Resource management can be thought of as a subhead of project management, to ensure proper utilization, commensuration, and balance of resources and assets. Following steps can be taken for your project and its resources:
- Assess
- Estimate
- Plan
- Schedule
- Allocate
- Execute
Ever wondered how businesses and companies —big or small— get their projects accomplished smoothly? How the intricate, extensive and expansive projects are successfully executed? How to make projects disencumbered?
Most of the times, the resources in your control are limited
Don’t scratch your head over that. Resource management software and tools are the most effective implements to make your work a breeze— well, just close a breeze (Straining your brain cells to get the most out of it is still on You)
TOUCHSTONES FOR SELECTION OF THE RIGHT SOFTWARE:
The course of your project can be riddled with challenges. Subject to the usual vicissitudes of executing a plan like uncertainty, unprecedented changes, alteration of deadlines, and modification of the set priorities, sick leaves; a resource management software can ease your way through the work while allowing for changes.
The whole work can get a little topsy-turvy; keep it straight with one strong resource management software. Use the following criteria for the selection of your weapon of choice!
User Interface: How well is it designed and does it allow for easy usage and understanding
Usability: Is the software easily learned and used?
Features & Functionality: Wouldn’t you want easy drag and drop? Calendar to keep you on track? And, of course, the key feature of scheduling and allotment, keeping track of deadlines?
Skills Tracking: To be able to allocate work according to the employees’ ability by searching for matching skills set? And to find them in specific departments even?
Forecasting: Does the software extrapolate the data on development, schedules, and assignments to forecast to assist you to plan for the future? Does it make any recommendation based on the data to help you maneuver through unexpected or new demands?
Utilization Management Tools: Does the software houses the ability to analyze your complete project? It usually takes the form of analytics and reporting features that give insight into capacity, utilization, and performance for projects, clients and individuals. Many tools also allow you to analyze your entire project portfolio.
Integrations: Is it easy to connect your favorite tools and apps with the software
Value for Money: how cost-effective is it? Are you getting the worth of your money?
TOP 5 RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE TO CHOOSE FROM:
- Float
- Hub planner
- Resource Guru
- Savoim
- 10,000ft Plans
1. Float:
As the name suggests, this software can help you float through your project!
You will find this software as one of the top choices for most of the leading companies and teams all owing to its simple design and features.
Its features include employee management, project management, project tracking, real-time scheduling, apps for iOS and Android.
You can frame and schedule your project, keep a trail on every member’s progress through an activity feed. It includes an easy to use click and drag resource assignment. And even better, you can view all of your projects simultaneously as well.
Several people have access to Float’s feature of the interface of the software and can create live changes in the schedule. This can be viewed by the team for the same project, making sure that everyone has access to and knowledge of the newest changes.
Float allows you to forecast and monetize your expenses and time. With access to information of individual departments, it is easy to compare the time allocation, billable and non-billable time which includes the holidays and days taken off.
Integrate your favorite daily apps like Google Calendar, Slack and Trello into it to make this app even better for your use.
Float pricing starts at $5.00 per month per user. A free version of Float is available too.
2. Hub Planner:
Allow Hub Planner to be the hub of your project!
Hub Planner has a clean easy to use interface to be used with drag and drop features, split tasks, utilization review, accommodation or changes according to holidays and off days. It has easy usage to add a project, add resources to a project, and book time for a resource.
You can quickly send email notifications, search for resource availability based on skillsets and their role in the project.
A special feature called the capacity bar lets you see the availability of resources in case they are booked for more than one task. An allocation tool helps you with the percentage of time and resulting hours spent, preventing over and under allocation.
The feature of the timesheet pre-decides the resources and time for you according to its forecast. It also features project notes and Resources Notes with individual projects. One of the unique features of Hub planner includes calculating and comparing the actual time reported via timesheets versus the forecasted time via the resource scheduler.
You can connect Hub Planner to external services like Dropbox and Google Drive.
Hun Planner lets you try 60 days free trial before charging $7 per user per month.
3. Resource Guru:
Let the Resource Guru be you, guru, through your project implementation!
It uses an interface in the style of a calendar and also an easy to use drag and drop feature, fields, and filters to create, manage and view availability and capabilities of the resources —human and non-human—even those in a remote locations
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One of the best features of Resource Guru is preventing conflicts while project managers make bookings simultaneously. This prevents overbooking and clashes to ensure a smoother working flow; your booking can be added to a waiting list instead.
The main part of this software is scheduling where all the resources and the timeline are placed in juxtaposition for you to organize everything cleanly. It can help you to create duration specific bookings as well.
You can edit a single day or a whole booking and at a glance view the availability and free time of all of your resources. You can view individual teams working on the same project and all of the projects simultaneously.
With its personalization features, each team member can have their own dashboard to work away at. Resource Guru has strong tools in the report section to recognize which project needs more work and which are being given more utility to help in future decisions and corrections.
Resource Guru lets you synchronize your calendar to external applications like Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, and Outlook so you are managing on the go as well.
You can use Resource Guru for $2.50/person. However, it conveniently doesn’t charge you for any resource you keep in your archive for later use.
4. Saviom:
Be tech Savvy with Saviom!
This software claims to change the terms of business efficiency by optimally utilizing the available resources for maximum output—using the skillsets and roles of people exactly where required and most productive. This is accomplished using a resource management module and a dashboard that shows your main project that is being worked on.
It offers an Enterprise portfolio management to drop the project cost by 20% helping you pick essentials for your project that complement it. It also includes a depository of skills to easily and quickly find and identify the skills required for any new work. It also has blogs, webinars, videos, and ebooks for users.
You can track real-time activities and predict changes and make relevant accommodation in the work. It also allows for a manager like you to work effectively with an agile team.
With an easy drag feature, you can change the time of your booking, and it also prevents clashing of the resources allotment. You can create accurate plans for any tentative plans using a handy capacity versus demand reporting system, giving you information about the workforce based on data.
It has a customizable pricing strategy that allows you more control over the usage of the product for you.
5. 10,000 Ft. Plans:
Take your product to new heights with 10,000ft plans!
This software gives you the ability to make critical decisions viewing your project in entirety. The program has a minimalistic Web 2.0 interface that dotes a lot on placing everything where it has to be. In a way, users don’t get too much distracted with the vivid color overhaul, while being able to work at their own pace.
10,000 Ft. centralizes resource, time and workflow management through one platform. Call it a centralized approach or something like that. The tools are quite a handful; you can manage several workspaces, run projects in separate instances without worrying about one project’s settings overlapping another’s – so on and so forth.
Some of the main highlights of 10,000 Ft. are but not limited to the following:
- Manage capacity oriented data, drag and drop, visualize reports and do a lot more etc.
- Track time, capture resources, monitor active vs. billable work hours, issue invoices and get automated notifications if the budget spills over capacity.
- Manage multiple employees, remote workers and contractors on a whim. 10,000 Ft. calls it lifecycle management, but don’t let the simple title of this standalone feature fool you. Explore it, and you’re going to find a lot of useful chunk of information that will help you to take your project to the next level.
Verdict:
We hope you liked our shortlisted resource management software. That being said, this list is still inconclusive as it will be updated again as part of our extension program. Be sure to bookmark this post. Like, share and spread the word out.
Care to share your views about project management in general. Please use the comments section below or you can also reach out to us at Steve@productivityland.com anytime you want!
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