Resource Management: Licensing and Approach

susanmgfin

Hi. We are considering adding Resource Management but wanted to get some feedback from other folks experience. I found this product kind of clunky when it was 10K feet some years ago but a recent demo impressed me. I built a time tracking WorkApp in Smartsheet that allowed for logging of hours daily per project per phase (for capex/opex purposes) and allowed for adding of detail on what was worked on. It wasn't tied into any project plan sheets (when I tried to do this before, it always showed everyone as overallocated because we use days for durations not hours so maybe I wasn't doing it right). I still think tying it directly into the project sheet isn't necessarily the best option if there isn't the capability to log hours at the task level (or the plan has so many tasks that it would make it way too cumbersome for those logging a weekly timesheet).

So I'm wondering - what have other folks opted to do, keep time tracking completely separate from project plan sheets and just set up the projects and phases in RM and add the team there?

Also, do folks just adding a timesheet but having no other responsibility required to have a license (that's what I'm being told). This just doesn't make sense to me that the license is the same no matter what permissions you have (Resource Admin vs. Contractor) - and should you be getting any licenses included for getting RM out of the gate?

Lastly, if I have experience building time tracking but not specifically with SS Resource Management, do you recommend getting one of the services packages (Configuration or just the Guided Implementation).

Any past experience and gotchas would be helpful. Thanks so much!

Michelle Choate 2

Hello @susanmgfin! I pretty much specialize in Resource Management and would be happy to jump on a zoom to talk through all the benefits and a couple of the drawbacks about it. It is WAY better since 10K Feet. There is so much more you can do and it is way more robust. Here are a few things you can do:

Smartsheet Resource Management:

Purpose: Focused on planning and allocating resources across your organization's projects and tasks.

Resource Pool: Manage a central pool of resources

Resource Planning: Visualize resource allocation and identify potential conflicts.

Workload Management: Tasks are assigned correctly, not over-allocating resources

Reporting: Track resource utilization

Let me know if you want to jump on a call. Just contact me at michelle.choate@outlook.com