Recommended changes for Resource Manager

Tony Platts

I'm trying to plan out a new project today. My goal is to look at the Schedule view and find a Business Consultant, a Project Manager and a Technical Consultant who can work on a project that is 5 months long.

The team I allocate need to work on that project till it's delivered so I need a high level view of who is busy. I'm not going to lie - this has been an absolute nightmare and I don't feel that it's fit for purpose. Here's the issues and recommendations I'd like to suggest.

Allocation Heatmap

Issue: The current heatmap is not truly a heatmap, as it only shows two colours: grey for under capacity and red for over capacity.
Example: A person at 1% capacity is shown in grey, just as someone at 99% capacity. Similarly, a person at 101% capacity is shown in red, the same as someone at 500% capacity.
Recommendation: Implement a true heatmap with a gradient of colours:

• Green: 1-30% capacity
• Yellow: 31-60% capacity
• Orange: 61-90% capacity
• Red: 91-100% capacity
• Darker Red shades for over 100% capacity

This will provide a more nuanced view of how busy someone is.

Zoom Functionality

Issue: Zooming out does not aggregate scores, making it difficult to view overall capacity.
Example: For a week where capacity is:

• Monday: 10%
• Tuesday: 25%
• Wednesday: 50%
• Thursday: 100%
• Friday: 100%

Recommendation: Provide an option to toggle between detailed and aggregate views. When zoomed out, aggregate scores to show an average capacity (e.g., 57%, calculated as (10+25+50+100+100)/5).

Here's an example of how the first two issues manifest.

Consistency in Capacity Display

Issue: The heatmap shows percentages over capacity, while expanding the details changes the %age to instead show percentage of capacity.
Example: If someone is over capacity by 23%, the heatmap shows 23%, but expanded details show 123%.
Recommendation: Make the display consistent across views, allowing users to select whether they want to see percentages over capacity or of capacity.

Uniformity in Capacity Metrics

Issue: Capacity is shown in mixed formats for the same person.
Example: Person A’s allocation might show 25% of their time for one job and 2 hours for another, even though their capacity is 8 hours per day.
Recommendation: Standardise the display format to either all percentages or all hours, with an option to toggle between the two. This ensures clarity and uniformity in how capacity is represented.

Tooltip Visibility

Issue: When the heatmap is expanded to show details, tooltips for tasks at the bottom of the schedule are not fully visible.
Example: Hovering over a task at the bottom of the screen causes the tooltip to disappear off the bottom, making it unreadable.
Recommendation: Adjust tooltip positioning to ensure they are fully visible regardless of their position on the screen.

Managed Resources Display

Issue: When a Smartsheet project is linked to Resource Management, all tasks show in the capacity plan, including tasks assigned to clients.
Example: I create a linked project plan. Create a task for a company employee, set a start date and end date and an allocation percentage and this now shows in Resource Management. If a client, outside of my company, is also allocated to the task (e.g. they are testing a software release together) the client records now appear in Resource Management.
Recommendation: Implement a functionality at the account level to only show Managed Resources, filtering out client records.

These changes would significantly enhance the usability and clarity of the Resource Management tool, making it easier to understand and manage capacity.

Please can you look at these as a priority?