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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Setup Considerations: Project Resources

Setup Considerations: Project Resources

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration for project resources. It explains:
  • Why to set them up.
  • How they fit into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What They Are

Project resources include all of the workers on a project. You can configure these features to simplify project staffing and resource management:
  • Resource Pools
     are stable groups of project workers that organize your resources.
  • Dynamic Resource Pools
     are groups of project workers who match preset criteria, such as skills, certifications, or location. These types of pools automatically update when workers leave, change roles, and start new jobs.
  • Rate Work
     enables managers to rate the quality of the project work completed by a worker.
  • Utilization Target Sheets
     provide insight into the productivity of your project workers.

Business Benefits

Project resources in Workday organize and streamline the management, planning, and staffing of your project workers.

Use Cases

  • Create a resource pool of consultants and manage them from the
    Resource Pool Manager
     dashboard.
  • Create a dynamic resource pool of business analysts with specific skills, and then associate them with a resource plan.
  • Rate the quality of the project work completed by individual workers.
  • Define utilization targets for project workers to gain insight into their expected productivity for a specific time period.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
How do you want to organize your resource pools?
Resource pools enable you to run custom reports and view information on the
Resource Pool Manager
 dashboard.
You can:
  • Borrow workers from other resource managers.
  • Compare worker attributes.
  • Staff projects.
  • View the status and utilization of your workers.
You can also assign 1 or more of the workers in a resource pool to a resource plan line.
Before you begin creating resource pool hierarchies and resource pools, determine:
  • The organization of the hierarchies.
  • The project workers who should be in the resource pools.
Which dynamic resource pools do you want to use for project staffing?
Dynamic resource pools enable you to staff projects using preset worker qualifications.
You can:
  • Associate a dynamic resource pool as a group with a resource plan line, and then exclude specific individuals from the group.
  • Assign 1 or more individual workers in a dynamic resource pool to a resource plan line.
  • Display dynamic resource pools in reports when you search for workers.
Project workers in these pools can enter time and expenses for their project assignments.
Before you begin creating dynamic resource pools, determine the selection criteria for the workers in the pools, such as job profile and location.
Do managers want to rate workers on their project work?
Project and resource managers can rate the project workers who have a direct assignment to a project task, approved time logged against a task, or both. To rate a worker, managers must also have a role on the same project as the worker.
Before you set up worker ratings, you need to determine a rating scale for the completed project work. See Create Rating Scales.
How do you want to track the utilization of your project resources?
Utilization target sheets enable you to define utilization targets to benchmark workers for staffing, workforce planning, and performance.
Before you set up the utilization target sheets, you need to determine the rules and utilization percentages for your workers.

Recommendations

We recommend that you configure these features to simplify project staffing:
  • Resource pools.
  • Dynamic resource pools.

Requirements

No impact.

Limitations

You can't use resource forecasts when you enable workers to enter time on a project with dynamic resource pools, because:
  • Workday doesn't automatically create resource forecast entries for the workers in dynamic resource pools.
  • Workers automatically leave dynamic resource pools when they no longer meet the pool criteria, which might cause problems with time entry. We recommend that you not manually add workers from dynamic resource pools to resource forecast lines.

Tenant Setup

Access the
Projects
 section on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task to select the:
  • Rating Scale
     to use when evaluating a project worker's performance using the
    Rate Work
     task.
  • Run Project Worker Days Job
     check box to view data on the
    Utilization Targets for Workers - Monthly
     report.

Security

Domains
Considerations
Set Up: Advanced Project Resource Management
 in the Projects functional area
Users secured to this domain can:
  • Maintain project booking statuses.
  • Create and manage utilization target sheets.
  • Create custom reports on resource utilization.
Assign this domain to users with unconstrained security roles, such as the project administrator.
Manage: Advanced Project Resource Management
 in the Projects functional area
Users secured to this domain can:
  • Use the
    Find Worker Assignments
     report to find workers on specific projects or project hierarchies.
  • Use these dashboards:
    • Resource Manager
    • Resource Pool Manager
Manage: Project Resources
 in the Project Tracking functional area
Users secured to this domain can:
  • View the workers listed in a resource pool on the resource plan and in reports. They can't, however, view the faceted dimensions or values that define the resource pool.
  • View the
    View My Favorites
     report in the
    Actions
     menu on the
    Resource Manager
     dashboard.
Manage: Resource Pool
 in the Projects functional area
Users secured to this domain can:
  • View resource pools and resource pool hierarchies.
  • Use the
    Find Worker Assignments
     report to find workers in specific resource pools and resource pool hierarchies.
  • Use the
    Resource Pool Manager
     dashboard.
Management Dashboard: Resource Manager
 in the Projects functional area
Users secured to this domain can use these dashboards:
  • Resource Manager
  • Resource Pool Manager
Reports: Manager
 in the Staffing functional area
Users secured to this domain can use the
Find Worker Assignments
 report to find workers in specific supervisory organizations.
To ensure that users can review the report details, also secure them to the
Manage: Advanced Project Resource Management
 domain, the
Manage: Resource Pool
 domain, or both. Otherwise, they can't expand the rows in the report to review the details.
Set Up: Dynamic Resource Pool
 in the Project Tracking functional area
Users secured to this domain can create, edit, delete, and view dynamic resource pools.
Assign this domain to users with unconstrained security roles, such as the dynamic resource pool administrator.
Set Up: Resource Pool
 in the Projects functional area
Users secured to this domain can create, edit, delete, and view resource pools and resource pool hierarchies.
Assign this domain to users with unconstrained security roles, such as the resource pool administrator.
To ensure proper access, review these team member roles and activities:
Domain Security Roles
Responsibilities
Dynamic resource pool administrator
Creates and maintains the definitions for dynamic resource pools.
Project administrator
  • Configures tenant setup information.
  • Creates and edits resource pools and dynamic resource pools.
  • Edits the
    Rate Work
     business process and security policy.
  • Configures the
    Resource Manager
     and
    Resource Pool Manager
     dashboards.
  • Creates and maintains utilization target sheets.
  • Creates custom reports.
Project manager
  • Rates the performance of project workers using the
    Rate Work
     task.
  • Approves performance ratings on project workers routed by the
    Rate Work
     business process.
  • Uses resource pools and dynamic resource pools to staff projects.
  • Views Utilization Target Sheets.
Resource manager
  • Rates the performance of project workers using the
    Rate Work
     task.
  • Approves performance ratings on project workers routed by the
    Rate Work
     business process.
  • Uses the
    Resource Manager
     dashboard to view the status of their project workers.
  • Uses resource pools and dynamic resource pools to staff projects.
  • Uses the
    Find Worker Assignments
     report to determine when project workers are under or over allocated.
Resource pool administrator
  • Creates and maintains resource pool hierarchies and resource pools.
  • Adds project workers to resource pools.
  • Assigns roles to resource pools and resource pool hierarchies.
Resource pool hierarchy manager
  • Maintains and views resource pool hierarchies and resource pools.
  • Only has access to the positions in their supervisory organization.
Resource pool manager
  • Maintains and views resource pools.
  • Uses the
    Resource Pool Manager
     dashboard to view the status of the project workers in resource pools.
  • Only has access to the positions in their assigned resource pools and supervisory organizations.

Business Processes

You can use the
Rate Work
 business process to enable project and resource managers to:
  • Rate the performance of their project workers.
  • Approve the performance ratings of their project workers.

Reporting

Reports and Dashboards
Considerations
Find Worker Assignments
 report
Enables you to check the allocations of project workers.
Resource Manager
 dashboard
Provides access to reports that help manage the workers in your organization.
Resource Pool Manager
 dashboard
Provides access to reports that help manage the workers in resource pools. You can view and manage workers with and without project assignments.
Utilization Targets for Workers - Monthly
 report
Enables you to view a monthly summary of the utilization targets for your project workers.
To view the data in this report, you must select the
Run Project Workers Day Job
 check box on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task.
You can use these report data sources to create custom reports:
  • Project Dynamic Resource Pool
  • Project Resource Requirements
  • Project Worker Days
  • Project Worker Holidays
  • Resource Pool
  • Resource Pool Hierarchy
  • Time Off by Date Taken and Resource Pool
  • Worker Utilization Target Sheet

Integrations

Web Services
Considerations
Get Resource Pool Hierarchies
Retrieves resource hierarchies, including the parent hierarchies and attached resource pools.
Get Resource Pool Hierarchies Without Dependencies
Retrieves only resource hierarchies, not including the parent hierarchies or attached resource pools.
Put Resource Pool Hierarchy
Creates and updates resource pool hierarchies.
Get Resource Pools
Retrieves resource pools.
Put Resource Pool
Creates and updates resource pools.
Get Worker Utilization Target Sheets
Retrieves utilization target sheets and their associated data.
Put Worker Utilization Target Sheet
Creates and updates utilization target sheets and their associated data.

Connections and Touchpoints

Project resources interact with these areas of Human Capital Management (HCM) in Workday:
  • Managers assign workers from HCM Core to their projects.
  • Projects link to the job requisitions for hiring workers in HCM Core.
  • Project workers in dynamic resource pools can use Time Tracking to enter their project hours.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.