Setup Considerations: Resource Plans

What They Are

Resource plans in Workday help you to staff your projects and enable your workers to charge their time against a project.

Business Benefits

Create and update resource plans.

Reduce data entry for commonly used information.

Staff your projects with qualified workers.

Configure custom objects to extend Workday to meet your unique requirements for resource plans.

Enable project workers to log their time with Workday Time Tracking.

Use Cases

Specify the window of time that workers can record their hours on a project.

Control the content of resource plans to reduce effort, maintain consistency, and avoid errors.

Find qualified workers who are available for project work.

Balance the distribution of project assignments across your workforce.

Enable project managers to staff projects with workers who express interest in a project opportunity.

Questions to Consider

Questions	Considerations
Will your resource plans contain common information?	You can create templates for resource plans to populate the common information that most users need to enter. Templates streamline data entry and reduce user errors.
Do you want to enable workers to log their time on any project or only on assigned projects?	Use the time entry template to enable project workers to log time to any project, without having an assignment on a resource plan. Otherwise, you must assign project workers to a resource plan before they can log time to the project.
What date range do you want workers to access when they log their time on a project?	Workers on a resource plan can log time against a project or a project task. Workday automatically populates the date range with the start and end dates of the project. You can configure a narrower date range for workers to log their time on the Edit Tenant Setup - Financials task by using the dates specified in: Resource plans. Project plan tasks. Task resources. You can use multiple sources to continue narrowing the date range. Workers can only log time where the selected date ranges overlap.
How will you find workers for your projects?	Workday provides multiple reports that you can use to find workers to add to your resource plans. You can configure the Find Workers button to launch the report that best suits your needs.
What are the requirements for your project roles?	You can simplify your staffing effort by specifying the requirements for your project roles. When defined, a Find Worker report returns the workers who match your requirements.
Do you want to enable workers to express interest in project roles using Opportunity Marketplace?	You can display projects in Opportunity Marketplace to allow workers to express interest in specific project roles. When you enable Projects in Opportunity Marketplace, project managers can choose whether to display each of their projects there. The project roles must have skills as role requirements, because suggested roles surface for workers based on the skills match between the role requirements and the worker profile. See Steps: Set Up Talent Marketplace.
Which project roles should you restrict to project hierarchies?	You can restrict the availability of project roles to specific primary project hierarchies. This restriction simplifies role selection and reduces data entry errors. Child hierarchies inherit role restrictions from their parent hierarchies. Restrict project roles using the Maintain Project Roles task.
How do you want to organize your project roles?	You can specify the categories for organizing the project roles on the resource plan lines. Use the Maintain Project Role Categories task to add or change your values.
How do you want to approve new or modified resource plan lines?	To enable manual approvals, configure the Project Resource Plan Line business process. If you don't configure this business process, Workday automatically approves both new and modified resource plans.
How do you want to approve new project workers?	To enable manual approvals, configure the Request Worker business process. If you don't configure this business process, Workday automatically approves new project workers.
Do you want to differentiate between the confirmed and potential workers assigned to a resource plan line?	You can configure the project booking status to specify the commitment level of a worker on their assigned resource plan line. Use the Maintain Project Booking Status task to specify the values. Example: Hard Booked and Soft Booked.
Do you want to restrict project workers to selecting only their assigned projects in their expense reports?	You can restrict the project worktags that workers can select when they create or edit an expense report. To limit workers to selecting only the worktags for their project assignments, configure the Expenses Options section on the Edit Tenant Setup - Financials task.

Recommendations

Configure the

Find Workers

button to open the

Find Available Workers for Project

report to streamline the staffing process. This report enables managers to see an overview of worker qualifications and their availability all at once.

Create templates for your resource plans to reduce the time users spend on data entry. The templates prefill the fields with information that is common to all your projects.

Configure resource scheduling to view and manage resource assignments from 1 location with the

Manage Worker Assignments

report.

Create your resource plans at the project-hierarchy level when the projects within the same hierarchy use the same resource plan. This configuration:

Reduces the time spent on data entry.

Maintains consistency.

Avoids errors.

Restrict project roles to specific primary project hierarchies to streamline data entry.

Requirements

Before you can create resource plans, you must first create project:

Hierarchies.

Roles.

Limitations

You can't add the same worker to more than 1 resource plan line when the worker has:

The same project role.

Overlapping dates.

Different standard cost rates.

You can't delete a resource plan line when:

A task resource references the resource plan line.

It has a pending worker assignment.

Tenant Setup

Access the

Projects

and

Expenses Options

sections on the

Edit Tenant Setup - Financials

task to configure the project-specific options.

Depending on how you configure your resource plans in Workday, you can:

Set the date range within which workers can record their hours on a project.

Enable project and resource managers to use a specific report for staffing their projects. Managers launch this report from the

Find Workers

button.

Restrict workers to select project worktags associated with their assigned resource plans.

Enable resource scheduling to use the

Manage Worker Assignments

report.

Security

Domains	Considerations
Business Process Administration in the System functional area.	Users secured to this domain can edit the Project Resource Plan Line and Request Worker business processes.
Manage: Business Process Definitions in the System functional area.	Users secured to this domain can manage the Project Resource Plan Line and Request Worker business processes.
Set Up: Project in the Projects functional area.	Users secured to this domain can: Create, edit, and view templates for resource plans. Restrict project roles to primary project hierarchies.
Set Up: Project Hierarchy in the Project Tracking functional area.	Users secured to this domain can create, edit, and view resource plans on the project hierarchy.
Set Up: Project Tracking in the Project Tracking functional area.	Users secured to this domain can: Create, edit, view, and maintain project roles. View resource plans.
Manage: Project Resources in the Project Tracking functional area.	Users secured to this domain can: View and manage resource plans. View project resources. Use the Get Resource Plans web services.
Manage: Advanced Project Resource Management in the Projects functional area.	Users secured to this domain can use the Manage Worker Assignments report.
Self-Service: Resource Management in the Projects functional area.	Users secured to this domain can find projects with available assignments for themselves by: Accessing project role suggestions in Opportunity Marketplace, including the View Recommended Projects from Opportunity Marketplace report. Viewing the Find Project for Me report.
Set Up: Advanced Project Resource Management in the Projects functional area.	Users secured to this domain can: View worker availability. Staff projects. Use these web services: Get Requirements for Resource Plan Put Requirements for Resource Plan

To ensure proper access, review these team member roles and activities:

Domain Security Roles	Considerations
Finance administrator	Configures tenant setup information.
Project administrator	Edits the Project Resource Plan Line and Request Worker business processes. Creates templates. Creates resource plans for project hierarchies. Manages and views resource plan information. Uses web services.
Project manager Resource manager	Approves changes to the resource plan lines routed by the Project Resource Plan Line and Request Worker business processes. Creates resource plans for individual projects. Manages and views resource plan information. Adds workers to resource plans.

Business Processes

Business Processes	Considerations
Project Resource Plan Line in the Project Tracking functional area	Enables users to: Create resource plans for a project, but not the project hierarchy. Use the Submit Resource Plan web service. Has a security policy that enables you to open up approvals to various security groups. You can also enable manual advancement to the next step by a business process administrator. Contextual security for the supervisory organization is only available for workers assigned to a project, not workers pending approval. Because of this security, when you configure a definition step with a supervisory organization manager, you must also configure a Worker is Assigned condition rule.
Request Worker in the Projects functional area	Enables changes in worker assignments or associations. This business process: Is a required subprocess of the Project Resource Plan Line business process. Supports the resource plan for the project, not the project hierarchy. Creates a separate event for each resource plan line that you modify. You can also set up permissions that enable you to manually advance the business process to the next step.
Project Express Interest in the Projects functional area	Enables employees to express interest in working on specific projects in Opportunity Marketplace. Workday automatically delivers a default business process definition with an initiation step only.

Reporting

Reports	Considerations
Manage Worker Assignments	Use to: View project resource assignments, time off, and holidays. Compare workers for project assignments. Drill into and manage project assignments. To enable this report, set up resource scheduling.
Find Available Workers for Project	Use this report to find both qualified and available workers for their projects. You can configure Workday to launch this report from the Find Workers button on the resource plan line.
Find Worker for Project	Project and resource managers use this report to find qualified workers for their projects. Workday automatically launches this report, by default, from the Find Workers button on the resource plan line.
View Recommended Projects from Opportunity Marketplace	When projects are enabled in Opportunity Marketplace, project workers access this report from Opportunity Marketplace to find and express interest in project roles based on skills match.

You can use these report data sources to create custom reports:

Project Express Interest Events - All Statuses

on the Project Express Interest Event business object.

Project Resource Plan Line Events - All Statuses

on the Project Resource Plan Line Event business object.

Project Resource Requirements

on the Project Resource Requirement Parameter business object.

Project Roles

on the Project Role business object.

Project Standard Cost Rate Sheet

on the Project Standard Cost Rate Sheet business object.

Resource Plan Details

on the Project Resource Plan Detail business object.

Resource Plan Details Search

on the Project Resource Plan Detail business object.

Integrations

Web Service	Considerations
Get Resource Plans Submit Resource Plan	Manages data on resource plans and resource plan lines for both project hierarchies and projects. Submit initiates the Project Resource Plan Line business process for approval only for resource plans on projects, not project hierarchies.
Get Requirements for Resource Plan Put Requirements for Resource Plan	Manages data on resource requirements for resource plans.

Connections and Touchpoints

Feature	Considerations
Resource Forecasts	You must have a resource plan with assigned resources to create a resource forecast.
Project Budgets	You can create a project budget based on a resource plan.
Time Entry Templates	You can enable workers to log time on any project or project task, even if they don't have an assignment on a resource plan. Use the time entry template to enable this feature.
Expenses	You can restrict project workers to select only the project worktags for their assigned resource plans when they create an expense report. Use the financial tenant settings to enable this feature.
Opportunity Marketplace	You can enable workers to discover and express interest in project roles that match their skills.

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships across your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.