Who uses the Staff OBS?

[Garrett Steudle]

We are curious who uses the Staff OBS on the Teams tab and for what purpose.  Currently this is not scheduled to be part of the new UX.  We are building a case for CA to show them it is important for it to be included in order for us to completely move to the new UX.

 

We use it to report the Capacity v Demand for Roles by Department (Team), especially on an Idea.  Instead of creating hundreds of the same roles labelled by the department, we use the Staff OBS to distinguish the demand for a role and what department the demand is for.  For example, on ideas we only know the role that's needed and what department that role needs to be from.  So to be able to see the Demand for a role by Department OBS, we assign a Staff OBS to the role on the idea.  Therefore we are able to run reports and custom portlets that show us the incoming demand vs the capacity of a role by department and that helps us to decide if we can take on an idea and convert it to a project.

 

What does everyone else do with the Staff OBS?  Who else wants this to be included in the new UX?

[Kristin Schroer]

Hi Garrett,

One thing I know customers use it for is to allow differing rates for a role on the same project (IE one Developer role associated with one OBS at $50 per hour, and a second instance of the Developer role with a different OBS at $100 per hour. (The following KB provides more detailed steps on how the Staff OBS is used in this scenario: Is there a way to define varying rates for the sam - CA Knowledge )

 

Regards,

Kristin Schroer

[Shoichi Sugawara]

Hi Garrett,

 

The following knowledge maybe helpful for you.

What is the difference between Resource OBS and St - CA Knowledge 

 

Regards,

Shoichi

[Garrett Steudle]

Thanks for your responses. These are both good additions to how we use it.  The main reason we were asking is because the Staff OBS is not included in the new UX.  We're trying to understand if we are one of the few companies that uses it or if there are other companies out there as well.  We are trying to stress the importance that the Staff OBS needs to be included in the new UX for us to completely move to it.

[Garrett Steudle]

I'm assuming there's no more input from other community members on using the Staff OBS?

 

Garrett

[ChrisYardin]

Sorry, late to this discussion. We are about to use the Staff OBS to differentiate demand for the same role from different parts of the organisation. It is critical to ensure that we keep down the number of roles we have to manage. For example, I need a Business Analyst, but from which resource pool am I going to source that BA from.

 

The second way that we have used the Staff OBS is as per what Kristin_Schroer identified earlier to differentiate rates in the Rate Matrix. This has allowed us to have a standard rate by location and in addition differentiate a higher forecasting rate for an open role.

 

Meeting these two demands has been difficult, because the Staff OBS can be used to identify only one OBS hierarchy, but the hierarchies are not necessarily the same in the two requirements listed above.

 

Recently the Australian based User Group has been actively discussing the need for the Staff OBS in the new UX with representatives from CA. We are intending to vote in unison towards a goal to push Staff OBS into the mix for new functionality in 15.x

[Garrett Steudle]

Thanks for your feedback Christopher.  Sounds like you use the Staff OBS for roles the same way we do.  We do not want to manage hundreds of roles.

 

We have had a few discussions with CA and to us it seems like they aren't grasping our need for the Staff OBS in the new UX.  We have another company here in Michigan that wants to vote for it as well.

 

Was the User Community planning to post the idea to the Customer Innovation group?  Our system owner was going to post one today but I told him to hold off and he may want to contact you to discuss the idea and see if we can get a many companies behind this as possible.  Do you mind if he contacts you?  What's the best way to contact you?

 

Garrett

[Legacy User]

We're using Staff OBS to to differentiate roles supplied by different departments, which utilize different labor rates.  We forecast by role and department using this feature.  Have been told there is a new Team feature that may replace this function for forecasting, but that dog won't hunt, here, even if it's a better dog.  Need means in New UX to build cost plans from roles and departments.

[Garrett Steudle]

We've been told about the new Team feature every time we bring up the Staff OBS as well and that too will not fulfill our requirements for it. 

[Garrett Steudle]

Thanks for everyone's input.  We created an Idea to have the Staff OBS included in the new UX in the Customer Innovation Group.  Please have your representation vote for this idea if you want the Staff OBS in the new UX.

 

Garrett