Table of Contents

Resource Management

Resource Management is the most efficient way to maximise your resource pool and make sure that your resources are both utilised and optimised and that you have the right balance of resources for both your in-flight projects and your planned pipeline.

Resource Management allows you to:

  • View your resource availability
  • View what project's resources are committed to
  • View requests made for resources and easily fulfil these requests
  • Perform resource optimisation
  • Review capacity and pipeline planning

Resource Management in Altus is performed using the following features:

  1. The Resources section of the project and proposal allows the resources required for this engagement to be requested
  2. The Resource Demand section allows Resource Managers to review all requests, current commitments, and the availability of resources, and provides an easy-to-use facility to action these requests
  3. The Resource Insights Power BI dashboard which allows the data relating to resources and roles to be drilled into and analysed

Glossary

A Resource Glossary can be found here

Resourcing - General Settings

This image displays the Resourcing General Settings screen

The Resourcing General Settings section contains the following options:

Resource Plan Management

  • Disable Resource Requwst Removal from Resource Demand and Headmap: A yes/no toggle; when set to Yes, would then restrict the removal of the resource request from Resource Demand and Heatmap.
  • Turn off Automatic Team Sync: A yes/no toggle; when set to Yes, would disable the automatic addition of assigned team members to the project's Microsoft 365 group. Users would need to manage team access manually.
  • Allow Quick Resource Request Editing: A yes/no toggle; when set to Yes, Enables the Edit Details menu to show on the Resource Request page so that resources can be edited directly from the request list.
  • Proposed Requests Planning: A drop-down list; that allows for entering and submission of resource data entry across Resource Plan, Resource and the Heatmap – or limit to specific modules. The options are:
    • Resource Plan (default): This is the default setting. When this option is selected, proposed resource data can only be added to the Resource Plan and cannot be entered via Resource Demand and Heatmap.
    • Resource Demand and Heatmap: When this option is selected, proposed resource data can only be entered into Resource Demand and Heatmap. When this option is selected, proposed resource data cannot be entered via Resource Plan This image displays the default values
    • All – Not recommended to avoid tracking problems: When this option is selected, proposed resource data can be entered via Resource Plan, Resource Demand and Heatmap. This is indicated as not recommended – as it can lead to confusion without a coordinated approach, where an user might enter data via Resource Plan and another might do the same for Resource Demand.
  • _Resource Request Type: A drop-down list; that allows the organisation to select what type of resources can be requested. The options are:
    • Generic and Named: This allows both Generic and Named resources to be requested.
    • Generic: This allows for only Generic resources to be requested.
    • Named: This allows for obly Named resources to be requested.

Approval and Display

  • Enable FTE Mode: a yes/no toggle; when set to Yes, users will see and can use the FTE entry mode on the Resource Plan and Resource Demand screens.
  • Enable Capacity Percentage Mode: a yes/no toggle; when set to Yes, users will see and can use the Capacity (%) entry mode on the Resource Plan and Resource Demand screens.
  • Enable Resource Planning for Proposals: A yes/no toggle; when set to Yes, any Resource Plans built into a Proposal will be able to be submitted and will show in the Resource Demand screens for Resource Managers to action. The Resource Heatmaps filter will then allow filtering by Proposals as well as Projects.
  • Display Decimal Precision: a number field that controls how many decimal places will show for values on the Resource Plan and Demand screens. Please note the items that need to be taken into consideration when you are setting up these fields found here.
  • Security Roles: any users with the roles listed in this setting will be able to Commit hours on the Resource Demand screen. This setting works in conjunction with the security groups that determine who has access to the Resources area of the system.

Resource Heatmap Colours

Default values are provided but organisation can adjust the allocation percentage and choose a colour within colour palette template to reflect the organisation’s preference. The options are:

  • New Threshold: new threshold values can be added.
  • Edit Defaults: the detault values can be edited or removed. This image displays the default values
  • Reset: resets the default thresholds.

Resource Grid Decimal Precision

When setting up Resourcing in an environment you need to make sure the different settings are working in harmony together. Two settings that can contradict each other are the Enterprise Calendar's Hours Per Work Day and the Resource Grid Decimal Precision.

If the Decimal Precision setting does not complement the Enterprise Calendar Hours Per Work Day value, it will result in miscalculation of the resource request hours displayed on resource tables and the visual alerts shown on the data. This especially affects the Resources’ Availability value.

If the Hours Per Work Day are set to 7.5 (one decimal place) and the Decimal Precision is set to 0, each time these hours are calculated they are rounded up in the view. So, if the resource has been proposed/committed for a full 7.5-hour day, this value will roll up to 8 in the view and show that they are working over their availability of 7.5 and the view will show this as a red alert.

Automatic Creation of Bookable Resources

By default, project Users can select to add a System User who is not yet a Bookable Resource to their Resource Plan. Upon selecting that System User to add them to the Resource Plan, a Bookable Resource record will automatically be created for that System User.

System users are identified

This image displays the Select a Resource to add drop-down list

During the automatic creation process, the following fields will be set:

Field Value
Enterprise Calendar Default Enterprise Calendar
Primary Role Job Title (if matching Role found) or to 'Unclassified'

Periodically Resource Managers should monitor for Bookable Resources who are added to the Unclassified primary role and switch them to their appropriate role.

If an existing Bookable Resource is added to a Resource Plan and that Bookable Resource does not yet have a Primary Role or an Enterprise Calendar, then those fields will be populated with default values (as per above) at the time they are added to the Resource Plan.

Note

This behaviour can be turned off by enabling the configuration setting 'disableSystemUserResourceSelection'. When this behaviour is disabled, the Resource Picker will only allow selection of existing Bookable Resources.

Note

While Primary role is indicated as mandatory in the table, please note the following details.

Where you can have existing Bookable Resource:

  • You can continue to use that Bookable Resource.
  • If you are editing an existing Bookable resource, you can add/edit/delete records that are associated to that Bookable Resource (e.g. Cost Rates, Calendar Exceptions) without being forced to enter a Primary Role.
  • You are editing the General Tab of existing resource, you are required to populate the Primary Role field.

The business rule of requiring a Primary Role is not required when using a bulk upload of Resources.

Populating Dataverse Environments with System Users

In order to utilise the automatic bookable resource creation above, it may be necessary to ensure the Dataverse is populated with the required users in the Dataverse Users (systemuser) table. This can be done a number of ways.

From Microsoft Guidance:

When you create an environment with a Dataverse database or add a Dataverse database to an existing environment, the system automatically adds all users in the organization—unless you select a security group as an access filter. Automatic user addition to an environment takes time, especially if your organization is large and access to the environment isn't restricted to any security group The system also supports just-in-time (JIT) user provisioning. In this scenario, when users access an environment URL, access requirements are checked at the time of sign-in and qualified users are added to the environment.

If you need to force Users to be added to a Power Platform environment prior to first login or for users that need to be avilable to be automatically created as Bookable Resources without logging in, this can be done using the following PowerShell command that utilises the Add-AdminPowerAppsSyncUser PowerShell CommandLet:


Install-Module Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell
Install-Module Microsoft.Graph.Groups 

Connect-MgGraph

#For GCC-High use 
#  Connect-MgGraph -Environment USGov -UseDeviceCode 
#  Add-PowerAppsAccount -Endpoint usgovhigh

$environmanetId = "bd607e8f-5945-e288-86f1-a32dac5a1c0f"
$groupName = "Power Platform Test Group"

Get-MgGroup -Filter "displayName eq '$groupName'" | %{ Get-MgGroupMember -GroupId $_.Id | %{ Add-AdminPowerAppsSyncUser -EnvironmentName $environmanetId -PrincipalObjectId $_.Id }}

The commands above add all the users from the EntraID security group 'Power Platform Test Group' into the Dataverse environment with ID bd607e8f-5945-e288-86f1-a32dac5a1c0f

Software boundaries and limits

See Resourcing Limits

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