Resource Guru is a resource scheduling tool that takes the pain out of scheduling teams, giving managers more time to focus on the other important tasks they have at hand. The interface is clean and simple, and, like many of its features, well integrated. Don’t be fooled by this simple UI—under the hood, it has a number of powerful features and this may explain their impressive client list including heavyweights such as Disney, Saatchi & Saatchi, VMware, and Deloitte.
Top 7 Features of Resource Guru
1. Resource Guru Feature: Drag and Drop Resource Scheduling
At the heart of Resource Guru is their simple drag and drop Schedule – a colorful resource calendar displaying project and client bookings, meetings, time off and availability. The schedule makes it easy to answer that all important planning question – who’s available and when? Bookings can be moved using drag and drop, which greatly reduces the inconvenience of ever-changing projects.
2. Resource Guru Feature: Leave Management
Resource Guru has a leave management system for time off such as vacations, public holidays or sick days. With most stand alone systems it’s very difficult for managers to approve time off requests as they don’t have visibility of future workloads. With Resource Guru managers can add time off with confidence as they are able to see them in the context of existing bookings.
3. Resource Guru Feature: Custom fields & filters
One of Resource Guru’s most powerful features is the custom fields, which allow you to group resources using any criteria you define.
You can then use the filters on the schedule and reports sections to focus on the resources you want to see, allowing you to find fast answers to questions like “do we have any designers available next week in our New York office?” My only criticism of this feature is that you can easily miss it, hidden away in settings. Be sure to seek it out as it will transform your experience of using the app.
4. Resource Guru Feature: Managing Resource Availability
With Resource Guru, you have a lot of control over availability settings. Each resource type in has a “Default Availability” which is defined in settings. You can also set ‘Normal Availability’ for individual resources.
Because real life doesn’t always go according to plan, you can also add availability exceptions on a day-to-day basis when things get a bit busy. If you try to book outside a resource’s availability you’ll see a booking clash notification. Then you’ll have the option to place the booking on a waiting list. This helps prevent overbooking resources.
5. Resource Guru Feature: Dashboards, Notifications, and Permissions
Resource Guru is not only for project managers. Anyone who’s invited into an account will have access to a personal dashboard. They can opt in to receive daily schedule emails. Granular user permissions let you set access levels on a person by person basis—team members will only ever have access to the information needed to do their job.
6. Resource Guru Feature: Reports
Resource Guru’s reports section helps you to track your team’s utilization and see what percentage of work is billable. You can also plan capacity, report on time off and see which projects or clients are consuming the most time. The reports can be filtered using your custom fields and be downloaded as a “.CSV” for further manipulation in your spreadsheet or BI tool of choice.
7. Resource Guru Feature: Integrations
Resource Guru recently added a fully-fledged integration with Zapier, making it easy to connect to hundreds of apps including Gmail, Slack, and Basecamp. They also have a REST API with webhooks, allowing teams with technical capabilities to get creative building their own integrations.
Signing Up
Resource Guru’s plans start from just $2.50 per person/month, and they offer a 10% discount for annual subscribers. If you’re ready to try Resource Guru for yourself you can head over to their site. Sign up for a no credit card required free 30-day trial.
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