Is anyone else struggling with Resource Workspace?

[Niels Aksel]

We have been using classic ServiceNow Resource Management for years and are now preparing to migrate to Resource Workspace. While we understand and appreciate the simplified allocation process, we are struggling to see how Resource Workspace supports some of our day-to-day resource management activities.

Overall, we find the workspace difficult to navigate and it can be challenging to get a clear overview of resource requests, allocations, and actual effort. We are interested in hearing how others have experienced the transition and whether you have found effective ways to work around some of the limitations we are seeing.

A few examples:

1. Project overview and reporting

As a Project Manager, it is not easy to get a simple overview of how many hours have been allocated to my project. The Resource Board primarily focuses on total allocated hours and utilization, but we are missing straightforward visibility into allocated and actual hours for the project

2. Assignment distribution

When distributing an unassigned resource allocation across multiple users, the distribution logic often leaves behind small amounts of effort on the unassigned resource assignment. We find this quite frustrating, especially since ServiceNow considers this expected behavior rather than a defect.

Has anyone found a practical way to handle this situation?

Related knowledge article: KB2737283

More generally, how has the Resource Workspace been received in your organization?

[Alpa82]

Exactly, thank you very much @Chris Cannella .  I am constantly reminded by the customers " we think in the Person days, how much effort is needed for this projects". 
That is already part of the discussion in the Demand phase. 
a) There is requirement to add just overall estimated number of effort needed in Person days to see the size of it. (irelevant of the teams or resources detailed identification in the Resource assignment), also some customers do not use resource assignment and want only the total number of PD

b) If there are resource assignment already in place, show in the Demand / Project the overall number of PD for the whole project duration.
c) Other requirement form customers is to see this Overall Effort in person days in the Strategic Planning Workspace, e.g. in the Prioritization tab (e.g. where is the total cost, etc, to show also the total effort in PD, now the information of all important details are into many tabs/workspaces and they are asking to have one simple view where I see the most important details.

Thank you

[Marjorie Bradbu]

We have experienced the same.  Additionally, we have found that when a resource is inactivated (leaves the company), they no longer appear in the view.  We have to go back to classic to find the original allocation to then create a new one for the new resource.  

Our RMs and PMs are frequently sharing feedback that the screens are too cluttered and do not have enough flexibility to move columns around or enough real estate to see what they desire in one screen.  The split screens take up too much real estate, they do not like the vertical split screens.

[alexankaras]

As a workaround for #1:

As an admin user, navigate to the sn_plng_att_core_resource_assignment (Resource Assignment) table and configure the list layout for the "Resource Manager" view. Add the "Actual Hours" field in the layout of the list:

Refresh your workspace page - the column should appear (if not click on the "Reset Columns" button on the Column Config side-panel inside the workspace resource view):

This is a "workaround" because it always shows the total actuals in "hours" that might be enough for your use-case - but it doesn't change the display in Person Days or FTEs when you change the display option from the top-right.