Resource Management Overview

Resource Management services give you a single point to manage resource requests, resource assignments, timecards, and resource qualifications. It is the process of requesting a resource and after the request is approved, creating its corresponding assignment which enables resources to log timecards against that assignment.

Resource Requests provide the ability to request resources that would fulfil the resource needs of an entity be it internal (Agility Suite: Idea, Demand, Requirement, Project, Portfolio, Sprint, Phase, and Task) or external (for example BMC Helix ITSM: Incident, Problem, Change, Task, Release, Activity, Asset). Users can add their qualifications which can ease the process of mapping the right resource to a resource request.

Resource Assignments allow the association of individual resources and a group of resources to assignments that generate out of a resource request. Once assigned, a resource can view their assignments and log their timecards against the work done on that assignment.

Resource Management Roles

The following end-user roles are for the Resource Management module of the Agility Suite application.

Resource Manager

Resource Manager user has the responsibility to create and manage resource requests along with the qualifications that are required on the resource requests. A resource manager can also access the resource assignments that are associated with the requests created by him/her.

Resource Approvers

Request approvers are the resource manager or resource master users who are the approvers of the Resource Group that are associated with the resource request.

Resource Contributor

Resource contributors log their timecards against the resource assignments that are assigned to them. A resource contributor can also manage their qualifications to ease the process of planning a resource onto a resource request.

Resource Master

Resource master user has access to create and edit all resource requests, resource assignments, timecards, and qualifications. Additionally, the resource master user can configure resource management-related settings.

End-to-End Process

The following figure provides an overview of the resource request:

The following figures provide an overview of resource assignment and timecard:

The resource management process consists of the following procedures for handling resourcing needs. These procedures have been divided into the following:

A resource manager creates a resource request in the 'Draft' status that would be assigned to work on a resource entity by following the steps on Creating resource requests.
- A resource entity in Agility Suite can be an Idea, Demand, Requirement, Project, Portfolio, Sprint, Phase, and Task. Resource management can be enabled on these entities, learn more in Configuring Resource Entity Type.
- A resource entity can also be for an external source application.
The resource manager who requested the resource, adds the necessary details to the resource request by following the steps on Viewing-and-updating-resource-requests.
The resource manager updates the resource request to the 'Plan/ Prepare' status for detailed planning of resources, see Changing-resource-request-statuses, and qualifications can also be added by following the steps on Requested-qualifications. The requested qualifications provide the details of the required qualifications that a resource should have in order to fulfil the resource request.
The resource manager can choose to move the resource request to the 'Cancelled' status from the 'Draft' or the 'Plan/ Prepare' status if the resource request is not required, see Changing-resource-request-statuses.
Upon completion of the planning stage, the resource manager changes the status resource request to 'Waiting for approval' by following the steps on Changing-resource-request-statuses,
The resource request is sent for approval to the approvers of a resource group (if approval is required on the resource group). If the resource group on the resource request does not require approval the 'Waiting for Approval' status is skipped.
The resource approvers on a resource group can go to the 'Approval Console' to view the resource requests that are waiting for approval and choose to approve or reject them, see Approving-and-rejecting-resource-requests. The resource request is set to the status 'Approved' or 'Rejected ' based on the decision of the approvers of the resource group.
When the resource request is 'Approved', if the resource request has the request type 'Group', automatically a resource assignment is created for the group that was selected in the resource group field of the resource request.
If the resource request has the request type 'Individual', then the resource manager creates individual resource assignments in 'Draft' status by following the steps on Creating resource assignments.
The resource manager enters details such as the assigned resource, the timeline of the assignment, the assigned hours, etc in the resource assignments, see Viewing-and-updating-resource-assignments.
Once a resource assignment is moved to 'Plan/ Prepare' status by the resource manager by following steps on Changing-resource-assignment-statuses, the planning process for the assigned resource begins for the timeline on the resource assignment. A 'Planned Hours' is automatically created, but the resource manager can create, modify or delete Planned Hours related with the assignment, see Managing-Planned-Hours.
The resource manager can choose to move a resource assignment to the 'Cancelled' status from the 'Draft' or the 'Plan/ Prepare' status if the resource assignment is not required by following steps on Changing-resource-assignment-statuses.
The resource manager moves the resource assignments to 'Assigned' status by following steps on Changing-resource-assignment-statuses.
At this status, the resource contributors assigned in the resource assignments can log their timecards, see Creating-timecards.
Resource contributors submitt the timecards related with the resouce assignments and approvals are sent to the resource manager, see Submitting-and-recalling-timecards.
The resource manager goes to the Timecard Approval Console and approves or rejects the timecards and status timecards are updated to 'Approved' or 'Rejected' automatically. A resource contributors gets notified once the timecard is approved or rejected.
A resource assignment can be set to the status 'Completed' by the resource manager when required by following steps on Changing-resource-assignment-statuses.
At this stage, the resource contributors can no longer be able to log their timecards on the resource assignment.
The resource manager completes the resource request moving the status to 'Completed' by following the steps on Changing-resource-request-statuses. If there are resource assignments opened then they are completed, status 'Completed', automatically.

Resource Management Data Access Model

The Resource Management application uses row-level security (RLS) to control access to the record and fields. RLS is applied by using Security Labels in BMC Helix Innovation Studio.

The following table describes the Security Labels required for Resource Management:

Security Label Name	Description
Resource Requester	Access to the resource request, resource assignments related and timecards. Grant write access to modify the resource request, and resource assignments related (only in the 'Draft' and 'Plan/ Prepare' statuses) and timecards (Status, Rejection Reason and Approved Time fields). The permission is assigned to the Request Manager creator of the resource request.
Portfolio Assignee	Access to the resource request, resource assignments related and timecards, without write access. When the entity of the resource request belongs to Agility Suite (idea, demand, requirement, project, portfolio, sprint, phase, or task), the permission is assigned to the Portfolio Manager of the entity related.
Entity Assignee	Access to the resource request, resource assignments related and timecards. Grant write access to modify the resource request, and resource assignments related (only in the 'Draft' and 'Plan/ Prepare' statuses). The permission is assigned to the person specified in the Assignee field of the entity, for example Project Manager if project is the entity related with the resource request.
Entity Additional Read Access	Access to the resource request, resource assignments related and timecards, without write access. When the entity of the resource request is a project, the permission is assigned to the users added to the 'Additional Read Access' list in the project related, see Setting-additional-access-for-a-project.
Entity Additional Write Access	Access to the resource request, resource assignments related and timecards. Grant write access to modify the resource request, and resource assignments related (only in the 'Draft' and 'Plan/ Prepare' statuses). When the entity of the resource request is a project, the permission is assigned to the users added to the 'Additional Write Access' list in the project related, see Setting-additional-access-for-a-project.
Request Approvers	Access to the resource request, without write access. The permission is assigned to the Resource Managers or Resource Masters members of resource group of the resource request.
Assignment Requester	Access to the resource assignment and timecards related. Grants write access to modify the resource assignment (only in the 'Draft' and 'Plan/ Prepare' statuses).
Assigned Resource	Access to the resource assignment without write access. The permission is assigned to the user assigned to the resource assignment.
Assigned Resource Group Members	Access to the resource assignment without write access. The permission is assigned to the users member of the resource group related to the resource assignment.
Timecard submitter	Access to the timecard. Grants write access to modify the timecard only in 'Draft' status. The permission is assigned to the Resource Contributor creator of the timecard.