20 Best Resource Management Software & Tools of 2024
Are you a business that is contemplating moving from spreadsheets to resource management software? If yes, you are making the right choice!
There is so much more that resource management software can do that a spreadsheet just cannot. Where you will have to do everything manually on a spreadsheet, a resource planning software will help you automate some of the tasks.
Not only that, it can help you check the availability of resources, plan ahead of time, identify underutilization of resources and even keep track of your project budget.
You will just have to make a small investment in a resource management software and it will in turn help you optimize your project management costs to a great deal.
In our guide, we will present to you the best resource management software available in the market so that you know your options. We will also help you choose one that best fits your needs so that all you have to do is just make the purchase.
If you are ready, let’s begin?
Best Resource Management Software
1. Monday.com
Best free resource management tool for flexible resource allocation.
You might have used monday.com for several business functions like project management, marketing, team collaboration, task management, and others. But what you might not know is that they have tools for helping businesses manage resources as well.
The resource management feature comes in the form of a template where all you have to do is pick one, add tasks, action items, deadlines, and other project-related details and plan for every stage of your project.
Not only can you manage your human resources using monday.com, but it also lets you track and allocate your assets to different projects. It shows you where your assets have been assigned at any point in time.
If you are looking for a tool that lets you bring your teams to the same page, monday.com might tick yet another box by allowing you to invite team members to your projects. This way everyone is up to date and you can access all project-related information in one place.
Getting started is very easy. You just have to add a few preferences, invite your team members, provide access permissions and start setting up your projects.
Pricing
- 3 Work Boards
- 2 Team Members
- Unlimited Docs
- 500 MB Storage
- 200+ Project Templates
- Unlimited Boards
- Unlimited Team Members
- Unlimited Viewers
- 5 GB Storage
- 1-Week Activity Log
- Calendar, Timeline, Map Views
- 250 Actions for Automations
- 250 Actions for Integrations
- 20 GB Storage
- 6-Month Activity Log
- Unlimited Guest Access
- 25000 Actions for Automations
- 25000 Actions for Integrations
- 100 GB Storage
- 1-Year Activity Log
- Dedicated Customer Agent
- 250000 Automations
- 250000 Actions for Integrations
- Enterprise Analytics
Read more Monday pricing or Monday review
While there are different pricing plans that you can choose from. For teams of two members or less, you can get started with the free plan and access the resource management template for free.
However, for bigger teams looking for a complete solution, the Standard plan is the recommended plan. Along with resource management, it includes automations and over two hundred integrations.
2. Mavenlink
Best resource management software for service-based businesses.
Mavenlink offers an all-in-one solution that can help businesses manage their projects centrally. Right from resource management, project management, project accounting, business intelligence, and team collaboration, there is so much that Mavenlink can help you with.
While it is not the cheapest resource management software out there, it is definitely a value for money because of its effectiveness. It gathers information from all your systems and provides real-time information.
One of the best features that Mavenlink offers is skill management where it factors the skills of your team members, their availability, existing workload, and then assigns new tasks. It also provides insights into each member’s skills to help identify opportunities for development.
The interface is not that user-friendly but the features make up for it. If you have multiple projects running at the same time, Mavenlink gives you an overview of your resources across all of your projects.
When you make changes to any of your tasks or projects, you can even see how it affects the rest of the project. It even lets you forecast demand and plan for possibilities for flawless resource allocation.
Pricing
Mavenlink does not offer fixed pricing plans but instead, they offer custom plans depending on the industry a particular business belongs to, the number of employees, and other project management requirements.
3. Wrike
Best cost-effective resource management software.
Wrike is a great resource management tool for marketers, agencies, and organizations that are looking for enterprise-level resource management software. You can get started quickly by using their templates for different types of projects.
What makes Wrike such a great tool is that you will have access to all your project-related information centrally right at your fingertips. There is a dashboard where you’ll have all information related to tasks, workflow, timeline and everything related.
It has plenty of features and you will not have to leave the software for any of them. There is even a space where all your team members, clients, and other stakeholders can view project-related information and share information with everyone.
At any time, you can get a complete picture of the workload of each of your team members and evenly distribute the workload. It gives you a real-time picture of all your projects, team performance, task statuses, and approval requests.
Using these analytics features, you will be able to get a clear picture of your allocated resource, identify areas where resources aren’t being utilized to their maximum and even evaluate the time that your team spends on each task.
Unlike many other resource management software, Wrike also offers a tool within their application for collaboration among team members. There are features that make real-time communication possible and also bring all project-related communication in one place.
Wrike also offers over four hundred integrations with several third-party applications, so you can use your favorite tools along with Wrike.
Pricing
- Unlimited Users
- AI-Powered Processes
- Custom Work Views
- Different Project Templates
- Available in 8 Languages
- 2-25 Users*
- 2 GB Storage/User
- Custom Fields & Workflows
- Project Dashboards
- Calendar and Gantt Chart Views
- 5-200 Users*
- 5 GB Storage/User
- 200 Automations/User
- Enhanced Collaboration
- Resource Management Features
Read more Wrike pricing
Wrike does not have dedicated resource management plans but instead, resource management is included in the project management plans. For small businesses, the
The Business plan is ideal as it includes resource management and several other useful project management features.
4. 10,000ft by Smartsheet
Best software to manage resources for modern teams.
10,000ft by Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-based project management tool that can help businesses allocate and manage their resources, manage multiple projects at once and make team collaboration possible.
Using the dynamic resource planning feature, you will be able to detect issues in your project even before they occur. Depending on custom rules the software will make sure it handles the issues by making staffing decisions.
You can get a complete view of your team’s availability and their workload so you know which team member is available and can identify if anyone has been assigned too much. You can then allocate the extra work to another team member so that the workload is even.
With 10,000fr by Smartsheet, team scheduling becomes very easy. Using collaboration tools they can share project-related information within the team and collaborate on tasks.
Through one common dashboard, you can make sure that your entire team is on the same page. Here you will find information about every aspect of your projects like the budget, status, deadlines, and others.
10,000ft by Smartsheet is also well known for its robust reporting capabilities. It can bring together information from multiple pages and projects together and put them in a consolidated report. These reports can give you deep insights into your projects and bottlenecks if any.
Pricing
- 1 User + 2 Editors
- 2 Project Sheets
- 500 MB File Storage
- Several Project Views
- 100 Automations per Month
- 10 Users + 10 Paid Editors
- Unlimited Project Sheets
- 20 GB File Storage
- Unlimited Reports
- 250 Automations per Month
- Unlimited Users & Free Editors
- Activity Log
- Proofing Support
- Easy-to-Use Document Builder
- Unlimited Automations
Read more Smartsheet pricing
10,000 by Smartsheet offers three plans to choose from, one of which is a custom plan. If you are looking for a tool to help you effectively manage your teams’ workloads, the Pro plan is a good choice but for a complete project management solution, the business plan is better.
5. Forecast.app
Best AI-backed resource management software.
Forecast.app is a great project management tool for growing teams and offers tools that help in resource allocation and planning.
Using the Forecast.app, you can get a complete overview of your team's workload and available capacity. It will give you detailed information about the tasks assigned to each team member and will help you identify bottlenecks and overloads.
This feature will help you understand the time that employees spend on each task and the time they need to complete different types of tasks. This gives managers better control over resource allocation and they know where task allocation needs to change.
There is also a feature known as Timesheets backed by AI that helps employees calculate their efficiency by monitoring the time spent on project-related tasks and non-project-related activities. Individual timesheets can then be compiled to check the efficiency of the entire team.
Pricing
While Forecast.app offers three different plans, the Lite plan is the ideal choice for businesses looking for a solution that will help them manage resources as well as their projects in general.
6. Float
Best resource management platform for real-time project planning.
If you are looking for a resource management software for small teams, Float is the best choice out there. With its intuitive and straightforward interface that has a calendar view, you can easily manage your entire team’s schedule in just a few clicks.
Assigning work to your teams with Float is very easy. You can assign tasks, set deadlines, activate milestones, and set custom work hours for each team member. Team members can in turn see which tasks they are responsible for and when they need to be done.
Since your entire team will work together on projects, you can create dependencies so any changes made to projects get synced automatically.
Whether you are an architecture firm, are a consultancy or an agency, or offer IT services, Float’s resource management solutions offer resource forecasting, project budgeting, and tracking.
Using the tools you can create forecasts and estimates and then compare the actual progress of projects. Float also offers calendar integrations that you can use to bring your project schedule and resource schedules.
You can even integrate with Slack and update your team members about their tasks and deadlines. The best part is that since they have a mobile app, you can do all of this on the go and make sure your projects are moving at a fast pace.
Pricing
There are two plans that Float offers and both of them offer resource planning and management tools. If you are looking for a straightforward resource planning tool, the $6 plan is a good choice.
For additional features like time tracking, mobile app, and others, the $10 plan is the right option.
7. Runn
Best real-time, cloud-based resource planning and forecasting software.
Runn will help you get a comprehensive view of all your projects and give you a clear idea of your project status, financials, and your resources. You can check your capacity, existing utilization, and create forecasts, all from one tool.
The interface is clean and easy to use and you can have a detailed view of each of your team member’s schedules from one central dashboard. It lets you check their workload, their progress, deadlines and even see how it fits into the bigger picture of your projects.
You can use Runn to track time spent on project-related tasks and non-related tasks so that an accurate count of billable hours is maintained. It even lets you spot if a team member has been assigned too much work and quickly transfer some of the workloads to others.
A great feature that Runn offers is that your projects do not have to work in isolation. You can collaborate with other departments, check capacity and see how new incoming tasks fit into the bigger picture.
It offers you a project-level view as well as a portfolio-level view of all your projects. Using Runn’s analytics and reporting, you can get insights into metrics that matter most to you and also track your team’s performance.
There are also many out-of-the-box integrations that can help you bring different business functions together. If you require custom integrations, Runn makes that possible too with their API.
Pricing
Unlike most resource management software companies, Float offers a dedicated resource planning pricing plan along with other project management plans. It is a perfectly good plan for small businesses with small teams.
8. Saviom
Best advanced, end-to-end resource management solution.
If you are looking for an enterprise resource management solution that helps you keep track of your resources, Saviom is a great option. It is one of the most configurable resource planning tools out there.
While you can look at project-wise resource allocation too using this software, it gives you visibility into enterprise-wide resource allocation. It offers visual tools like Gantt charts that help you visualize all your available resources.
You can then create views depending on the different people who will be viewing it. It not only offers you visibility into your teams’ availability but also offers resource forecasting and helps you identify capacity gaps and bottlenecks.
Using this tool, you will be able to detect shortfalls and excessive allocation of resources easily.
The configurable reporting and analytics features also give you real-time data and insights into project performance, the financials of the project, and the performance of team members.
Some resource planning and management features that you get with Saviom are projected pipeline planning, resource capacity planning, heat maps, resource demand management, resource utilization forecast, and many others.
The best part about this resource management software is that you can customize the software to the specific needs of your business and develop custom dashboards, customized reports, workflows, and schedules.
This makes it a great choice for almost every business.
Pricing
Since this enterprise resource management tool is highly customizable, it is meant to fit different types of businesses. Their prices are therefore customized too depending on individual business needs. However, they do offer a 14-day free trial.
9. Resource Guru
Best easy-to-use resource scheduling solution for organizations of all sizes.
If you are looking for a simple, easy-to-use resource planning and management software, Resource Guru is a great choice. It does not just help you with scheduling your resources but also helps with managing other resources like equipment, capacity, and meeting rooms.
Using the resource planning features, you will be able to get a complete overview of your teams’ availability, you can narrow down on their skills and assign tasks accordingly. You will easily be able to identify over-allocation or under-allocation through this feature.
If you deal with freelancers a lot, Resource Guru will also help you manage them easily without losing a lot of data while you switch between them. It makes it possible to narrow down the skills of each employee so that you can assign tasks to the best person available.
Another helpful feature that Resource Guru offers is leave management. Project managers can use this feature to effectively distribute workloads while taking into consideration vacations and leaves.
At all times you will know which employee is on a leave and who is available.
For businesses that deal with a lot of equipment, Resource Guru also has an equipment management feature that gives you a clear into the availability of your equipment. You can avoid double booking of equipment by using this feature.
There is also a feature that lets you manage your meeting rooms and avoid double bookings and clashes. If you would like to get insights about your resource and capacity utilization, Resource Guru also offers project forecasting reviews.
Pricing
Resource Guru offers three plans that you can choose from. If reporting is not that important to you, you can use the Grasshopper plan. Otherwise, the Blackbelt plan has all the important features that you would need to effectively manage your resources at a great price.
If you subscribe to their annual plans, you will even get two months free on the subscription of your choice.
10. GanttPRO
Best simple resource management tool for efficient resource allocation.
While GanttPRO is known for its project management features, it also offers resource management tools that can help small teams manage their resources effectively. It also has features that bring teams together on projects and helps them work collaboratively.
As the name suggests, GanttPRO offers a Gantt chart view of your projects and helps you visualize your projects better. It lets you send invites to your team members to projects, and assign them tasks along with deadlines.
The visual nature helps you easily spot if any of your team members has been over-allocated so that you can reassign some of them to others. It also allows you to track progress happening on any particular task so that it gets completed on time.
Some other things that you can do are leave comments on your team members’ tasks, get notified every time anything in your project changes, track deadlines, and also control the financial aspects of your projects.
If you would like to invite external shareholders to your project, you can even do that using GanttPRO. It even lets you track every single change that has been made to your projects so that you can trace any major changes back to the person responsible if the need arises.
Pricing
If you are a freelancer looking for a tool to help you manage your projects and resources, the Individual plan is a good choice. For businesses, however, the Team plan is a good choice and it comes at a great price too.
11. Hub Planner
Best innovative resource management tool for managing teams and their vacations.
Hub Planner offers unique resource management solutions to manage teams, projects, and resources effectively. The best thing is that it is suitable for businesses of all sizes.
It is also a great solution for service-based businesses like consultancies, digital agencies, and staffing companies.
Using the resource scheduling feature, you can get a clear overview of your teams’ availability.
You can assign tasks to your team members, drill down to hours, or plan for the week and months. There is a drag and drop editor which makes it very easy to create these schedules.
While planning your team’s schedule with respect to a project, you can use custom fields to identify the member best suited for a particular task. All you have to do is install a custom field extension, which is a very easy process.
Hub Planner has a feature known as an availability heat map which helps you identify scheduling gaps easily with the help of colors. Managing your team's vacations is also very easy with Hub Planner as the process is very transparent and you can track vacation days in real-time.
So you not only know who is on vacation at a given time but the process of applying for leaves and vacations also becomes streamlined. Along with vacations, there is also a feature that makes requesting for resources very organized too.
Hub Planner also has a Timesheet feature where you can manage and track your team’s time and hours spent on projects and other activities. It lets you compare scheduled time versus actual reported time for a better idea.
Pricing
With Hub Planner, there are three plans that you can choose from where one of them is a custom enterprise plan. If you are looking for a basic resource planning software, the Plug & Play would be sufficient.
But for a complete solution with reporting and time tracking, the Premium plan is the best.
12. eResource Scheduler
Best resource scheduling software for businesses with projects in different locations.
If you have multiple projects running in different geographies but are looking for a single tool to handle all of them, eResource Scheduler is the best tool that you will come across. The initial setup process may be a bit difficult but after that, it is a very straightforward, intuitive tool.
The resource scheduling features will make sure all your resources are utilized efficiently by matching skills and qualifications appropriately to tasks. Through the dashboard, you will get real-time insights into resource capacity, utilization, and availability.
It brings together all the information about all your different projects in one place and gives you a clear picture of the resources allocated to each. You can then grant access permissions to your teams depending on what you want them to see.
There is also a feature that lets you generate reports about your resource utilization across projects and at all levels within the organization. There is also an availability report feature that offers the same in terms of resources available.
If your teams work in different locations, eResource Scheduler is a great tool due to features like multiple working calendars, time zone support, grouping projects in the same city or country, and a few others.
Pricing
There are three different pricing plans that eResource Scheduler offers where there is one plan each for scheduling, finance, and timesheets. Since you are looking for a resource management software, the Scheduling Module is the best choice.
13. Airtable
Like monday.com, Airtable also offers a free-to-use resource management template along with the many other project management-related features that it offers. You can use it to get a bird's-eye view of all your resources across your projects.
It lets you add your project details to the template, assign tasks to team members, set deadlines, check for over-allocation and then reassign tasks. You can make all your projects as visual as you want and track your employee progress in real-time.
You can also use the template to manage your equipment and assign them to projects. It also lets you automate some of your tasks so that you don’t spend time on redundant tasks.
Pricing
While you will have to pay the normal Airtable pricing, the resource management template comes at no price at all and you can get started easily. You will just need to provide your email address and set your preferences to get started.
14. Clarizen
Best resource allocation tool for collaborative work management.
Even though Clarizen is known for its collaborative project management tools, it also has a good set of resource management features that can help businesses get a 360-degree view of their projects.
Using this cloud-based project management software, you can access your entire team’s workload anywhere, access the tasks they have been assigned, make changes, and do more all with just a few clicks.
Their platform is very intuitive which makes it very easy for project managers to operate.
Since you may have multiple projects running at once, Clarizen lets you prioritize certain projects so that resource allocation happens accordingly. There is also a feature that lets you factor in non-project-related resource requirements too.
Pricing
Like most other project management solutions, Clarizen does not offer a dedicated resource management solution. However, it has two products, Clarizen One and Clarizen Go. For resource management and project management features, the Clarizen One plans are ideal.
Under Clarizen One there are two plans further, both of which have resource management included. If you have very large project management requirements, the Unlimited Edition will be a good choice but for small to medium-sized businesses, the Enterprise solution is better.
15. Accelo
If you look for the term resource management solution on Accelo’s website, you will not find it because Accelo's Team Scheduling feature is also known as Resource Management. Along with managing your resources, they also help you automate your team scheduling tasks.
You can use this tool to get a complete picture of all your projects and all the resources allocated to each. Not only can you assign tasks to your team members, and set deadlines, it also lets you integrate with commonly used calendars so their exact availability is known.
This way managers can accurately plan the project and if any changes are made to the schedules, the system automatically gets updated. When employees request changes, you will get notified and can choose to accept or deny any request.
By giving you a clear picture of how your resources have been allocated, how many hours they have worked, the number of billable hours, and other project-related details, project managers are able to maintain control over the finances of their project too.
Pricing
Like most other project management software, Accelo does not offer a dedicated resource management plan. They have a plan called Projects which has several project management tools and includes resource management as one of the features.
However, all the other plans that they offer too include team scheduling and resource management.
16. Paymo
Best resource scheduling software for modern-day teams.
Even though Paymo is most commonly known for its project management capabilities, it has some robust resource scheduling and resource management features too. It makes visualizing your resources very easy.
Paymo has a colorful visual scheduler where managers can have a clear view of the entire team’s schedule. You can get an individual view of schedules, a team view, or even get complete project views.
Since a project may have multiple managers, Paymo even lets all of them work together and make changes to the project timelines, budgets, and others. Whatever change is made is visible to the entire team and all changes can be traced to the source.
The visual nature of the app makes it very easy to spot if team members have been over or under-allocated and therefore helps managers distribute workload evenly.
There is also a leave management system that gives you a complete view of all leaves without even leaving the timeline. The leaves sync with the project calendar and automatically updates how the leaves would affect the project.
If you have freelancers or employees working for you by the hour, with Paymo, it also becomes very easy to manage them by the hour and pay them accordingly.
Pricing
If yours is a small team, the Free plan should be sufficient to track all of them across projects. But for small businesses that have started growing, the Small Office plan should be a good choice as resource and project management features are included.
17. Asana
Best flexible resource management software for efficient workload management.
Most of us know that Asana is an all-in-one project management tool and has some of the best project management features. The workload management feature is a tool that businesses can use to manage their resources.
You can use it to get a central overview of your team’s workload and check how much work each member has been assigned. There are features that let you assign tasks to members depending on their skills and availability.
The drag and drop feature makes it a very easy tool to use.
Some other features that you get with the workload management are capacity trendline by person, an expanded timeline for planning, bulk-rescheduling, the ability to view and track milestones, and many more.
Asana helps you take into consideration all your available resources and then allocate them to different projects through the resource allocation and capacity planning features.
Along with these tools, you can use the several other features that Asana offers for time management, team collaboration, and others.
Pricing
- Unlimited Projects & Tasks
- Unlimited Storage & Logs
- 100+ Free Integrations
- Status Updates
- Calendar View
- Unlimited Dashboards
- Workflow Builder
- Task Dependencies
- Task Templates
- Timeline & Milestones
- Workload Management
- Advanced Reports
- Built-in Time Tracking
- Create Custom Rules
- Premium Integrations
Read more Asana pricing
Asana offers three pricing plans for different project management needs. However, only the Business plan has the workload management feature so resource management it is the ideal plan for businesses.
Compared to other software, it might seem a bit more expensive but it is truly a value for money considering the extensive project management features it offers.
18. Celoxis
Best full-featured resource management software.
Celoxis is an all-in-one project management tool that is known for its resource management features. It helps project managers schedule, track and manage their resources across different projects in different geographies.
While scheduling and assigning tasks, it takes into account skills, availability, leaves and holidays, geographical differences, and others. Whenever there is an overload on resources, the system also automatically notifies the managers.
Along with capacity planning, Celoxis also offers detailed reporting and analytics that along with other project details also give a clear idea about resource utilization and efficiency.
Pricing
Celoxis offers only two plans, both of which include resource management features. Like many other project management solutions, Celoxis does not offer a dedicated resource management solution.
19. Silverbucket
Best resource planning and management tool for project-based businesses.
Irrespective of the industry your business belongs to, if it is a project-based business, Silverbucket is the resource management software that you want to choose. It is a very intuitive platform and gives you a clear overview of all your resources.
You will be able to see how each employee has been allocated tasks and whether the load has been distributed easily. You can easily make changes to the tasks that have been assigned already, and allocate people to tasks.
While you can plan a project and the hours that your team will spend on it, there is also a feature that will let you compare planned hours to actual hours.
Using the various reports that are available, you will also be able to make data-driven decisions regarding the allocation of your resources.
Silverbucket also helps project managers understand how changes to projects will affect project finances, thereby giving better control over them.
Silverbucket also offers project budgeting features and capacity planning. Using the project portfolio overview, you will also get a complete overview of everything related to all your projects in one go.
Pricing
Silverbucket has only one pricing plan that starts at 7.5€ per person, per month. Not only is it a good price but it also includes all the features that Silverbucket offers at just one price.
20. Microsoft Projects
Best resource planning tool for project management by Microsoft.
Even though Microsoft Project is also a complete project management tool, its resource management features can help businesses manage people resources, enterprise, material, and generic resources too.
There is a complete guide available on how you can use the tool to manage, allocate and schedule your resources. It helps you assign tasks based on the skills of individual team members and also lets you see how changes can affect the overall project.
Once your project timelines and tasks are all set up you can track progress, identify if any resources have been overallocated, compare progress with the baseline, and do more. It gives you a clear picture of where each of your resources is and how they are being used.
Pricing
While Microsoft Project offers three plans, the resource management feature is not included in the Project Plan 1. You can choose Project Plan 3 as it has many other project management features too.
However, if you are looking for enterprise resource management capabilities, you will find it only in the Project Plan 5.
How to Choose the Best Resource Management Software
With so many great options available in the market today, it can be confusing to finalize one software and decide it’s the best for your business.
So before you shortlist a few from our list, let us help you with some points you must consider while selecting the best resource management software.
1. Cloud-based software
The first and foremost feature that you must look for is that the resource management software you choose must be cloud-based.
If it is a software that you need to download on a system and only then use it, chances are that you will not be able to access it from any other device.
The best resource management software will be accessible on any device connected to the internet so that project managers can keep track of their projects and resources even when they are out of the office.
2. Customizable project timeline
Your resource management software should give you a clear overview of your project’s timeline so that you know how far you have progressed and so that you can compare planned progress with the actual.
While some resource management software have their own templates, make sure you are able to customize it and set it up just the way you want. Your project will most likely have custom requirements that not every template will cater to.
Choose a service provider that lets you set up your project timelines the way you want.
3. Resource over-allocation detection
The primary goal of resource management is to ensure optimal utilization of your resources. None of your resources must be overburdened or under burdened.
Choose a resource management software that lets you detect if any of your resources have been assigned work unevenly. It should then allow you to reassign the extra work to someone else and automatically sync the changes across your project.
4. Visual nature
The best resource management software are those that are visual in nature. Choose one that offers views like Gantt charts, Kanban boards, or grid-based timelines where entries are color-coded.
This way whenever there is an overallocation or if your deadlines are close, you will know just by looking at it.
Visual project management software is much easier to comprehend and saves a lot of time. Instead of going through tables or following individual schedules closely, visual project management tools make it very easy to spot abnormalities if any.
5. Resource utilization reporting
What good is a resource management software that does not tell you how well your resources are being utilized? You will need resource utilization and allocation reporting not only to analyze how resources can be utilized optimally but also to resort to stakeholders.
Choose a resource management software that offers reporting and analytics because they give you insights into your current resource utilization, help you identify underutilized resources, and also help you understand how your overall strategy can be optimized.
6. Team collaboration
One of the main aspects of successful project execution is team collaboration. Each of your team members must have a clear idea of the project, deadlines, and any changes made. Choose a resource management solution that helps you bring your teams on one page.
The software you choose must allow you to integrate individual calendars on Google Calendar, Outlook, and others with the project calendar. It must also allow every team member to have access to the overall project calendar.
The best resource management software will also make it possible to share files, invite external stakeholders, offer feedback, request changes and collaborate on tasks.
7. Budget management
The best resource management software will also help you with project budgeting. It will help you compare planned hours with actual billable hours. It will show you how changes in your project affect the pre-planned project budget.
Choose a resource management software that also lets you have complete control over your project’s finances.
FAQ
Resource management is the effective and efficient utilization of a business’s various available resources. It comprises resource scheduling, resource planning, and allocation, capacity planning, resource utilization reporting, and project budgeting.
Resource management software generally provide a complete overview of the resources a company owns and how well they are being utilized.
Resource management software is often known as resource allocation software, resource scheduling software, or resource planning software. Whatever the name used, the main purpose of this software is to help businesses utilize their resources optimally.
This software help project managers identify the available resources, allocate them to different tasks based on skills and availability, help identify bottlenecks and resource leaks, and more.
Creating a resource plan is a systematic process where you need to begin by defining the objectives of a project and the resources that will be needed to complete it. You then have to match tasks to the correct resources that have the skills needed for them.
Budget planning and managing the availability of equipment also come under resource planning. Once tasks have been assigned, you will need to set up milestones and deadlines so that the project gets completed on time.
While creating a resource plan, you can create an initial plan called baseline that you will use to compare the actual results with.
Resource forecast is a feature of resource management software that helps you estimate future work and lets you balance the demand and supply of resources.
It takes into consideration situations that can arise in the future and help ensure that you have resources available to deal with them.
Small businesses with smaller projects can use excel sheets to calculate their project resources. Some factors they need to consider include the schedule of the project, cost, standard working days, work per week, and a few others.
For projects that are larger and are spread across multiple geographic locations, excel sheets may not be enough. This is where resource management software comes in.
Resource management makes sure all your resources are utilized optimally. It reduces project costs by avoiding wasteful utilization of resources. It also gives clear visibility into the availability of resources.
Using resource management software, you can get a central view of all your resources, plan the capacity for the present as well as for the future, match tasks and projects to employees based on skills, and improve the overall health of your projects.
Resource management makes sure that resources are available when they are needed, there are no double bookings, and project budgets remain under control.
A few important principles of resource management are
The people working on your projects are the most important resources.
It is important to involve your teams in decision-making processes.
Allocate tasks based on the skills of people.
Transparency is important for trust between teams.
Forecast resources keeping in mind all possible situations that may arise.
Which Resource Management Tool Should I Choose?
Now that you know how useful resource management tools are, we are sure you would like to get started with one. Evaluate your requirements first and then choose a dedicated resource management tool or a complete project management tool.
If you just want a template to replace your spreadsheets, monday.com and Airtable offer free resource management templates. For service-based businesses, there is Mavenlink and if yours is a project-based business, there is Silverbucket.
For businesses looking for a project management software that also has resource management included some great choices are Asana, Microsoft Projects, Wrike, GanttPRO are some good choices.
ResourceGuru, Forecast.app, and Runn on the other hand are some great dedicated resource management and scheduling software.
Before you make your final choice, read a few reviews to understand the experience that others have had with the service provider. If all seems good, you are all set to get started with the best resource management software for your business.