Scheduling Overview

The scheduling process in Projector covers a wide range of actions and centers around requesting and receiving resources for a given project. The various elements of scheduling include:

• Making a request for a single resource to join a project, either by name or by describing the criteria that a resource should meet.
• Making multiple requests at one time for multiple resources on a project (requesting a project team).
• Reviewing pending staffing assignments.
• Reviewing available staff within the organization and searching for staff meeting the criteria for a project.
• Booking resources to projects based on requests and criteria.
• Requesting additional or reduced hours for a booked resource.

The basic flow of scheduling information starts with requests for staff being input into Projector and ends with staff assignments being booked in Projector.

The people in an organization who request resources are referred to in Projector as project managers (PMs). In many cases, the requestor might actually have the title "project manager," but it is also possible that other staff in your organization might need to request resources. PMs use Projector to: review resources booked to their projects and request additional hours for those resources when needed, request new resources for their projects, and review available resources within the organization who might be assigned by a scheduler to their project.

The person or persons in an organization who assign resources to projects are known as schedulers. Schedulers use Projector to: review requests for resources, review available staff, determine the resource who best fits the request based on hours and skills criteria, and book the resource to a project.

Projector supports two scenarios for schedulers:

1. Scheduling is a separate function where one or more people are designated schedulers and granted permission to schedule resources. These people act as air traffic controllers, granting requests by assigning resources and monitoring and responding to new requests as they come up.
2. Scheduling is incorporated into the requesting function. In this scenario, requestors can act as schedulers, assigning resources to their own projects. This requires consensus among all requestors with regard to sharing resources and their hours.

To enable a user to schedule resources assign that user Schedule Resources permission n one or more cost centers. In order for that user to schedule a resource he must have scheduling permission both in the resource's cost center and in the project's cost center.

To enable a project manager (including anyone with permission to act as the project manager) to request or schedule resources for a project you must configure one or more project stages appropriately. The project stage configuration determines permissions of project managers in each stage. Read the Stage Editor documentation for more information about configuring project stages.

The Staffing Process

The actual process for staffing a project begins with a person with permission to request staff for a given project developing a list of one or more candidates for staffing on a given project. This candidate list is then reviewed by the scheduler along with other requests for resources on other projects, and a final staffing assignment is made. It is important to note that the scheduler may not necessarily book the exact hours requested, but that regardless of what is booked a request is considered fulfilled once a resource and hours are booked on a role.
The steps involved in the staffing process include:

• Roles defined and added to a project by a project manager.
• Candidate list created for each role on project.
• Preferred candidate for each role indicated.
• Hours requested.
• List of requested roles/candidates reviewed by scheduler.
• Other requests from other projects reviewed by scheduler.
• Best resource for each project determined.
• Assignments booked by scheduler.
• Project manager reviews confirmed resources booked to project.
• Project manager makes new requests for staff and/or hours as needed.

Once you ahave accessed the project landing page, if you have permission to be both a requestor and a scheduler you may access the project editor in either requester or scheduler mode.
Selecting requester mode will allow you to request resources for your project. Selecting scheduler mode will allow you to book resources to your project.

The title bar of the project you choose will indicate the mode in which you are working, as shown below.