Rolling out Resource Calendar

[Tammi Reel-Davis]

Hi Everyone!

Can anyone share with me best practices on rolling out resource calendar to users, we would like to start using it for consultants. What process do you use? Does the manager for that person update the resource calendar or does the users. We just want to have an idea especially when we roll this out to the entire organization. They currently have the rights now but we def need a process in place for this feature. Any ideas?

Thanks
Tammi

[Lowell Wetzel]

Hi Tammi,
We have an automated process that uses XOG to update resource records. The GEL has the following code relating to the "Calendars". The issue with calendars is that the "overall" number must be a minimum or maximum of the daily values, because it changes as soon as you alter a single days' value in a week.
Within the GEL: For a 7.75 hour day:
<Calendar
baseCalendar="TRG Calendar" resetCalendar="false">
<Days>
<Day dayOfWeek="MON" isWorkDay="true">
<Shifts>
<Shift
finish="15:45:00" start="08:00:00"/>
</Shifts>
</Day>
<Day dayOfWeek="TUE" isWorkDay="true">
<Shifts>
<Shift
finish="15:45:00" start="08:00:00"/>
</Shifts>
</Day>
<Day dayOfWeek="WED" isWorkDay="true">
<Shifts>
<Shift
finish="15:45:00" start="08:00:00"/>
</Shifts>
</Day>
<Day dayOfWeek="THU" isWorkDay="true">
<Shifts>
<Shift
finish="15:45:00" start="08:00:00"/>
</Shifts>
</Day>
<Day dayOfWeek="FRI" isWorkDay="true">
<Shifts>
<Shift
finish="15:45:00" start="08:00:00"/>
</Shifts>
</Day>
</Days>
</Calendar>

[Tammi Reel-Davis]

Hi,

Thank you for the response, when you rolled out the resource calendar to your organization what is the process you used meaning, does the resource make the updates to the calendar or the manager?

Thanks
Tammi

[Robert_Ensinger]

Hi Tammi.
For what it's worth, we've chosen to not roll out Resource Calendars. We have our standard calendar setup with our holiday exceptions and we find this good enough for now. We don't see quality return for the effort of taking this any further.

Calendar workday exceptions come into play during Autoschedule. While we're pretty heavy autoschedule users, we're also really good at Team/PM/RM communication. When a resource is going to be out for an extended period, all parties are well informed and we just handle this manually in the project schedules and with our brains.

Same kind of thing for "off hour" work. Example: we need a group of techs in a space during a base calendar non-workday (a Sunday, for instance). Although the project schedule may show the activity for Friday or Monday - the work still happens on Sunday because people communicate. When done, the resources can still enter their time in their timesheet to Sunday just fine. Clarity doesn't make work happen, Clarity doesn't stop work from happening. Clarity is a communication tool.

The project schedule is important, but Clarity doesn't mange projects, people do. I've joked that when I get beat up at the water cooler because project X went a week late because critical path resource Y was out for a week and THE SYSTEM didn't know this - then I'll train ya'll on managing those resource calendars to make THE SYSTEM know this. Of course, training does not guarantee execution...

I would roll out resource calendars if...
1) There was an easy way for the resource themselves to own this (have the option to stack this in with the Resource - Self (Auto) permission).
2) It was easy for a resource to set a date range ("I will be out on maternity leave from X to X").
3) There was some tie back with timesheets that makes "owed" timesheets disappear for the resource for the duration of the OOO.
4) Must have some kind of centralized "Out of Office" functionality/view. We use Exchange for this now. If there was an integration where the resource only had one action or Clarity's capability was so superior we could do away with the Exchange we would find value.

Technically they do what they're supposed to do. Functionally, we see rolling 'em out in any operational fashion more trouble than it's worth.

[Anon Anon]

Rob,
I really like your explaination.

[Anon Anon]

Tammi

We do use resource calendar for marking days out of out office. That can be for planned days out like vacation, training or business trips when the person is unavailable to work. Also we have associated the calendars with standard North America or India Calendar. Resource are not expected to update past days for unplanned days out like Sick. We are organization with 300 odd people (including contractors) spread-out in three geographical locations as well some folks working from home. The project teams can be range from 10 to 40 people. The advantage we get from calendars is that, no one is caught off-guard when folks on the project are going on vacation or unavailable for work.
We have opened up the resource calendar to individual resources to update it. Managers can also update it if required. We have a resource management dashboard where we measure if the resource was out two weeks and didn't have the calendar updated. This provides us data on how well it is being maintained.
Project Managers like this since it is difficult to keep up with everyones schedule especially around a golive date. Autoscheduling the projects provide realistic finish dates.

Following enhancements would make resource calendars better -
1. Some notification coming from calendars to the resource manager/PM asking for approval or atleast FYI.
2. A text field to enter description/Note on the Caelndar on the reason why the person is out
3. Global view of all or selected resources to see who is out and when. If this available by RM/PM then it would be golden.

[Tammi Reel-Davis]

Hi Bob and AK47

This was great information and I feel you Bob on the enhancements, we actually need to use resource calendar to capture the true capacity for consultants but we would like to roll this out to the organization. Since I have a security OBS Setup with rights including resource calendar it kind of works out in rolling this out, our issue is process. The resource manager and the resource should make sure this calendar is updated especially if plans are involved. It is great Bob that you have the communication process running smoothly we are always struggling with this even down to communication between project managers and resource managers when it comes to updating allocations.

Notifications with Resource Calendar is very key!!!!

Thanks
Tammi

[Tammi Reel-Davis]

Hi Atul,

Would you be able to send me the NSQL and the screenshot of what the portlet looks like.

Thanks
Tammi

[Anon Anon]

Hi All,

Can calendar for resources be based on the geography location?
we have standard calendar for every resource.
Does we have any other way rather than providing specific calendar details for each resources either through front end of clarity tool or through xog client??
Does we have a option of having different calendars in clarity,so that we can select a particular calendar for a particular resource??

Radha Vihari

[Deactivated User]

The way I see it the calendars are to provide primarily two things
- the standard working days
- the length of the working day (Clarity really does not pay that attention to when the working day is within the 24 hours.)

That is what the global or base calendars do.

If you want to have resource specific non working days you will get into resource specific calendars that marking the non working days for Joe only will make a personal calendar for Joe only which is based on one of the global calendars.

I have not seen a limit on how many calendars you can have in the system.

You can have a calendar for every geographic location you have and have the resources there associated with that calendar.

The way you define the working days and length of the working day is use the GUI (in admin tool > project management settings)

For resources specific options you do that in the resource properties and any change will create a new resources specific calendar or if one already exists modify that.

You can XOG in calendars data but that is only for particular resource calendars (see rsm_resources_write.xml for an example)

You cannot XOG in the global/standard calendars. Therefore I am not sure howLowell's Gel script above works, will that only work on the resource specific calendars and what is the effect of the xml attribute resetCalendar="
(Only unsupported database hacks)

Martti K.