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Resource Management Software Buyer's Guide
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An organization needs resource management as it provides an overview of everything and everyone while planning and management are made simple and transparent. It helps organizations to understand what effort it takes for a task and who is the right person for it. Resource management systems enable project teams to optimize project schedules, increase productivity, and balance workloads.
» What is Resource Management Software?
Resource Management Software enables organizations to track their employee’s availability to assign them to suitable projects as well as identifies their skills. It is a category of project management solution that is used by larger companies with more than 500 employees to effective workload management.
» What are the Features of Resource Management Software?
Resources can be anything from types of equipment required for a project to employees who work on that project. Resources for an organization can be: type of team, roles, and responsibilities of team members, need and purpose of tools a project needs, what number of employees and facilities you need for a project, job locations, meeting rooms, and material requirements includes this list.
You might be pondering on what to look for as you check out for resource planning software options available. Here are some of the key features to look in for, which gives you an idea of what various software interfaces look like.
› Resource Planning:
The software should help you identify and allocate resources for time-intensive work. The feature allows you to determine resource costs against the project’s duration and location, including the costs, training, and hours available, leave and absences.
› Knowledge Base:
Any of the best resource management software will include this feature to help HR and project managers to understand the type of employees they need for various job roles. Besides, it contains definitions that are easily understandable for different roles and skills, reducing the workload for managers to hire and assign tasks.
› Resource Scheduling:
This feature allows you to link planned activities to the timeline and billable utilization for each employee. Depending on employee skills, workloads can be adjusted. Moreover, the resource scheduler allows you to create bookings in a way that the working hours are not extended or unused when there are several dependencies.
› Employee Forecasting:
Your software should collect internal data related to product launches, development, and sales. Based on this information, organizations can plan for future staffing requirements
› Cost and Time Resource:
This feature of resource management tools allows you to provide various types of resourcing contracts. Besides, it allows distributing tasks according to the resource availability and bills project for actual hours regardless of planned estimations, ensuring profitability.
› Skills and Availability Tracker:
This feature allows organizations to identify the availability of employees with desired skills to work on the projects. You can input the skills and schedules of employees, as well as create a profile based on this.
» What are the Benefits of Resource Management Software?
An effective resource management and planning system enables organizations to enhance resource utilization while considering the availability of employee’s skills, their location and preferences, time zone, and allocate them into projects. The software supports project portfolio management and manages resources in a way that promotes productivity and profitability. Other benefits of resource management software are.
› Maximizes team performance:
The software simplifies resource management with increased visibility, intuitive allocation, and flexible planning features. It ensures no employee’s workflow gets hectic with too many tasks or gets only a few.
› Resource Utilization Insights:
You can get customized reports, Gantt charts, and table views to help you understand and measure your team's performance. Besides, some key insights allow you to make necessary adjustments for future project planning.
› Gains Visibility into team workloads:
Your managers can easily visualize each team member's schedules and in what projects they are. It also provides insights into the team's availability and reduces the conflicts that could create great stress within the organization.
› Intuitive Resource Management:
Resource management tools make it easy for your organization to prioritize projects with the right resources. It also adjusts the timelines, reassign tasks, and redistributes hours to direct urgent requests with drag and drop features.
› Flexible Resource Planning:
Based on an employee capacity and work schedule, managers can quickly add or adjust tasks. They can also divide working hours across the team to increase productivity. It also ensures the right people are on the job.
» What is the Cost of Resource Management Software?
Resource planning tools are not only useful for large companies but also, smaller companies can use these tools by investing in a conventional resource management solution. There are tons of quality software products in this category. You should do some knowledgeable comparisons to select the best resource management tools according to your company needs. Your selection will become easier when you consider a few factors and key features in the software. Start your search for the best software by trying out their free trials. This allows you to test every best software’s key features and understand if that suits your needs by all means.
Sometimes, companies fail to measure their capacity, limiting effective resource planning. Investing in a purpose-built resource management tool addresses this issue. The resources manager needs to create a list of all possible risks and opportunities and think of the proper allocation of these resources, which is possible with resource management systems. The software cost differs based on your company’s size. Usually, the price starts at $6/user/month for a company of around 200 users. You can request for the quote if your employee size is above 200. Find out if your chosen resource management tool is easy to learn and master and availability of tutorials and training. Also, find out if the vendor offers adequate support.
» Conclusion
Effective planning of resources is necessary for any successful project. However, it can be challenging. When you plan for a project, several elements have to be counted for employee schedules, types of equipment and its cost, office space, holidays, just to name a few. This clarifies why resource management software has emerged as a separate discipline in its own right. The software helps you distribute and manage resources and allocate workload throughout the life-cycle of projects better than ever.