How Smartsheet’s Integrated Resource Manager Contributes to Project Success
If you aren’t familiar with Smartsheet, think of it as a cloud-based marriage of Excel, Microsoft Project, SharePoint, and Monday. It’s one of our favorite project management tools here at MustardSeed. For more information about Smartsheet, MustardSeed’s Seeds for Thought has another great article to provide a thorough overview of the general platform.
Resource Management is one of the many tools available within Smartsheet. In one simple platform, Resource Management allows you to view your team’s capacity across your entire portfolio of projects. Think of Resource Management as a level-up to your projects already being managed within Smartsheet.
Manage team capacity
Resource Management helps project managers (PMs) quickly and easily spot issues in resource allocation. Once you add your team member to a project, their availability automatically pops up. Adjust the allocated hours each team member is working on projects and easily view who’s going to be out of office. When someone is overbooked, it’s easy to move work to another available team member.
When you link each of your Smartsheet project plans to Resource Management, you have a powerful, integrated tool with all the project information you need in one place – there is no need to switch between multiple platforms.
Track time
Timesheets are a fact of life. Everyone must track their time, so why not do it within the same platform that the projects are tracked? Resource Management allows you to do just that within Smartsheet. Expenses and time can be allocated directly to a project, and easily adjusted when variances occur. Even better, those hours can be allocated to whichever project an employee is assigned to, allowing supervisors and PMs to easily spot coverage issues. The only catch is that the department needs to adopt Resource Management as their choice of time tracking; it only works if everyone is using it!
Analytics and reporting
Upper management needs a quick update on where resources are being utilized, as budgets for hiring are on the table. Where will you turn to get this information? Resource Management within Smartsheet provides this information at the click of a button. Filters allow the PM to display the information they need quickly and intuitively. Using these tools, PMs can easily identify potential risks across resources assigned to multiple projects and portfolios. The information provided in the analytics and reporting feature contains both a macro and micro level useful across many activities.
If Smartsheet’s Resource Management tool sounds like a solution to your resource management problems, MustardSeed is well-versed with how to implement this tool alongside a robust project management platform. Whether you want to adopt Resource Management yourself or partner with a trusted consultant, this tool can greatly improve your project management processes and lead to more successful outcomes. The right tools make life easier, and a PM armed with data from a tool like Resource Manager can save your company valuable time and money.