Resource Browser
The resource browser shows your supply of labor. It is typically used by schedulers or project managers to see the availability of resources. The availability is shown in a graphical layout so that you can quickly assess a resource's current booked and scheduled hours.
As a scheduler or PM you might come here to answer the following kinds of questions:
How busy are my technical consultants?
How much time is someone devoting to billable vs. non-billable work?
Who is overallocated?
This tab is often used in conjunction with the Role Browser. The two show your labor demand vs. supply. With this information on hand, you match the two to fulfill your scheduling needs. More is covered in our how-to article, Role and Resource Browser Workflow MP.
If you are unfamiliar with roles, please see the Roles MP help page.
This browser is reached by choosing View | Scheduling | Resources.
Permissions and Settings
To use the resource browser you must have the cost center permission View Resources.
Query
The upper section of the resource browser contains query information. Here you define the resources that you are interested in via several filters described below. If you find yourself running the same queries again and again, you can save time by add clicking View | Scheduling | Resource Browser. This adds additional tabs that you can rename. Each tab will remember the search settings last used.
This is your query window. The table below explains each of the query parameters. After the table we provide some example searches.
Search Filter | Description |
|---|---|
Start Date | Show resource schedules starting on this date |
Weeks | How many weeks of data are you interested in seeing? |
Resource Name | This field searches the resource's first, last, middle and id number. You can specify multiple search terms by using complex search criteria. |
Include billable resources only | A resource is billable if the billable checkbox is ticked on their resource profile |
Exclude temporary workers | Temporary workers are typically contractors. A worker is temporary if the Tempary checkbox is ticked on their resource profile. This flag is being deprecated in favor of the more robust resource types feature. |
Include resource requests | Tick this to show requested hours along with booked hours. Requested hours are displayed using a special, dotted mask as seen in this image. |
Include candidates on booked roles | A candidate is someone who is recommended to fulfill a role. A role can have multiple candidates, so ticking this may cause you to see 'more' hours in a given week than actually requested. |
Search Criteria | The search criteria section has four subsections, Cost Centers, Locations, Titles, and Skills. Use these to narrow down the roles that you are interested in. Clear the checkboxes completely to display all roles. Tick the checkboxes to only show the selected roles. For instance, I know I need a consultant in Lexington. So search on all Consultant titles in the Lexington location. |
Example Queries
There are many permutations of searches that you can run, but some cpmmon queries schedulers or PMs might run are:
Show me John Doe's work schedule for the next month.
Show me all Technical Consultants in the UK for next week
Common Queries
If you find yourself frequently running the same queries, you can make duplicates of this tab and save the query parameters. For example, I might make a new tab and name it "Open Requests." Then set my search parameters to Show Projects With Open Requests. Similarly I might make another tab named "Unnassigned Roles" and set my search parameters to Show Projects With Unnamed Bookings. Now I can quickly hop between tabs and find what I need.
Results
Once you have specified your search, click Query to display the results. The upper section collapses and the results are shown below in a six column grid. Each resource has its own row. In the screenshot below I searched for Technical Consultants and three resources were returned.
Sorting
The following controls allow you to sort your results.
Control | Description |
|---|---|
Primary sort | Resources are ordered according to the dropdown list option selected:
|
Secondary sort | You can subsort your results by a secondary option. For example, show resources alphabetically by cost center. |
View in | Enables you to view data by individual days or entire weeks. Useful when your organization leverages daily scheduling. |
Bar Graph Columns
The first thing that probably jumps out at you are the colored bars. This visualization gives you insight into hours assigned to the resource and how much free time they have. Let's walk through the different ways the graph can be colored to learn how it works.
At the most basic level, a white rectangle is shown. The rectangle represents the normal working hours for this role. The white rectangle then fills in with information as hours are requested and booked.
By default the scale only goes up to 50 hours per week. If your resource works at least 51 hours per week we remove the cap from the top of the box and display an up arrow. Same goes if your resource is scheduled for at least 51 hours of work in a week.
As hours are assigned to this resource, the colored bars fill in from the top. This may be confusing at first, but once you understand how it works, everything makes sense. We fill down from the top because the white bar, on the bottom, represents available time. As the white bar shrinks, the resource is less and less available.