Resource Assignment and Capacity Planning Guide

[Luis Ataide]

Are you ready to start your Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) implementation journey for Resource Assignment and Capacity Planning?

This guide gives you valuable information you can share with your team, including proven guidance and links to key resources—all designed to set you on the path to success.

While this guide is primarily designed for ServiceNow platform owners and/or SPM Process Owners, and it also contains useful information if you have a different role in your organization. Let’s get started!

Guide overview

Here’s an overview of the topics we will cover in the guide:

• Concepts of Resource Assignment & Capacity Planning
• Resource Assignment Architecture
•  
• Understand current use case & future state
• Charting your implementation path
• Additional Resources

 

1.    Concepts of Resource Assignment & Capacity Planning

Capacity Planning is balancing the supply of resources and the demand for work in a portfolio.

Planning Attributes

Planning attributes are a common currency to bring together supply and demand of work.

The Path of Capacity Planning

Step 1: Estimate Effort (Demand of Work)

Make Resource Assignments to Demand, Projects, Project Tasks, Epics.

Step 2: Manage Capacity (Supply of Work)

Generate resource availability based on planning attributes in a time frame.

Step 3: Capacity Planning

Select the Workforce criteria for your Portfolio Plan

Analyze Capacity

Analyze capacity against the planned items (Demand, Project, Epic) based on the workforce criteria selected for your Portfolio Plan

2.    Resource Assignment Architecture

Classic vs New

Data Model

Classic Resource Plan

Migrated Resource Plan

New Resource Assignment

3.    Current Use Case

4.    Future State

Resource Management Workspace

The Resource Management Workspace is a central tool for Resource Managers to manage the workload of their Resource Portfolio (all resources under their purview).

The First version released in November’23 provides:

• A complete view of all work, including both assigned and unassigned work as well as planned and operational work, to truly capture the accurate capacity and workload of an organization.
• Quickly and easily navigate between the Project Workspace and the Resource Management Workspace via hyperlinked work items and a consistent user experience.

More functionalities are planned to be included on next releases, as per the picture above.

5.    Implementation Path

Recommendation for Planning Attributes: Plan and define Planning Attributes in the perspective of Capacity Planning before starting setup, even for cases on which Capacity Planning won't be used from beginning, as planning attributes are the common currency to aggregate and bring information together for Capacity Planning, but may also impact resource assignment process.

6.    Additional Resources

Community Article: SPM Getting Started - Learning and Enablement

Workshop Recording: Discover and learn about “Capacity Planning” enhanced functionality on SPW

Meetup Recording: Discover Resource Assignment on Project Workspace

Community Article: Strategic Resource Capacity Planning - How to set it up and view capacity plans

ServiceNow Docs: Resource Management in Project Workspace

ServiceNow Docs: Capacity planning in Portfolio Planning

[buzzhundley]

I have everything up and running, but I'm unable to assign resources at the project level. The Summary task toggle is on, and the project summary task is displayed. However, when I double click in the Resource Assignees field, it's locked out. If I try on the bottom of the screen by clicking the Add Resource option, it lets me enter the data, but it will not save. I can assign resources at the task level with no problems. 

[Pavithra Ds]

Hi,

Can we look forward for approval process that we currently have in terms of resource plan to be incorporated on the resource assignments?

Thanks! 

[Marjorie Bradbu]

Luis, this guide is excellent!  By chance is it available in a document you can share?

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Marjorie Bradbu, thank you for your comment and feedback.

The article Discover and learn about “Capacity Planning” enhanced functionality on SPW contains an attachment you can download.

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @buzzhundley. Thank you for your message and sorry for my late response.

The Resource Assignees field is available only for Project Tasks. To create a resource assignment at the project level, you have to use the 'Add Resource' option.

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Pavithra Ds. Thank you for your comment.

We are moving away from using “allocated, requested” and moving into a modern, simplified approach with “pending, approved, and unapproved.” 

Resource managers are able to approve / unapproved resource assignments using the Resource Management Workspace.

[Lauri Arra]

Thank you for the article. Two of the pictures contains the data models for legacy resource plans and migrated data. I couldn't find a complete migration guide from the community articles or the SN docs, does this mean there's no resource plan data migration required and switching the property value in sn_pw.enable_resource_planning is enough?

EDIT: found the migration article in docs: https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-it-business-management/page/product/resource-managem... 

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Lauri Arra,

Thank you for your comment. 

All the information regarding the new Resource Management, including Resource Plan migration, is available in this article: Quick Start Guide for Resource Management.

The article contains a session called 'Resource Management Transition Plan & Guidance', which refers to the Resource Plan Migration Guidance document and video playlist.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Luis Ataide.

[Ben B2]

Hi @Luis ,

I am testing out Operational Resource Assignments and their impact on Capacity Planning.  I have created Operational resource assignments for the a group in my PDI, generated the capacity and am reviewing their availability in the Capacity Planning tab in SPW.  Even though I have created these operational assignments and each resource in the group has allocations, the group is showing as 100% available.  Am I missing something?

Thank you,

Ben

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Ben B2.

The availability should be decreased and the totals from resource assignments by planning attribute (group in your case) and for the selected period represented as the example below.

Make sure you have the latest SPW version in your instance.

[Ben B2]

Thank you @Luis Ataide !  I was able to get this working in my instance.  I believe the updates helped because I no longer show 100% availability after creating my operational resource assignments.

[BaylorS]

My organization is struggling to look at capacity planning. We can see all of the projects resources are allocated to on a weekly basis, but how can we include the resource needs where we do *not* have a completed project schedule yet?

In other words, how can we show a resource manager a request from their team in the same list of projects their team is already working on?

[Chad17]

Can someone remind me of the timeline for this? At what point in the future will we no longer be able to use the existing method of resource plans and will have to move to resource assignments? Thanks! Chad

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Chad17, 

Thank you for your message. Timeline yet to be defined, and customers will be informed in advance once decided.

Best regards,

Luis.

[Karen3]

This document is very helpful for planning.

I have a question on the Resource Manager Workspace.     If a Resource Manager wants to approve multiple lines (either for a single user or for multiple users) is there a way to do that or do they have to approve (or unapprove) each line individually?  I tried to do multi-select like you can in other reports but was unable to do that.

Thanks for your help.

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Karen3,

Thank you for the feedback and questions. Multiple approval is not available at the moment, but I shared this feedback with the Product team to be analysed as possible enhancement for future release.

I also recommend checking the community article Quick Start Guide for Resource Management, as it has all the information about the new resource management solution.

[Louis Savalli]

Hi @Luis Ataide, it appears that as soon as a resource assignment is created, a resource's availability is reduced.  Is there any way to prevent the resource's availability from being affected until the resource assignment is approved?

[Chad17]

@Louis Savalli , just curious, is this happening with user resource assignments only, or group resource assignments as well?  (I'm assuming group vs user is still similar to that of resource plans.)

Thanks
Chad

[Louis Savalli]

@Chad17 it's happening with both.  The one major difference with users and groups in the new system is that group assignments can only be managed at the group level.  I can't spread an allocation over a group then adjust each person's allocations individually within the group.

[Chad17]

@Louis Savalli , interesting.  I thought the way the resource allocation workbench was set up inferred that you could change allocations for each person, even within a group assignment.

[Louis Savalli]

@Chad17 in the allocation workbench, yes.  In the new system with Resource Assignments, I haven't been able to do that.  Unless I'm missing something it's not possible.

[Chad17]

@Louis Savalli , gotcha.  I'm talking about the Resource Management Workbench that's in the new system with Resource Assignments.  Can't you adjust allocations per person there?

[Louis Savalli]

@Chad17 Not that I'm aware of.  You can adjust individual allocations like you could in the old workbench, and you can adjust group allocations at the group level, but not individually in a group allocation.  If you see a way to do this please let me know.

[Chad17]

@Louis Savalli .  Understood, thanks!  We haven't been able to install this yet in any of our sandbox environments.  Hopefully someone from ServiceNow will jump in and help us understand this part.  Thanks again!

[Karen3]

I found this recent video to be helpful  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyelGfw9hpo    There is a demo about 36 minutes in for the Resource Manager Workspace.     It shows how the Resource assignments differ if you use Group vs. User.   Group spreads the assignments across the group and then how to assign, reassign split or change the allocation amounts.    Resource Manager Workspace would replace the Resource Allocation Workbench once you move to Resource Assignments.

[Ben B2]

@Louis Savalli @Chad17  I am working to figure out the best process for ensuring I have all hours from a resource assignment covered by resources.  When I assign resources to an unassigned task, if I adjust the hours down for one or more of the resources assigned, there is no way that I am aware of to see the difference between the original hours on the resource assignment vs. what has been assigned to actual resources.  In classic resource management, I could wee the requested hours vs. confirmed/allocated hours.  In new resource management, I am not able to see this gap when assigned hours are reduced for any resources.  I also found that once I assign resources and reduce the hours for a resource, if I unassign the resource, the hours that go back to the unassigned task are equal to the reduced hours, not the original hours requested.  Any ideas on how you are handling this would be welcomed.

[Louis Savalli]

@Ben B2 Even in classic resource management there were some inconsistencies with how planned hours were captured on the resource plan.  For those wishing to report on that, I recommend a custom field that gets populated, say, upon initial creation of the resource plan/assignment (or whenever it makes sense for your process).

As for the other issue, that sounds like how SN is designed out of the box.  I can't think of anything to do besides manually fixing the hours as needed.

[HayleyAlexander]

Hi @Louis Savalli  and @Chad17 - In response to the comments around a resources allocation only counting approved: We are working to correct this in a future release where it will allow users to choose what counts towards allocated hours (approved, pending, unapproved) based on their overall preference. For this latest August release, all tasks assigned to a user will be counted towards total allocation. 

[Louis Savalli]

@Karen3 super helpful, thanks.  From that video I understand is that group resource plans are intended to spread the work evenly, and that's why you cannot alter individuals within a group plan.

[Louis Savalli]

@HayleyAlexander thank you this will be really helpful when it is implemented!

[Karen3]

Hi.  I was experimenting with creating Epics from a Demand.  I know with Resource Plans they plans do not go over to the Epic, but I thought that with Resource Assignments that they would.    Is this available or is there a configuration that can do this.  I only found this post where someone did it with a workflow  https://www.servicenow.com/community/spm-forum/reassociate-demand-resource-plans-to-an-epic/m-p/2808...

Additionally it doesn't appear like the planned dates for the Demand come over to the Epic.   With Resource Plans if they did not come over to a Project from a Demand I could change the associated task on the Demand to the Project and pull it over but doesn't seem like I can do that in the UI to move the Demand Resource Assignments over to the Epic.   Am I missing something.

Thanks

[Ben B2]

@Karen3 When converting demands to anything other than projects, you will want to make updates to scripts to ensure all the data you want on the work item created (epics, enhancements, defects, etc) have the data transferred to the relevant fields as most have minimal data copied other than project.

[Brian B1]

Hi @Luis Ataide just wondering if a timeline has been established for  when will we no longer be able to use the existing method of resource plans and will have to move to resource assignments?

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Brian B1. No timeline established yet.

Best regards,

Luis.

[Karen3]

I have been testing how to use the Resource Management Workspace to Approve, Unapprove, Assign, Reassign resources.

Everything works fine as far as I can tell if I have User Based resource assignments.

Group based assignments that spread across the entire group is where I run into trouble.

The Group assignment added to the Demand or Project, correctly spreads the allocation across the whole group.   The Assignment initially goes into a Pending State.

In the Resource Management Workspace the Assignment shows on the user as being as part of a group and doesn't allow editing.

In the Work Type Resource Card I can get the unassigned resource assignment to show but I can only assign it to a User not update that the group.   This seems like a defect.

The only way I was able to approve was to go to an Epic/Demand/Project, Click on the Resource Assignment and update to Approve.

For Epics and Demands it was a lot of clicks and either way this work flow isn't as user friendly as the other pieces.  Is that the expected workflow?

or is it suggested to tell resource managers to leave group assignments on Demands in pending and the PMO would approve the Demand assignments right before converting to an Epic or Project?

What is the expected workflow to approve/unapprove the Group assignments?  Is the Resource Manager expected to click through to the Epic/Demand/Project to update the Status?

Just looking for some insight.    Am I missing something?   Thanks

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Karen3.

Thank you very much for your details feedback. 

I have shared this feedback with Product team to consider a better user experience for group resource assignment on next releases.

Best regards,

Luis Ataide.

[Louis Savalli]

@Karen3 I've had similar struggles with group assignments.  They don't seem to be in par with the old system.  I advise clients that if they'd like to use a group assignment, it has to be managed as a group, you can't make individual changes after the group assignment is set up.

Alternatively, you can assign multiple individuals to a resource assignment, which will split the assignment up among those users.  Those are technically user assignments, so they can be edited individually later.

[Louis Savalli]

@Karen3, I've learned something new today.  When you create a group resource assignment, it spawns child user-type resource assignments for each group member.  Those can be individually modified.  But you have to navigate to them, I can't see that they're accessible from the resource management workspace.  I'm not sure if this is new in a recent update or if it's always been this way.  All of my instances are fully updated so I don't have any place to test it.  @Luis Ataide would you know?

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Karen3, This behaviour has always been the same. 

[ReeceN]

Hi @Luis Ataide Is there a way to enable Capacity Planning when in the Scenario Planning functionality? When I look to compare scenarios I can't seem to find if I'm able to include the capacity planning.

Thank you

[Uncle Rob]

Is this the current state-of-the-art for Resource & Capacity?  Or have new versions superseded it?

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @ReeceN.

Capacity Planning in the Scenario Planning is not available yet, it's planned for next releases.

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Uncle Rob,

There are new versions with additional functionalities. And more functionalities will come on next releases. 

We recommend to follow the Quick Start Guide for Resource Management

[Community Alums]

In the context of SPM, we are heavily using the resource reports and workspace to forecast utilization, allocation, etc. All of our resource assignments are either by individual resource, or resource role as the planning attribute. When we create a resource assignment for a Demand for a specific Resource Role, it doesn't show up anywhere in the Resource Reports. Is there another report that will show forecast for the resource roles that includes both assigned resource assignments (to an individual) and pending resource assignments (to a role) so that we can consider those tentative demands in our long term planning? Or maybe a property or something I can change to have this functionality in the resource reports? Any suggestions are welcome!

[Christiana Ezew]

@Luis Ataide 

I am trying to create an operational resource assigment for a specific role, I'am getting an error message indicating "no user matching the given criteria". I do not want to do it for individual users but for all the users that have the roles. Please how do achieve this? because if i want to do this individually, it could take a lot of time. we have over 500 users that each need operational assignments for Admin. KTLO and OOO, I would mean creating over 1500 records in total.

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Christiana Ezew,

The resource assignments look for resources based on the attributes defined in the Employee Profile.

In your case, this means there are no resources whose Primary Role is 'Testers - Christy' in the Employee Profile table. 

In the example below, there are 5 employee profiles whose Primary Role is DBA, so I'm able to create Resource Assignments for the DBA role.

However, I won't be able to create resource assignments for the role of Project Manager, as there is nobody whose the Primary Role is Project Manager in the Employee profile.

Best regards,

Luis.

[Louis Savalli]

@Community Alums It sounds like you're looking to report on both assigned resource assignments and unassigned, yes?  Unassigned is when someone has asked for a role or group but has not specified a person.

I've found that if you setup a portfolio plan and go to the portfolio planning workspace, you can do group-based capacity planning, and the numbers you'll see will reflect unassigned and assigned resource assignments.  Maybe it will do the same for role-based?  You'd think so, I just haven't tested it.  My testing shows it will take the resource assignment into account whether or not it's on a project or demand within the portfolio plan.

I'd rather have this functionality outside the PPW.  Seems like this should be part of the resource management workspace.

[Karlie]

We are seeing the resource assignments that are set for say like 3 months are being front loaded, they are putting the hours in the first 2 weeks of the month but leaving the last 2 weeks empty. I thought it was supposed to evenly spread these hours, does anyone know why this would be happening? 

[Christiana Ezew]

@Luis Ataide 

I’m facing an issue where migrated resource plans and operational resource plans to resource assignments are not appearing in the Strategic Planning Workspace (SPW). However, they show up in the Resource Management and Project workspaces. I’ve already enabled internal integration mapping to the SPW. When I create resource assignments or operational resource assignments directly, they appear in all three workspaces. The issue only arises when migrating existing resource plans to resource assignments. Why do they show up in the Project and Resource workspaces but not in the SPW? Could there be a setup step I might have missed? Any guidance would be appreciated.

[Luis Ataide]

Hi @Christiana Ezew,

Thanks for your message. 

Please raise a support ticket, as it will allow the support team to access your instance for further investigation.

Best regards,

Luis Ataide.