Creating staff allocation scenarios

Portfolio managers can use the staff allocation scenarios feature of BMC IT Business Management Suite to create staff allocation scenarios for the projects in their portfolio. Staff allocation scenarios are planning scenarios that can vary in terms of project priorities, resource allocations, resource availability, and selected organizational units.

To start creating the staff allocation scenarios, the following data must be available:

• Resource requirements for each project.
   The project managers use the Estimate Resources option in the project lifecycle to provide the resource requirements for their respective projects. For more information on specifying resource requirements, see Estimating-Resources.
• List of available and planned staff for allocation
   The resource managers use the Staff Availability window in BMC IT Business Management Suite to provide the inventory of staff available (both current and planned). For more information on creating an inventory of staff, see Creating-inventory-of-available-staff-for-staff-allocation-scenarios.

To allocate resources, portfolio managers can either manually allocate resources for each requirement or use the auto allocation capability of the application.

When you select auto allocation, the application allocates available resources across all projects in the portfolio according to the priority of the project. The application first allocates available resources to projects in the Invested Projects category, then in the Borderline Projects category, and finally in the Non Invested Projects category.

For example, consider a scenario consisting of three projects. The requirements for three projects are as follows:

In this scenario, if the available resources are: 4 database administrators, 6 developers, the application allocates the resources as follows:

The remaining resource is 1 developer.

Portfolio managers use the Staff Scenario window to create a new staff scenario. The left pane of the Staff Scenario window displays the organizational unit selection area and the projects that are part of the selected portfolio. The right pane displays the tables for allocations and resource availability.
 The right pane of Staff Scenario window displays the following tables:

• Staff Allocation
   This table displays resources classified as per job family and job category and the demand and allocation data for each month in the selected fiscal period. The Demand data is the data that the project managers specify in the project lifecycle using the Estimate Resources option. The Allocation data is what you determine in this window based on the available staff. You can either use Auto Allocation or manually allocate resources.
• Available Staff
   This table displays the staff available for the organizational unit(s) you have selected. The data for available staff is determined by the resource manager using the Staff Availability option. The value of available staff in this table changes according to the staff allocations that you specify in the Staff Allocation table. For example, if you have a total of two resources and you allocate one resource in the Staff Allocation table, then the Available Staff table displays one remaining resource.
• Total Staff Availability Across Organization Units
   This table displays the total available staff in all organizational unit(s) you have selected.

To create staff allocation scenarios

1. In the Project Portfolio window, select the portfolio for which you need to create staff scenarios.
2. In the Project Portfolio Details window, click on the Staff Scenarios tab.
3. Click on New.
4. In the New Staff Scenario window, specify the name of the staff scenario.
5. (Optional) In the Description field, specify the description of the staff scenario.
6. Click Save and Open.
    A new Staff Scenario window is displayed. Depending on your browser settings, the Staff Scenario window is displayed either as a new browser window or as a new tab in your browser window.
7. In the left pane of the Staff Scenario window, select the organization unit(s) that you need the resources from.
    Each staff profile is linked to a primary organizational unit in BMC IT Business Management Suite. When you select an organizational unit in the Staff Scenario window, only the staff that is directly linked to that organizational unit is displayed. The staff that is linked to the child organizational units that fall under the selected organizational unit in the organizational unit hierarchy is not displayed.
8. From the list of projects in the left pane, select the project for which you need to perform staff allocation.
9. In the right pane of the Staff Scenario window, select the fiscal year for which you need to plan staff allocation.
10. In the Work Unit field, select FTE or Man Days.
11. You can either use auto allocation or manually allocate resources.
     To automatically allocate all available resources, select the Auto Allocation option.
     To manually allocate resources, click in the Allocation row for a resource and specify the number of required resources. You can specify resources for each fiscal month.
    After you specify a value in a cell, you can right-click to select the Fill Right or Distribute Right option. The Fill Right option repeats the value in that cell in all the cells to the right of the selected cell. The Distribute Right option evenly distributes the amount between the selected cell and all the cells to the right of the selected cell.
    The application sums up the all values that you specify in the months columns and displays the total as total man days in the Total-Man Days column.
    When you allocate resources, the application allows allocation based on job categories. If the resource requirement is defined for a job family but a job category is not defined, the application displays the resource requirement with no job category. As a result you cannot directly assign a resource for this requirement. To allocate resources when a job category is not defined, complete the following steps:
    1. In the Job Family/Job Category column, right-click on the No Job Category label.
    2. Select the Add Job Category option.
    3. In the Add Job Category window, select the job category to associate for the selected resource estimate and click Submit.
        An new row for allocation is displayed in the Staff Scenario window.
    4. In the new allocation row, specify the number of resources that you need to allocate.
12. (Optional) Use the Search field to move directly to the row for a specific job category or job function.
13. Click Save.