    For various resource views

  4. monday.com

    For its color-coded workload view

  5. Productive

    For tracking resources against budget

  6. Wrike

    For scalability

  7. Runn

    For resource scenario planning

  8. Forecast

    For cutting down on non-billable work using AI

  9. Smartsheet

    For a work management solution based on advanced spreadsheets

  10. Meisterplan

    For its role-based resource allocation prior to staffing

  11. Zoho Projects

    For optimizing resource utilization

  12. Paymo

    For tracking the financial aspects of resource usage

  13. Saviom

    For highly-customizable, scalable resource management

  14. Parallax

    For professional services companies

  15. Mosaic

    For its AI-powered resource planning

  16. TeamGantt

    For project scheduling based on Gantt charts

How I Picked the Best Resource Booking Software

To build this top 10 list, I evaluated and compared a wide range of resource booking tools with positive user ratings. After determining my long list of top choices, I further honed my list by weighing factors that make resource management software good for booking resources. Finally, I drew on my years of digital project management experience to define the criteria used for the evaluation.

Here’s a short summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best software for this article:

Resource display

I’m looking for resource booking software that’s easy to use and understand. A good tool will have an intuitive user interface, logical navigation, and color indicators to make data easy to understand.

Time tracking

I look for tools that offer you the full range of features needed for resource booking. Therefore, I see if the tools have integrated time tracking. This makes the information automatically reflected in reports and utilization statistics. Many resources such as staff members, equipment, and meeting rooms may need to be scheduled. Time tracking ensures that such resources are used optimally.

Time-off management

Where employees or freelancers are involved in a project, it’s important to track the time they spend on the job, but also on vacation or absent. Time-off management helps you schedule resources accordingly. 

Software Integrations 

The best resource booking software will integrate with the most popular software systems teams use every day. This maximizes efficiency and keeps everyone well organized. 

Pricing

Any SaaS software tool should offer a strong return on investment. The system should be affordable for organizations of all sizes on a per-user basis.

Resource Booking Software FAQs

Here are a few popular questions other people ask about this topic.

What is resource booking?

Resource booking refers to reserving or scheduling a particular resource, such as a meeting room, equipment, or personnel, for a specific time or duration. It is commonly used in project management organizations and businesses to ensure resources are efficiently allocated across projects.

What are the key features of resource booking software?

Good resource scheduling software includes a wide range of features, such as:

  1. Resource scheduling: assigning and allocating resources, such as personnel, equipment, and facilities, to specific tasks or projects over a defined period of time.
  2. Reporting: providing detailed information and analytics that allow managers to assess the effectiveness of their resource planning.
  3. Project forecasting: predicting the resources needed for a specific project and assessing their likely availability.
  4. Capacity management: ensuring resources are allocated to projects in a fair and efficient way, so they are used to optimal advantage.
  5. Timesheets: Tracking the time team members spend working on projects, so their time can be billed or managed accordingly.

How does the software handle conflicts or double-bookings?

Resource booking software typically alerts users of conflicts and avoids project conflicts by following customizable rules. For tools where they have implemented colored indicators, you will see a red or amber shading on resources that have a scheduling conflict. Other times, the software will immediately display a warning message after encountering a possible double booking or scheduling conflict.

What’s Next?

That brings us to the conclusion of my deep dive into the world of the best resource booking software. But we have much more to offer you, you may like to check out our step-by-step guide to resource allocation or our ultimate guide to project resource management plans. With the help of the best resource booking software, you can improve efficiency, save money, and get projects completed on time—and on budget.

Related tool lists:

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Galen Low
By Galen Low

Galen is a digital project manager with over 10 years of experience shaping and delivering human-centered digital transformation initiatives in government, healthcare, transit, and retail. He is a digital project management nerd, a cultivator of highly collaborative teams, and an impulsive sharer of knowledge. He's also the co-founder of The Digital Project Manager and host of The DPM Podcast.