Managing resources in the new Resource Management Workspace

EWood · 3 weeks ago

Hello,

I am looking for guidance on maintaining accurate resource allocation data in the new ServiceNow Resource Management Workspace. We migrated to Zurich last week and have the new Project and Resource Management Modules.

What is the ServiceNow best practice for managing resources who leave a project early (or that do not need to be on the project for its entirety) in the new Resource Management Workspace? With the removal of the "Complete Resource Plan" process, how should resource managers update allocations to accurately reflect that a resource is no longer engaged on the project?

Here are a few examples:

1) A testing coordinator might be needed at the beginning of a project for a few hours and then not again until the very end. Do we enter two separate requests?

2) A resource request was submitted for a testing coordinator for a period of time, but they are no longer needed. How do we "complete" that plan to release that resource's time?

Any guidance is appreciated.

Thank you.

PaulaaO · 3 weeks ago

Hiya,

My advice is to edit the actual Resource Assignments for the specific periods that a resource is needed, as they provide more flexibility than Resource Plans and don't get "locked" as RP used to.

In relation to your examples:

1) A testing coordinator might be needed at the beginning of a project for a few hours and then not again until the very end. Do we enter two separate requests?

You could do 2 separate requests OR have a single Resource Assignment for the entire period and make sure the effort is reflected only during the days/weeks the resource is actually needed for allocation. It can be 0 effort in between.

2) A resource request was submitted for a testing coordinator for a period of time, but they are no longer needed. How do we "complete" that plan to release that resource's time?

If the use case is that allocation ends earlier than expected, then just amend the end date of the Resource Assignment. If it's the case of "cancelling" the request entirely, then just remove the allocated resource or delete the Resource Assignment (though deleting records in general is not best practice).

Hope this helps 🙂

EWood · 3 weeks ago

Thank you so much for your response.

EWood · Tuesday

Hello again,

I instructed our PMs to change the end date, but it's forcing them to "Sync" the resources and it's realigning the resource dates with the project end date, which is completely incorrect. Resources on projects aren't always needed for the entirety of the project - they might be needed in the beginning or for a short period of time somewhere during the project. We are now having a difficult time managing resources accurately. Any additional guidance is appreciated. Thank you.

Chris Cannella · Wednesday

Hello EWood,

Changing the end date of the project task will require either a manual or (recently added) automatic resource sync. This is to ensure that the dates of a resource assignment are not outside the dates of the task. A simple example would be a decision to shift a project task to start in November instead of October. We want to 'sync' the assignments so that the resource assignments on that task move from October to November.

When you change the end date of a project task to be later than planned, we will not modify any assignments on that task by default (even when you hit sync). The sync is impacting any resource assignments on other tasks that were moved to the right due to task dependencies (see previous example).

When you change the end date of a project task to be sooner than planned (say, ending Sept 15 instead of Sept 30), any assignments on the project task are truncated to end Sept 15. If you have FS constraints and dependent project tasks shift left, resource assignments on those tasks will also shift left when the sync occurs.

There is a plan to release explicit 'end assignment early' functionality this October. The goal is to reduce clicks while letting you also modify resource states. We will also be merging (date tbd) the extend assignment functionality with the end early functionality so that you have a single place to make both changes.

I hope this helps,

Chris