Saturday, August 11, 2012

Flexible Resource Planning Software & Its Utility for Managers

By Ashish Khera


Resource Planning is a methodology formulated to identify all resources available to be utilized to accomplish a project and the management and planning of those resources. Similarly, a Resource Planning Software is an electronic tool that makes the job easier for you. This software automate the normal course of planning that managers normally do to keep the flow of information running both within and outside the boundaries of business premises.

To describe the utility of a flexible resource planning software, let's take an example of a Sales Manager trying to initiate a new sales campaign for his/her company. Good resource planning software should help him identify the following:

* Types of Staff Required

* Roles and Responsibility of each and every staff

* Work force required to finish each job

* Areas to be focused on

* Type and Quantity of Marketing Material Needed

* Dates with greater opportunity to launch the campaign

Apart from managing only the information related to a particular project or campaign, flexible resource planning software today helps managers in their decisions related to Finance, Human Resource, Marketing, Logistics, Supply Chain Management and Customer Relationship Management. That means, all information related to one organization and its stakeholders is integrated in a manner so as to keep the flow of all sorts of information intact.

Resource planning software does usually have some brilliant features that can save managers time and effort. These features include:

1. Visual Planning This feature helps managers to have a quick overview of all resources and projects of the organization. One can drag to create a task and drag and drop to reschedule. Also, you can colour tasks by projects and change the colour anytime.

2. Multiple Project Resource Scheduling Managers today can share resources between multiple projects they are working on. They can view their tasks by resources and projects and also track resource utilization across all projects. This feature can organize their project teams efficiently and also enables collaboration within all projects. This is a king of feature that enables resource planning and scheduling and also provides with a grip on the forecast for the whole project.

3. Time Sheet Management This feature allows users to check on the start and end time of various tasks related to a project. This feature keeps a record of all tasks accomplished and their duration.

4. Utilization Monitoring Utilization can be termed as how much of a resource has been used. Resource planning software's are being designed so that managers are well informed about the utility of their resources. This feature for instance, can provide with a snapshot to a manager that for how much time his sales person has remained busy with clients.

5. Customize Data Sets Today, managers can create their own data sets for different tasks; they can add endless data fields and can establish data visibility on task bars.

6. Multiple Colouring Scheme Managers can easily colour task bars by projects and their status and can create their own colour schemes. They can also move from one scheme to the other instantly.

7. Multiple Project Resource Scheduling Managers today can share resources between multiple projects they are working on. They can view their tasks by resources and projects and also track resource utilization across all projects. This feature can organize their project teams efficiently and also enables collaboration within all projects. This is a king of feature that enables resource planning and scheduling and also provides with a grip on the forecast for the whole project.

8. Track Changes This feature keeps a record of all changes for every task or project. One can also add comments and can use message board for communication purposes.

Apart from the key features of a Flexible Resource Planning Software mentioned above, there are many more other benefits such as easy and fast navigation and user friendliness. To keep the burden of managing a bigger work force indulged into lots of projects off the brains of managers today, they are seriously advised to use intelligent, smart and flexible Resource Planning Software.




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