Best Resource Management Software
I’ve selected these as the best resource management software for 2022.
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monday.comBest for simple workload and capacity planning
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KantataBest all-in-one resource planning, timesheets, and project financials
- Resource Management by Smartsheet
Best for advanced and custom workflow automations
- Elapseit
integrated resource planning and task tracking solution that you can actually use from small details to the big picture
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FloatBest for digital agencies and production teams
- Hub Planner
Best for midsize and large companies
- Resource Guru
Best low-cost option for beginners
- Saviom
Best for enterprise resource and workforce management
- Forecast.app
Best AI-assisted RM
- Mosaic
The Only Resource Management Software Purpose-Built to Increase Utilization Rates
According to PMI’s Pulse of the Profession 2020 report, poor resource management can waste up to 11.4% of a company’s resources. Resource management software can help you manage workloads and address this risk. Very useful, considering most project managers are running 2-5 projects at the same time!
I’ve selected the top resource management software, and I’ll walk you through my selections in this complete review. You’ll learn about the factors I consider when evaluating software, as well as the main information about each tool’s features and functionality, to help you choose the right software for your use case.
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The 10 Best Resource Management Software Overviews
Have a look and sign up for some trials to test-drive and find the best resource management software for your case.
monday.com
Best for simple workload and capacity planning
monday.com is a flexible platform to help teams communicate in context and get a birds-eye view of outstanding projects, available resources, and projected timelines. monday.com’s smart design and straightforward interface mean teams can get started planning timelines, assigning project ownership, and managing any project in minutes.
monday.com offers various views to represent data, so each team member can work according to his preferences. With workload view, you can easily see who’s able to take on more work and who’s not. Gain insight into your team’s work capacity and make adjustments to timelines or ownership accordingly—no matter where you are. The monday.com app gives you the flexibility and power to run your team on the go. You can organize your daily work, projects, and teams all in one place.
Monday.com has over 40 integrates with apps like Slack, Excel, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform, and others, accessible via Zapier.
monday.com costs from $6/user/month and comes with a free 14-day trial. They offer a free plan for up to 2 users.
Pros
- Color coded status great for resource overviews
- Easily create boards dedicated to operational resource tracking
- New features being rolled out regularly
- Quick learning curve
Cons
- Gantt charts locked to mid-level plan
- May be too robust for small teams
- Comparatively complex pricing rubric
Kantata
Best all-in-one resource planning, timesheets, and project financials
Kantata is a well-rounded tool that bridges the core planning, execution, project accounting, and analysis systems in a single operating environment. It has modules for project management, accounting, resource management, business intelligence, and team collaboration. On top of this, it offers a system of dashboards, live time and expense tracking features, a great documenting system. And all of these best-in-class features are delivered through straightforward and minimalistic design.
Kantata ticks off all the boxes when it comes to RM features. The resource management module offers real-time utilization and margins at the project and even the task level. Some key features include resource forecasting, capacity management, skills management, scenario planning, and role-based planning.
Drilling down into its other features, the BI suite module supplies built-in reports, custom reporting, trend analysis, data visualization, as well as data integration with other systems. The software also provides more accounting tools than many others, with project costing, project and task budget management, real-time utilization and margin tracking, invoicing, rate cards, and robust integrations into back-end financial systems. It also has some good contextual collaboration features to communicate in both private and public discussions around tasks, projects, and many other project objects.
I could go on and on about Kantata’s features because there really are too many to list—it’s a comprehensive RM suite, that, despite requiring time to truly master, has been recognized as being easy to use and learn. What’s more, the company leverages its professional services expertise as part of their offering, making available their Kantata BI Consultants who can build reports specifically for your business. As well, they provide some great training resources that can help mitigate the risks and costs of implementation.
Kantata takes a unique approach to integrations. As part of their “API-first strategy”, they’ve built a solution that doesn’t require a third party in order to integrate with any apps. They provide an integration platform (called M-Bridge) that’s designed to simplify integration between Kantata and other business apps like CRM, HCM, and financial software. On top of the M-Bridge platform, Kantata provides several pre-built integrations with these tools: Expensify, G Suite, Xero, Salesforce, Netsuite, Jira, Hubspot, Slack, Concur, Dynamics 365, Qualtrics, Quickbooks, and Sage Intacct.
Kantata offers plans to meet your needs. Choose from resource management to complete PSA with advanced BI. To receive accurate pricing information, contact Kantata directly.
Pros
- Easy capacity management
- Distinguish between soft and firm allocation
- Good reporting functionality for resource data
- Resourcing fully integrated with master planning
Cons
- Custom reports can be difficult to create without training
- Proofing solution is an add-on
- Advanced features are available only in the Premier and Enterprise editions of the application
Resource Management by Smartsheet
Best for advanced and custom workflow automations
Resource Management by Smartsheet, a high-level project, and resource management software, helps teams make confident decisions about project planning, team capacity, budget forecasting, team utilization, and hiring needs in real-time.
The tool’s unique project and resource matching feature allow users to match team members to projects requirements according to different criteria like disciplines, skills, availability, and more. Resource Management by Smartsheet also offers built-in timesheets, mobile time tracking, and expense tracking. Users can create project reports by filtering project data, get insight into historical data, and see forecasts on team utilization, actual vs. planned time reports, budget tracking, expense reports, and projects in the pipeline.
Resource Management by Smartsheet easily integrates with a variety of internal workflows and software suites. Additionally, it provides a flexible API and Zapier integration that can connect with top operational tools for analytics, communications, project management, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and finance.
Resource Management by Smartsheet’s basic plan starts at $25/user/month.
Pros
- Combines time tracking and resourcing
- Able to forecast resource utilization
- Skills database helps resource allocation
- Intuitive for keeping timesheets and assigning hours
Cons
- Initial resource set-up is time consuming
- Needs better data visualization
- Bulk project edits don’t apply to resource field
Elapseit
integrated resource planning and task tracking solution that you can actually use from small details to the big picture
elapseit is a SaaS platform where two of the most needed and used features in project management – task management and resource planning – are integrated and interconnected in a unique way that will make workforce management a lot easier.
The resourcing system takes vacations and bank holidays into account and is designed to help you avoid resource over and under-allocation. Bank holidays can be defined per location so you can grow worldwide without worries. You can define custom vacation types with different numbers of vacation days and keep track of them. All this can happen with or without an approval workflow. Each person’s timesheet is pre-filled based on the allocation, and you can generate multi-language invoices based on hours submitted and approved.
elapseit is smart enough to let you know in seconds if you have enough resources to take a new project on board based on the “Available Capacity” report, so forecast is a breeze. You can check the resource utilization along with many other reports. You can even see the income your resources generate by checking the profitability report.
The task system integrates seamlessly with the resource planner, so anytime you are looking at the allocation planner you are also seeing how many tasks any of your team member is working on, what is their status, if there is any blocker or if they are working on tasks that are not part of an allocation on that project.
In a nutshell, elapseit is a powerful project and resource management software with fully integrated features. These include resourcing management & forecast, task management with Kanban boards and Gantt charts, time-tracking, time-off management, invoicing, reports, document management, all together in a secure user experience. It’s the best option for all company sizes and project types. The price starts at $14USD/user/month.
Pros
- Integration of tasks management and resource planning
- Mobile applications (iOS and Android)
- Prefilled timesheets based on allocations
- Multilanguage: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
- Clear, intuitive data interface
Cons
- The complexity of the interface might be overwhelming at first until you get used to it
- Dashboard could be more customizable
Float
Best for digital agencies and production teams
Float is for teams who want robust and powerful resource management software that’s also unfussy and easy to use. Over 4,000 of the world’s top teams use Float, including Deloitte, Ogilvy, BuzzFeed, and MetaLab. Its simple, visual design and rich feature set make it the perfect choice for teams big and small.
Scheduling in Float is easy and intuitive. Create new projects quickly, and assign them to your team within seconds. The schedule view gives you an accurate, high-level overview of your team’s availability and capacity, and you can drill down deeper using Float’s search and filter functionality. Set custom work hours, import and assign public holidays, schedule time off, assign custom tags like location and skills to your people and projects, and set a scheduled status to let everyone know when you’re working from home or remotely, or what you’re up to on a particular day.
Updating your schedule is simple, with a right-click menu full of editing shortcuts, a click-and-drag feature that lets you reassign and update tasks, and a lightning-fast interface that can handle an enterprise volume of people and projects.
Real-time reporting lets you track your resource utilization, monitor project budgets, and forecast your team’s capacity. Add time tracking to access pre-filled timesheets and compare your team’s scheduled hours with the actual time spent on tasks.
Float has a range of dedicated integrations that play well with your existing apps. Sync and schedule your Jira, Asana, Teamwork, or Trello projects and import your Google or Outlook Calendar events directly onto your schedule in Float. Stay on top of schedule changes via Slack, email, or mobile push notifications.
Float is free to try for 30 days, and you get unlimited access to both resource planning and time tracking features. After that, it’s $6 per scheduled user, per month, or $10 with time tracking. Float also has volume and yearly subscription discounts available.
Pros
- Easy-to-use resource editing tools
- Team availability management
- Project phases and milestones for planning
- Mobile app for iOS and Android
- Built-in time tracking with pre-filled timesheets
Cons
- Updating staff/personnel list takes time
Hub Planner
Best for midsize and large companies
Hub Planner is a resource management software with a full suite of scheduling, time entry, and reporting features. The core feature is the simple and usable Scheduler, which allows for project and resource planning and visualization. Users can drag and drop to plan projects and schedule resources. The tool also offers a multi-function menu, powerful filtering, and a dynamic team capacity bar. Multiple view modes allow for both high-level birds-eye views and granular views of projects.
Hub Planner has a powerful reporting engine with 70+ pre-formatted templates. If you can’t find what you’re looking for in a template, you can create reports from scratch.
Hub Planner also has a number of inline workflows for timesheets, requesting vacation time, and a slick resource requesting & approval option. Their Unassigned Work feature is great for scheduling and forecasting ahead of the pipeline, and users can create custom fields at the resource or project level. Users can also customize schedule notifications and reminders.
They’ve taken a modular approach so you have the option to add or remove extensions to the base product, allowing teams to increase functionality or turn off bits they don’t need. Inline integrations with Basecamp, Slack, iCal, REst API, and Zapier are available.
Hub Planner offers a pretty extensive 60 days free trial with everything included. There is an extensive knowledge base with tutorial videos, and their customer support is excellent.
Licenses begin at $7 per month, per resource with annual discounts available.
Pros
- Excellent capacity planning & forecasting
- Search filter for available resources with skill sets & location
- Powerful & precise built-in reporting
- Easy toggle between user/group
Cons
- Need to click into modal for more details on events/projects bookings
- Editing Custom Fields requires manual input or help from Hub Planner support
- Need an API or intermediary for MS Teams
Resource Guru
Best low-cost option for beginners
Resource Guru offers some solid features including: visual calendar style interface, custom views, fields, and filters, availability indicator, drag and drop resources, scale view, see utilization, reporting, overtime tracking, data import, and phone support.
Resource Guru makes sense of the gong show that is resource conflict resolution: resource management and team collaboration is built in to make resource booking more straightforward, with clash management, leave management, and a waiting list to prevent over-booking. It helps project managers make bookings simultaneously with no chance of stepping on each other’s toes. Clashes are automatically prevented.
Helpfully, each staff member gets their own resource dashboard so they can log in and know exactly what they should be working on. And to monitor business performance, powerful reports help identify which projects and clients are being over-serviced and help to monitor team utilization and help with future capacity planning. Resource Guru costs from $2.50/user/month (they offer a 30-day free trial).
Pros
- Availability bar for capacity planning
- Clash management for unintended overlap
- Attractive and flexible UI
- Daily resource summary emails
Cons
- Very affordable per-user rate
- Unable to sort resources by experience level
- No copy-paste of resource tasks
Saviom
Best for enterprise resource and workforce management
Saviom is a leader in powerful and configurable resource management software. It has helped many organizations reduce their resourcing costs by at least 10-30% and enhance profitable utilization by 10-20%.
Saviom’s comprehensive ERM suite helps optimize the modern workforce and protect them against growing market uncertainties. It comprises several modules such as multidimensional resource scheduler and planner, advanced forecasting and capacity planning, real-time Business Intelligence, integration with other business applications, and more.
Saviom’s ERM solution enables agile resource scheduling with a Gantt chart style view using simple drag and drop functionality. Besides, the enterprise-wide visibility of the tool helps you identify and allocate the right resource to the right job. Additionally, using modeling and simulation techniques, the tool helps select an optimized resource plan and enhance ROI.
Using the forecasting and capacity planning module, businesses can forward plan pipeline projects and bridge the capacity vs. demand gap proactively. Moreover, you can optimize your workforce by maximizing the profitable utilization of every resource. The tool also helps businesses achieve the desired level of maturity as per the organization’s need.
Firms can improve their organizational health index using real-time Business Intelligence. They can build customized portals, dashboards, analytics, and reports using the tool’s highly configurable and expandable capability. The tool allows you to maintain a single source of truth by seamlessly integrating with your existing systems.
With a tiered pricing model as customizable as the tool, Saviom’s power and lite licenses operate under role-based access, ensuring you retain full control over data.
Pros
- Multidimensional resource forecasting & capacity planning
- Highly configurable & customizable RM solution
- Real-time resource optimization, modeling & simulation
- Highly flexible real-time reports, analytics & dashboards
- Seamless integration with other enterprise applications
Cons
- There is a learning curve as the tool comes with extensive features
- More suitable for medium to large enterprises
- Pricing is available only on request
Forecast.app
Best AI-assisted RM
Saviom is a leader in powerful and configurable resource management software. It has helped many organizations reduce their resourcing costs by at least 10-30% and enhance profitable utilization by 10-20%.
Saviom’s comprehensive ERM suite helps optimize the modern workforce and protect them against growing market uncertainties. It comprises several modules such as multidimensional resource scheduler and planner, advanced forecasting and capacity planning, real-time Business Intelligence, integration with other business applications, and more.
Saviom’s ERM solution enables agile resource scheduling with a Gantt chart style view using simple drag and drop functionality. Besides, the enterprise-wide visibility of the tool helps you identify and allocate the right resource to the right job. Additionally, using modeling and simulation techniques, the tool helps select an optimized resource plan and enhance ROI.
Using the forecasting and capacity planning module, businesses can forward plan pipeline projects and bridge the capacity vs. demand gap proactively. Moreover, you can optimize your workforce by maximizing the profitable utilization of every resource. The tool also helps businesses achieve the desired level of maturity as per the organization’s need.
Firms can improve their organizational health index using real-time Business Intelligence. They can build customized portals, dashboards, analytics, and reports using the tool’s highly configurable and expandable capability. The tool allows you to maintain a single source of truth by seamlessly integrating with your existing systems.
With a tiered pricing model as customizable as the tool, Saviom’s power and lite licenses operate under role-based access, ensuring you retain full control over data.
Pros
- Quick top level view of available resources by user
- Easily compare budget and expenses
- Connects to your existing toolstack
- Colorful, intuitive resource charts
Cons
- Higher learning curve
- Time-consuming logging structure
- Time-consuming logging structure
Mosaic
The Only Resource Management Software Purpose-Built to Increase Utilization Rates
Mosaic is a next-generation resource management software guaranteed to boost profitability and productivity. They offer resource planning, workload forecasting, workforce reporting, project accounting, time tracking, and project management. The tool is hugely collaborative, ensuring executives, project managers, and individual contributors can work together easily and take ownership over their KPIs. Lightning fast and extremely visual, Mosaic shows who is working on what, when—all in one beautiful interface.
Mosaic’s resource management features are AI-powered so that you can track, report, and forecast using smart systems that parse all your data and generate actionable insights for future workforce planning. Mosaic integrates with your existing financial software or ERP to better visualize and plan big picture project and portfolio items. Noteworthy features include a visual workload heatmap, demand analysis, intelligent project team builder, visual org charts, customizable business intelligence dashboards, scheduling automations, and a centralized communication hub.
Mosaic integrates with several ERP and financial management software, pulling in key project accounting, budget, and time entry data to provide a complete picture of your people and projects. Teams can then accurately plan and staff projects, strategically hire, and efficiently manage workload.
Mosaic integrates with Quickbooks, Unanet, Deltek, Asana, Salesforce, Jira, Workday, SAP, Oracle, and many other software applications.
Mosaic’s pricing is simple, transparent, and affordable with a risk-free 14-day trial. It offers three different annual subscription plans.
- Team Plan: $9.99 per user per month, billed annually
- Business Plan: $14.99 per user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise: Customized pricing for 100+ team members
Need expert help selecting the right Project Resource Management Software?
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It only takes a minute to submit your requirements and they will give you a quick call at no cost or commitment. Based on your needs you’ll receive customized software shortlists listing the best-fitting solutions from their team of software advisors (via phone or email). They can even connect you with your selected vendor choices along with community negotiated discounts. To get started, please complete the form below:
The Best Resource Management Software Comparison Chart
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the baffling array of resource planning software out there. Below, we’ve put together a reader-friendly table neatly summarizing basic info about the tools described in this article.
| Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  monday.com Best for simple workload and capacity planning | 14 days free trial | From $6/user/month | Visit Website |
| 2 |  Kantata Best all-in-one resource planning, timesheets, and project financials | Not available | Custom pricing available upon request | Visit Website |
| 3 |  Resource Management by Smartsheet Best for advanced and custom workflow automations | 14 days free trial | From $25/user/month | Visit Website |
| 4 |  Elapseit integrated resource planning and task tracking solution that you can actually use from small details to the big picture | 30 days free trial | From $14/user/month | Visit Website |
| 5 |  Float Best for digital agencies and production teams | 30 days free trial | From $6/user/month | Visit Website |
| 6 |  Hub Planner Best for midsize and large companies | 60 days free trial | From $7/user/month | Visit Website |
| 7 |  Resource Guru Best low-cost option for beginners | 30 days free trial | From $2.50/user/month | Visit Website |
| 8 |  Saviom Best for enterprise resource and workforce management | 30 days free trial | Custom pricing available upon request | Visit Website |
| 9 |  Forecast.app Best AI-assisted RM | 14 days free trial | From $29/user/month | Visit Website |
| 10 |  Mosaic The Only Resource Management Software Purpose-Built to Increase Utilization Rates | 30 days free trial | From $14.99/month | Visit Website |
Other Resource Management Solutions
None of the above work for you? Check out the below list of additional tools:
- Celoxis
Best reporting and analytics features
- Clickup
Workload and box views that help you see what your team is up to and their capacity to take more work
- eResource Scheduler
Best built-in financial module
- Zoho Projects
Best workload allocation tools
- GanttPRO
Best for advanced resource workload calculation
- PSOhub
Best RM that integrates with CRMs
- TeamGantt
Best for ease-of-use and UX
- MS Projects
Best RM software for Microsoft users
- Harvest Forecast
Best for users of Harvest’s time tracker
- Notion
Best for tracking non-typical resources
- Clarizen
Best enterprise-grade resource management tool
- ActiveCollab
Best for resource management dashboards
- KeyedIn Projects
Best for resource management at the PMO level
- Paymo
Best RM tool for remote teams
Comparison Criteria
To be featured on this list, I evaluated tools based on the following criteria:
- User Interface (UI): P s should offer clear and easily comprehensible displays for optimizing your .
- Usability: Is the system easy to learn and master? Are there tutorials and training? Does the company offer good tech and user support?
- Integrations: Is it easy to connect with other tools? Any pre-built integrations?
- Value for $: How appropriate is the price for its features, capabilities, and use case? Is pricing clear, transparent, and flexible?
Key Resource Management Features
- : Can you visualize who is doing what, how much time it will take, and who can handle more tasks?
- Easy ing tools: Can you drag-and-drop and point-and-click to quickly build a resource schedule? Do they offer templates to help you get started quickly?
- integration: Metrics relating to time spent, time used, and time costs are key to , so a integration or built-in solution is critical.
- automation: is time consuming, so you want to be able to automate some of the grunt work.
- alerts: Gone too far over time or cost budgets without noticing? You want a that monitors the relevant utilization metrics and catches this for you.
- permissions: The should allow you to set different permissions for users depending on their required level of access, for security.
Resource Management Basics
What Is Resource Management?
In project management, resource management refers to the practice of planning, tracking, and optimizing the utilization of resources (such as staff, space, and equipment) in order to streamline project work and completion.
This process involves planning and managing: checking the resource’s availability, scheduling start and end dates, managing any resourcing conflicts or dependencies, and monitoring over time to adapt to changes.
What Is Resource Management Software?
Simply put, resource management software makes it easy to plan and schedule (and reschedule) projects. Sometimes referred to as resource capacity planning software, it’s a type of project management tool that enables you to plan, allocate, and then track who’s working on what project, when, and for how long.
This software makes it easy to see the resource availability and capacity of the organization, the available skills, and then schedule and provide reporting to show historical and forecasted resource utilization.
What Are The Benefits Of Using Resource Management Software?
- Streamline resource management and deployment to be as efficient and effective as possible, reducing downtime and increasing utilization.
- Provide a bird’s eye view of organizational capacity to prevent overbooking and support hiring decisions.
- Forecast revenue by providing reports on upcoming projects and planned resource deployment.
What’s An Example Of An Effective Resource Management System?
An effective resource management system is one that works. It could be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheet (more on this below), but it’s one that enables an organization to deploy the resources at their disposal, as efficiently and effectively as possible.
That’s hard to do without some dedicated software. To make the system effective, it enables the organization to conduct resource planning in a way that maximizes the utilization of available resources and considers the availability of staff, their skills, their preferences, their location and timezone, and maps them against projects and organizational goals.
Resource management software supports project portfolio management, and provides a way to effectively manage resources to maximize productivity and profitability.
How To Create A Resource Plan
You can read our full guide to creating resource management plans for more detail, but here are the main steps:
- Identify the different types of resources needed to complete the project.
Resources could include: team members, equipment, meeting rooms, or anything that’ll be required as part of the project process. - Quantify the amount of each type of resource required.
To quantify the resources, you’ll need to consider the resources, and estimate their effort on the project. - Schedule the consumption of each resource within the project.
To schedule the resources, you’ll need a project schedule so you know who to book, when, and for how long.
What Is A Resource Forecast?
Resource forecasting is a plan of the resources required to deliver a project. It often occurs in the initial phases of a project, even as early as the sales process.
A resource forecast is an estimate of the resources and effort that will be required for the project, which helps determine the project hours, project budget, and the project estimate put forward to the client.
How Do You Calculate Project Resources?
A simple way to calculate the level of effort required is to look at past project performance and compare it with the current project plan to identify the current project team velocity.
You can then use the formula: current velocity/project estimate = resources required.
It’s important to calculate resources needed for a project so that you take the right amount of the team’s time. Resource too little, and they won’t have enough time to complete the work, and if you resource too much you’ll find they waste time, or work slowly to fill the time.
Not seeing what you need on this list? Have a look at other useful tools:
- Enterprise resource planning software for resource management at large companies.
- Resource scheduling software to help you schedule equipment, rooms, staff, and other resources.
- Resource tracking software, which combines resource planning with tracking to help you monitor and adapt your plan as you go.
- Marketing resource management software (MRM software) which is designed specifically for marketing teams.
- Open source resource management software for extra flexibility and (often) cheaper pricing.
- Capacity planning software to help you organize your team’s workload according to their capacity and availability.
- Free resource management software, in case you need a less expensive option that will still cover your primary needs.
- Resource allocation software, which is specifically designed to help you alllocated the right resources to the right projects and tasks.
- Resource planning software to help you forecast required resources and their utilization on your projects.
- Web-based resource scheduling software, in case you require a SaaS solution, rather than an on-premise option.
Do You Need Resource Management Software?
You might be on board, but getting buy-in to change the status quo within your agency, team, or studio can be tricky.
After all, do you really, really need resource management tools?
A quick google search for ‘resource management tool excel’ or ‘resource management software free’ and you’ll find a whole bunch of resource management templates that do the job—well, kind of. Yes, they’re a free resource management tool, but no, they are not great.
When agencies start, it’s usually with a handful of resources. There’s no urgent need for resource management or specialist software. Usually, everyone simply gets together for a quick huddle, agrees on priorities, and works out what everyone is going to work on for the day. Or—if people are feeling really ambitious—for the entire week.
As the agency grows, resource management becomes more formal and the resource scheduler becomes a whiteboard. Simple, right?
Then, disaster strikes as someone accidentally wipes the whiteboard clean, or the office grows to the extent that people can’t actually see the whiteboard, and everyone realizes it’s time to move to the agency gold standard: the infamous resource scheduler of doom, otherwise known as the resource spreadsheet.
Spreadsheets: The Ultimate Free Resource Management Tool
Everyone knows resource management by spreadsheet doesn’t really work. It’s not cut out for the job. Everything’s a bit of a hack, they’re clunky, and they’re horribly prone to errors. Months pass by and still the resourcing spreadsheet somehow just about manages to keep its head above water.
But everyone feels like they’re drowning. Yes, it enables you to keep moving and it kind of works but everyone knows that despite good intentions and some fancy formulas, it keeps on slipping under and it’s not really fit for its purpose at all. Unless you’ve got the mother of all resource spreadsheets (that I’ve never laid eyes on) it’s missing a few key features and is a disaster waiting to happen.
Still Using Spreadsheets?
At a push, your spreadsheet might tell you how under-resourced or under-utilized your teams are, or even include forecasting, but does it include budget tracking, time tracking for billable hours, project reporting, sending staff real-time notifications, helping them collaborate, or a built-in process for requesting resources and resource allocation? Without these elements, it cannot be the solution you’re looking for.
And importantly, does it have a change process for when resources get moved around by the resource manager or your rogue project manager colleague? Maybe that’s why no one follows it—it’s considered more of a rough resource management guide than a true resourcing source.
But there’s hope. A growing number of tools have evolved in recent years to fix the problem of resource management in Excel and actually create something better than the free resource management tools—stuff that actually brings additional business value on top of keeping everything organized.
Which Resource Management Software Do You Recommend?
What do you think we’re missing? Which other tools do you recommend, and what would you add to these resource management software reviews? We’d love to hear if you’ve got any suggestions, tips, or thoughts on using this kind of software – why not share them using the comments below?
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