Understanding Advanced Resource Management (1KC)

While the basic version of Resource Management does not allow the Resource Manager to navigate to other apps via the SAP Fiori app Resource Management for Projects, the advanced version includes the full scope.

In the advanced version of Resource Management, the Resource Manager can manage resource utilization and project staffing by creating, changing, or deleting assignments for resources and resource requests.

To ensure that the KPIs for resource utilization and project staffing are calculated correctly, existing staffing assignments must be transferred from Customer and Internal Project Management to Resource Management before using the advanced version.

You can only transfer staffing assignments for which the following applies:

• The related projects are not being edited when the job run starts.
• Daily availability information exists for the staffed resources. This information must be available for the entire assignment period (that is, the time period between work package start and work package end).
• Resource employments must be active for the entire assignment period.

You only need to run this job for staffing assignments that were created before the advanced version of Resource Management was enabled in the system. Assignments created in Customer and Internal Project Management after activating Advanced Resource Management (1KC) are transferred automatically.

The job can be scheduled through the SAP Fiori app Check and Transfer Staffing Assignments. If needed, you can specify parameters, such as project ID, service organization, or work package dates. If you want to check or transfer all existing staffing assignments, leave these fields empty. However, if the number of assignments to be transferred is large, we recommend that you schedule several jobs to transfer assignments in batches, for example, by service organization.

Additionally, you can also specify what you want to do by selecting either of the following actions:

• Transfer Staffing Assignments: Transfer staffing assignments according to your selection criteria.
• Check Employments: Check whether daily availability data is complete and whether employments are active for the assignments that correspond to your selection criteria.

See more information on the SAP Fiori app Resource Management for Projects in Introduction to Basic Resource Management.

The following apps are available through Resource Management for Projects:

• Manage Project Staffing
• Manage Resource Utilization
• Manage Assignments
• Assignment Board

The thresholds set in the Resource Management for Projects app are used in all apps for Resource Management.

Manage Project Staffing

You can use the Manage Project Staffing app to analyze and manage staffing requirements for the resource requests which you are responsible for. This SAP Fiori app can be accessed by choosing the following cards in Resource Management for Projects:

• All Resource Requests
• Open Resource Requests
• Staffed and Required Hours by Role

This app provides the following key features:

• View a list of resource requests for which you are responsible in the display time period.
• Filter the resource request list for the information that you are interested in.
• View detailed information for a resource request, including staffed resources (if any) and project team.
• View a list of suitable resources that can be staffed for a request.
• Compare suitable resources in detail.
• Trigger the creation, change, and deletion of resource assignments to resource requests.
• View change documents for assignments.

Manage Resource Utilization

You can use the Manage Resource Utilization app to analyze and manage resource utilization and project assignments for your resources. This SAP Fiori app can be accessed by choosing the following cards in Resource Management for Projects:

• All Resources
• Average Resource Utilization
• Resources with Free Capacity
• Overbooked Resources
• Free and Overbooked Resources

This app provides the following key features:

• View a list of resources for which you are responsible in the display time period.
• Filter the resource list for the information that you are interested in.
• View detailed information for individual resources, including assignments.
• View a list of suitable resource requests on which the resource can be staffed.
• Trigger the creation, change, and deletion of resource request assign to resources.
• View change documents for assignments.

Manage Assignments

An assignment is the result of allocating a resource to a resource request. You can manage resource utilization and project staffing by creating, changing, and deleting assignments for resources and resource requests through the SAP Fiori app Manage Assignments. This app allows you to do the following:

• Create, change, and delete assignments for resources and resource requests.
• Specify a distribution rule for the hours to be assigned (total hours, daily hours, or according to the requested distribution).
• Simulate how assignment creation, change, or deletion would impact key figures, such as resource utilization, staffed hours, and free hours.

You can access the Manage Assignments app from within the Manage Project Staffing app and from within the Manage Resource Utilization app.

When creating an assignment, you can break it down into multiple segments. The assignment must be within the resource request start and end dates.

The distribution rule determines how the required number of hours is distributed to the individual days in the assignment time period. For example, you can create assignments for certain days of the week only. You can also create assignments of different length for different time periods within the overall assignment time period.

The following options are available:

Distribution Rule	How it Works
Total Hours	Specify the total number of hours to be distributed as well as the time period for which to create the assignment. If the resource has available hours in the assignment time period, the specified number of hours is distributed evenly to all days on which the resource is available until no hours are left. If the resource has no available hours at all in the assignment time period, the specified number of hours is distributed evenly to all days in the assignment time period until no hours are left.
Daily Hours	Specify the number of hours to be assigned per day, the time period for which to create the assignment and (optionally) specific days of the week for which to create assignments. If the resource has available hours in the assignment time period, the specified number of hours per day is distributed to all days on which the resource is available. If you specify that assignments are created for specific days of the week only, the specified number of hours is distributed to all relevant days, regardless of whether or not the resource has available hours on these days. Assignments are created on all relevant days in the assignment time period, even if this exceeds the number of required hours.
As Requested	The number of hours and assignment time period are pre-set and cannot be changed. Assignments are created according to the distribution of required hours per month that the project manager specified. If the resource has available hours in the relevant months of the assignment time period, the specified number of hours per month is distributed evenly to all days on which the resource is available until no hours are left.

Assignment Board

The SAP Fiori app Assignment Board gives you a visual overview of assignments for one or multiple resources. You can also use it to visualize weekly and monthly resource utilization.

This app allows you to do the following:

• View assignments for selected resources in a Gantt chart.
• See whether a resource is assigned to multiple requests in the same time period, and if this leads to assignment conflicts.
• Trigger the change or deletion of assignments from the assignment details.
• See when a resource is not available (for example, due to vacation).
• Add table columns to show more information for resources and resource requests.
• Change the display time period to any date range that you are interested in.
• Specify whether you want to see information about assignments or resource utilization on the top-level bars in the Gantt chart.

You can access the Assignment Board app from the Manage Resource Utilization app.

Suitability matching is the process of comparing certain attributes in order to determine whether a resource request and a resource are a good match. This is performed automatically whenever you open the Suitable Resources tab in the resource request details or the Suitable Resource Requests tab in the resource details. The resources and resource requests proposed on these tabs are ranked based on the suitability matching results.

Suitability is determined based on the following match percentages:

• Availability match percentage: The apps calculate availability match percentages based on total hours or hours per month.

  Availability match based on total hours is calculated based on the total number of hours that a resource is free in the request time frame and the total hours required by the resource request.

  • If the request has not been staffed yet, the match percentage is calculated as follows:

    Availability Match % = (Total Free Hours / Required Hours) * 100

  • If the request has been partially staffed, the match percentage is calculated as follows:

    Availability Match % = (Total Free Hours / Remaining Required Hours) * 100

  Availability match based on hours per month is calculated based on the monthly distribution of required hours as specified by the Project Manager and the hours per month that the resource can be assigned to the request.

  • If the request has not yet been staffed, the match percentage is calculated as follows:

    Availability Match % = (Total Assignable Hours / Required Hours) * 100

  • If the request has been partially staffed, the match percentage is calculated as follows:

    Availability Match % = (Total Assignable Hours / Remaining Required Hours) * 100

  If the number of free hours in a month exceeds the number of hours that are required in this month, the number of assignable hours corresponds to the number of required hours.

• Skills match percentage: The skills match percentage is calculated by comparing the resource's skills specified in the employee fact sheet and the skills specified in the resource request. In addition, the app also takes into account the skills that were required in other requests to which the resource was assigned.
• Total match percentage: The total match percentage is based on the results for skills and availability.

In addition to these match percentages, the following match indicators are shown:

• A role match is shown if the resource had or has the requested role in other projects.
• A delivery organization match is shown if the delivery organization of the requested role matches the service organization of the resource.

To change the way suitability matching is calculated, open the filter settings in the Suitable Resources and Suitable Resource Requests tabs.

For example, you can choose whether the availability match percentage is calculated based on total hours or hours per month. Moreover, you can specify that, in addition to the skills defined in the employee fact sheet, skills from other assignments should be taken into account for suitability matching.

If there are multiple resources with similar matching results, you can compare them in more detail. The resource comparison includes more detailed information that helps you finding the best match for the current resource request.