Migration of resource plans and cost plans

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Migration of resource plans and cost plans

    This migration process enables ServiceNow customers to transition their existing resource plans and associated cost plans into a new, attribute-based system aligned with the Next Experience. Specifically, resource plans are converted into resource assignments, and cost plans are transformed into attribute-based labor costs. This migration facilitates streamlined management of resource allocations and project financials within the Project Workspace and Resource Management Workspace.

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    Key Features

    • Resource Plan Migration: Resource plans from projects or demands are migrated to resource assignments based on key planning attributes such as Group, Skill, and Role.
    • Status Mapping: Only resource plans in Planning, Requested, Confirmed, Allocated, Rejected, and Completed states are migrated; plans in Canceled or In-progress states are excluded. The migration maps resource plan statuses to corresponding resource assignment statuses (e.g., Requested plans become Unassigned resource assignments).
    • Effort Handling: Efforts in requested states (including additional hours not yet approved) are included in the migration, ensuring total resource effort is accurately reflected post-migration.
    • Allocation Consistency: Allocation contours—representing effort distribution over time—are maintained during migration to preserve planning accuracy, capacity, and utilization insights.
    • Operational Resource Plans: These plans are migrated similarly to operational resource assignments, with only Allocated and Completed states considered. Request types are updated to “Hours” after migration.
    • Cost Plan Migration: Financial cost plans tied to resource plans are migrated to attribute-based labor costs considering Employee Type, Expense Type, and Role attributes. Planned costs transfer to new cost plans, while actual costs remain unchanged.
    • Migration Automation: A scheduled job named “Migrate Resource Plans” automates the conversion of resource plans, operational resource plans, and cost plans into the new formats.
    • Post-migration Actions: Customers can enable attribute-based resource assignments, create resource or operational resource assignments for capacity allocation, and manage projects and financials using Project Workspace.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Simplified resource management: Attribute-based assignments allow easier, more flexible allocation of resources by Group, Skill, or Role.
    • Improved planning accuracy: Maintaining allocation contours ensures that the timing and distribution of resource efforts remain consistent, avoiding disruption.
    • Enhanced financial tracking: Migrated cost plans provide more granular labor cost tracking aligned with resource attributes, supporting better budgeting and forecasting.
    • Seamless transition: The migration supports ongoing projects without requiring manual replanning or adjustments, reducing operational risk.
    • Operational work inclusion: Supports allocation and tracking of operational activities such as administration, meetings, and training within the same framework.

    Migrate resource plans to resource assignments and the associated cost plans to attribute-based labor costs of your projects or demands and easily work on resource allocations using Project Workspace.

    Tip:
    Resource Managers are encouraged to view the Resource Management Workspace boot camp to learn about Resource Management Migration to the Next Experience.

    Resource plans to resource assignments

    Migrate all the resource plans of a project or demand to attribute-based resource assignments depending on the planning attributes to easily manage your projects on Next Experience using Project Workspace and Capacity Planning.

    Group, Skill, and Role are the primary attributes enabled for Resource Management depending on which the resource plans are migrated to resource assignments.
    Important:
    Resource plans in Planning, Requested, Confirmed, Allocated, Rejected, and Completed states are only migrated to Resource assignments. Resource plans in Canceled and In-progress states aren’t migrated.
    Let us see how the status of the resource plans is mapped to the status of resource assignments.
    Table 1. Status mapping between resource plans and resource assignments
    Resource plan status Resource assignments status
    Planned or Requested Unassigned
    Allocated Approved
    Confirmed Approved
    Completed Approved
    Canceled or In-progress Resource plan isn’t migrated
    Rejected Unapproved
    Migrating requested efforts of resource plans

    When a resource plan is migrated, a corresponding resource assignment is created based on the primary attributes from the resource plan. Resource assignments don’t support custom selection of allocation type and allocation spread.

    Resource assignments only support an even spread of resource allocations by default.

    The efforts of the resource plan in requested state are also migrated to resource assignments. For example, suppose a resource plan is in Requested state with 20 additional hours requested but not yet approved. The new migration flow accounts for these requested 20 hours, and the total efforts are reflected in the migrated resource plan. See the following screenshots for more details.

    Figure 1. Existing resource plan in requested state
    Classic ServiceNow view of a resource plan in Requested state.
    Figure 2. Monthly aggregates of migrated resource plan with requested allocations
    Monthly allocations view of resource assignment with requested efforts.
    With the migration of resource plans:
    • Resource plans in Planning or Requested states, resource assignments are created based on the planned dates and planned duration with their default state as Unassigned.
    • Allocation type is set to planned duration.
    • Allocation spread is always Even.
    • Existing resource allocations are deleted and created again to accommodate resource allocations with the resource name and planned duration.
    • The allocated costs and allocated hours are copied to planned costs and planned hours.
    • Actual hours for the resource plan in Confirmed and Allocated states are retained with the resource plans.
    Note:
    Only one resource assignment is created for every unique combination of primary attributes, Group, Skill, and Role, and one for every user if the resource plans are created with selected member preferences. After migration, if you create resource assignments with any of the existing combinations, the available resource assignments are updated with the new requests.
    Allocation contour while migrating to resource assignments
    The existing contour of allocations in resource plans is maintained while migrating to resource assignments.
    Maintaining the existing contour confirms that the planned effort, timing, and effort distribution remain consistent before and after migration. By carrying forward the same allocation contours, you can continue managing ongoing work without disruption. This maintains accurate capacity and utilization insights and ensures that financial and resource plans reflect your original intent. This seamless transition helps you adopt the workspace experience confidently, without the need to replan or manually adjust allocations.

    Migration of Resource plans to Resource assignments

    Resource plans in different states.

    Resource plans list.

    Resource plans migrated as resource assignments.

    Resource assignments list.

    Operational resource plans to operational resource assignments

    Operational resource plans also follow the same logic to migrate operational resource plans to operational resource assignments.
    Important:
    Operational resource plans in Allocated and Completed states are only migrated as Operational resource assignments.

    After migration, the Request type of operational resource plans is changed to Hours.

    Migration of Operational resource plans to Operational resource assignments

    Operational resource plan in Allocated state created for Demo GroupA.

    Operational resource plans form.

    After migration, you'll have the following Operational resource assignments for every member of the group.
    Note:
    The parent-child mapping is retained and you may see an additional resource assignment with an empty resource.

    Operational resource assignments view after migration from Operational resource plans.

    Migration of cost plans to attribute-based cost plans

    When resource plans of a project or demand are migrated to resource assignments. The corresponding financial cost plans based on the resource plans are also migrated to new attribute-based labor costs. Migrate resource plans related link trigger migrates the cost plans along with resource plans migration.

    Every resource plan has an associated a cost plan with Labor capex as the cost type. While migrating, the planning attributes of the resource plans are analyzed to create attribute-based cost plans for the unique combination of the three planning attributes enabled for financials (Employee type, Expense Type, and Role). After migration, there will be no one-to-one association between resource assignments and attribute-based cost plans.

    Note:
    If a resource plan isn’t associated with either Employee Type or Role, the migrated cost plans costs are consolidated into a single cost plan.

    The planned costs are moved to the new attribute-based cost plans while the actual costs remain on the existing cost plan records. The rate model values associated with project or a demand are considered to generate attribute-based labor costs.

    Migration of cost plans to attribute-based cost plans

    Cost plans associated with a resource plan.

    List of cost plans with accounted planned and actual expenses.

    Attribute-based cost plan Resource_Internal_Capex is created after migration.

    List of attribute-based labor costs capturing the aggregate planned costs.