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Resource Section Basics

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Stefan Schneider
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This article gives an overview of the resource section basics in the Meisterplan Portfolio Designer view.

See the other articles in this section for more detailed information about working with the resource section.

Overview of the Resource Section

Portfolio Designer: Resources

The resource section is divided into the left hand side resource and role list and the right hand side allocation histograms:

  • The Resource and Role List lists resources and roles. You may aggregate the list by role or by OBS as well as filter it by project or by a variety of resource and role properties. You may also change the capacities of roles and resources via this list (see the Role Capacity and Capacity Changes and Resource Capacity, Absences and Capacity Changes sections below).
  • Allocation Histograms will be displayed for each resource, each role and each aggregation row. They display a stack of allocations, which is ordered by project rank. Allocations of projects with a higher rank go on the allocation stack first. Allocations of projects below the cut-off line aren't included in the stack.

Resource and Role List Features

The following features are available in the resource and role list:

  • Use the Resource and Role Filter to filter displayed resources and roles. See the Resource and Role Filter article for details.
  • Aggregation Rows will be displayed when you have activated the aggregation by role or by OBS via Settings for the Portfolio Designer view. They summarize the capacity and allocations per role or OBS unit. Additionally, an All row summarizing the capacity and allocations of all roles and resources may be displayed. See the Show Top Level "All" and Aggregation and Structure sections of the Portfolio Designer Settings article for details.
  • Roles are displayed with a gray outline icon. 
  • Internal Resources are displayed with a solid gray icon.
  • External Resources are displayed with a solid blue icon.
  • Role and Resource Hints will display associated data when hovering over row headers. See the Role, Resource and Histogram Hint article for details.

Allocation Histogram Features

The following features are available in the allocation histograms:

  • Allocation Stacks display the allocations for each row per quarter (Year zoom level), per month (Quarter or Month zoom level) or per week (Week zoom level):
    • Aggregation Rows summarize the allocations of multiple roles and/or resources.
    • Role rows display direct role allocations, i.e., allocations of the role that haven't been staffed with specific resources.
    • Resource rows display resource allocations.
    • Over-Allocation, i.e., workload exceeding the capacity of a resource or role, will be displayed in red. See the following section Over-Allocation for details.
  • Capacity Lines display total resource capacity or remaining role capacity:
    • Aggregation Rows display an Aggregated Capacity line, indicating the total capacity of all associated resources and any additional capacity entered for associated roles (see the Role Capacity and Capacity Changes section below).
    • Role rows display a Remaining Role Capacity line, indicating the remaining capacity of all resources with that role and any additional capacity entered for the role (see the Role Capacity and Capacity Changes section below).
    • Resource rows display a Resource Capacity line, indicating the resource's total capacity.
  • Histogram Hints will display associated allocation and capacity data when hovering over histogram segments. See the Role, Resource and Histogram Hint article for details.

Over-Allocation

Over-allocation of roles and resources will be determined and displayed by quarter (Year zoom level), per month (Quarter or Month zoom level) or by week (Week zoom level).

Please note:

  1. In the monthly view, over-allocation occurring in any week during a month may not be visible if the over-allocated role or resource isn't over-allocated during the rest of the month. Therefore, always switch to the highest zoom level for a detailed over-allocation analysis.
  2. Until the current week or month is completely over, the full amount of over-allocation will be displayed for that week or month, even though the associated roles and resources may not be over-allocated anymore.

Role Capacity and Capacity Changes

A role's capacity defaults to the sum of capacities of all resources having that role as their primary role.

Via the context menu for a role, you may enter additional capacity for a role or reset the capacity to that of associated resources.

This will only affect the plan of record or, when working with a scenario, the active scenario.

See the Changing the Capacity of a Role article for details.

Please note: If you only work with roles, defining a role's capacity is only possible via capacity changes.

Resource Capacity, Absences and Capacity Changes

A resource's capacity is defined by its calendar and calendar exceptions. Please also note the full time equivalent definition, which describes this more precisely.

In the Absences tab of a resource's detail view in the resource pool, you can enter absences (capacity = 0%) and capacity changes (capacity > 0 %) for any period of time.

When working on the plan of record, you may also view and edit resource absences and capacity changes directly in the resource section of the Portfolio Designer view. To do this, click the pen icon in the row header.

Resource absences and capacity changes are global: they apply to the plan of record and to all scenarios.

See the Resource Absences, Vacations and Capacity Changes article for details.

Selecting Resources and Roles

  • Click on a resource or role row header to select it. Click on an aggregation row header to select all associated resources and roles. You may also select multiple rows by using [Ctrl].
  • The project section will be filtered to display only projects and programs with allocations of the selected resources and/or roles.
  • Click Clear Project Filter on the divider bar to remove the selection.

Trace Mode

  • Click on an allocation in an aggregation, role or resource row to activate the trace mode.

See the Role Trace, Resource Trace and OBS Trace article for details.

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