Hi Matt,
As soon as an organization chooses to make a real use of Resource planning (which means detailed plannings, and regular autoscheduling), comes out the big question : how to guarantee resource planning over multiple projects ?
Auto-schedule in Clarity do not automatically take into account all other projects allocations (like some other scheduling software do), but you still have some solutions :
1. Use team resource allocation : enter a % of allocation for each resource (100% by default). I.e., If you enter 20% for a resource (team page), you will be able to schedule this resource at 20% of his capacity : this is usually 1 day per week (if you work 5 days a week). Scheduling will automatically limit the resource planning (though you can still over-schedule a resource with locked tasks), but you may need to have a real resource reservation process (in your organization, not in Clarity ), with a resource manager that answers to project manager demands and manage global resource capacity (based on project managers demands, he will decide for the resource allocation % on each projet).
2. Use ETC : you let project manager allocate the resources, and you manage global ETC for each resource. When a resource is overscheduled, look for the concerned projects, an choose which is to postpone, based for exemple on his priority. This way, you manage only scheduling problems.
3. Write a dashboard that will display main resources allocation/ETC, and give indicators on projet resource allocation and global resource allocation (a resource can be overscheduled because of one project, or because of many little project allocations)
Of course, these methods rely on process (scheduling, resource reservation) that must be deployed and used in the company by project managers and resource managers.
We use the three methods together, based mainly on ETC, to guarantee the resource planning :
1 Project managers meet resource managers, to discuss resource allocation and ETC on their project
2 Resource managers work weekly on their resource capacity planning, and meet project managers whenever a problem arises
3 PMO use a resource dashboard to control resource capacity planning at a global level, and also on important projects or programs.
Here is an example of this dashboard "Project : Resource planning" :
(C) MACIF
(made with an internal tool, don't ask for it )
As a conclusion, Clarity will not manage the multiple projects scheduling problems. Try to write down the projects and resource process in your company (BPMN is a good start for that), this will make everybody work with the same rules, and should help a lot .
Stéphane