Resource plans
Summarize
Summary of Resource plans
Resource plans are fundamental in managing resources within ServiceNow's Resource Management. They enable project managers and other requesters to ask for resources, monitor effort, and track costs associated with tasks and projects. Resource managers review, modify, approve, and allocate these plans. However, new customers will no longer have access to resource plans in future releases and are encouraged to use resource assignments for greater flexibility.
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Resource Plan Lifecycle and States
Resource plans progress through multiple states:
- Planning: Initial editable state where plans are created or changed.
- Requested: Submitted for resource manager review and allocation.
- Rejected: Resource manager rejects the plan; requester must revise it.
- Confirmed: Resources are blocked/reserved; only resource managers can modify.
- Allocated: Hard allocations are made; resource managers can adjust or cancel.
- Completed: Closed after tasks/projects finish; allocations removed post-completion.
- Canceled: Plan and allocations are canceled; can revert to Planning if no past allocations.
Requesters can revert plans to Planning state to request changes before allocation. Modifications in Confirmed or Allocated states are restricted to resource managers and typically cause the plan to revert to Requested state with allocations reset.
Request Types and Effort Calculation
Resource requests can be made as:
- Hourly: Number of required hours.
- FTE (Full-Time Equivalent): Based on average daily FTE hours, working days, and FTE value, reflecting equivalent full-time workload.
- Person Days: Calculated using total person days multiplied by average daily FTE hours or hours per person day.
These calculations depend on user/group schedules and default properties to ensure synchronization of capacity and schedules.
Resource Plan Costs
Costs related to resource plans are tracked as planned, allocated, and actual. Hourly rates are derived from:
- Specified resource rate overrides
- Associated project/demand rate models (requiring recalculation when rates change)
- Labor rate cards if no rate model applies
Costs from multiple resource plans roll up into aggregated fields on projects and demands for comprehensive cost tracking.
Practical Actions for ServiceNow Customers
- Create and edit resource plans for demands, projects, tasks, incidents, problems, or changes until approval.
- Use Resource Finder to analyze availability before creating plans.
- Request, confirm, allocate, or reject resources as appropriate roles (requesters or resource managers).
- Request changes or extensions to existing resource plans and manage allocations for extended periods.
- Complete or cancel resource plans to close or remove unnecessary allocations.
- Modify plans carefully in Confirmed or Allocated states to avoid unintended allocation resets.
- Synchronize time zones in resource management to accommodate distributed teams effectively.
- Associate time cards correctly with resource plans when resources are allocated to similarly named tasks in multiple plans.
Important Considerations
Resource plans will be phased out for new customers in future releases in favor of resource assignments, which offer improved flexibility. Customers should plan transitions accordingly. Time zones are crucial for accurate scheduling when resources are geographically dispersed. Changes to resource plans after time card approvals are restricted to maintain accurate actual efforts and costs.
Resource plans are the key element in resource management.
You're encouraged to work on resource assignments which offers more flexibility Create resource assignments in Resource Management Workspace using Resource Management Workspace or Project Workspace.
Resource requesters, such as project managers, create resource plans to ask for resources, track effort, and track costs. Resource managers modify and approve resource plans before the plans are used.
All resource plans for a task appear on the Resource Plan related list of the Project task form, where resource requesters can access them.
| State | Description |
|---|---|
| Planning |
Planning is the default state when a resource requester creates a resource plan. Any plan in this state can be edited. Requested Allocations are created when a resource plan is in Planning state. When a resource requester asks for a change to a plan that was already submitted, the plan reverts to the Planning state. |
| Requested | Resource requester submits a resource plan for resource managers review by selecting Submit. The resource plan then moves into the Requested state. Resource managers confirm and allocate
resources or reject the plan, and finally close the plan. The resource requester can request a group, specific users in a group, or a specific user to work on the selected task. After you submit the plan for review, a resource manager can confirm, and then allocate some or all the requested users. If the task requires more than one user or groups, multiple resource plans can be created for the given task. |
| Rejected | Resource manager can reject a resource plan by selecting Reject. The resource plan then moves into the Rejected state. Rejected plans stay in that state until changes are made and the requester can re-request the resources. |
| Confirmed |
After the plan is requested, the resource manager can block/confirm the resources for future projects and demands. The resource plan then moves into the Confirmed state. Only a resource manager can modify the plans in Confirmed state. Soft allocations are created when the resource plan moves to the Confirmed state. |
| Allocated |
After the plan is confirmed, the resource manager can review the plans, view availability, change resource preferences and perform the resource allocation. The resource plan moves into the Allocated state. A resource manager can only cancel, complete, or modify it. Soft allocations are converted to hard allocations when the resource plan moves to the Allocated state. Note:
You can also set a plan to the Allocated state directly from the Requested state using Confirm and Allocate option. |
| Completed | After all associated tasks and projects are complete or canceled, an Allocated resource plan can be completed. This deletes all the resource allocations for the resource plan post the completion date. |
| Canceled | A plan can be canceled if the allocations are no longer required. This removes all past and future allocations. A canceled resource plan can be brought back to the Planning state if it has no past
allocations. Resource plans in Planning, Requested, Confirmed, or Allocated state can be canceled. |
Resource Management supports time zones, which are important in the My Calendar and Resource Workbench modules.
Modifications in Confirmed or Allocated state
Only a resource manager can modify a resource plan in the Confirmed or Allocated state.
- All soft allocations are deleted.
- Requested allocations are re-created with changed values.
- Resource plan moves back to the Requested state.
- All resource allocations (soft and hard) are deleted.
- Requested allocations are re-created with changed values.
- Resource plan moves back to the Requested state.
The resource manager can also modify or delete the past dated resource allocations for Allocated resource plans if no actual hours are recorded for those resource allocation records. When a user submits a time card, upon approval of the time card, actual hours are updated for an allocation record.
Request type
- Hourly: The request is in terms of the number of hours the resources are necessary.
- FTE: The request is in terms of an equivalent value that represents full-time work. When
the request type is FTE, planned hours are calculated as:
Average Daily FTE * number of working days in resource plan * the FTE value. The average daily FTE hours are specified in User and Group records. If there is no value specified at User or Group record, the average daily FTE hours is taken from the Default Average Daily FTE property.The number of working days is calculated based on the users schedule for a user resource or the default schedule for group resources. The default schedule is taken from the Default Schedule Name property.
For example, say that the average daily FTE for a group is 40 hours. The resource plan period is from September 1 to September 10, and the FTE is 0.5.
Assuming 8 working days during the plan period, planned hours =
40 * 8 * 0.5=160 hours.Note:Capacity is not derived from FTE, but from schedules. Both FTE and schedules must be in synchronization with each other. - Person days: The request is in terms of person days. When the request type is person days,
planned hours are calculated as:
Total number of person days * Average Daily FTE Hours/Hours Per Person Day.For example, say the Average Daily FTE Hours/Hours Per Person Day for a group is 8 hours, and the person days is 3. Then, planned hours =
8 * 3= 24 hours.
Resource plan costs
Resource plan costs can be tracked directly in the resource plan record. Resource plan costs are divided into planned, allocated, and actual.
If the Rate override option in a resource plan is selected, the hourly rate for calculating the corresponding resource plan cost is derived from the rate specified in the Resource rate field.
If a rate model is associated to the project or demand, the hourly rate is derived from the rate model. Whenever the hourly rates in the associated rate model change, you must recalculate the resource costs of the resource plan to reflect the new rates.
If rate model is not available, the hourly rate for calculating the corresponding resource plan cost is derived from labor rate card.
Projects and Demands can have multiple resource plans. The aggregated costs for all resources plans roll up to the Planned Cost and Allocated Cost fields and the Resource Cost section of both projects and demands.