The Resource Planning module adds concrete employee scheduling on projects and activities plus work packages that bundle planned hours, remaining effort, and responsible persons. This turns the company-wide project plan into an operational who-when plan per person.
Note: This article describes the previous resource planning with the main menu items Planning and Work packages. If Work packages is missing in ZEP and Planning opens a planning board, Feature Overview – Resource Planning applies to you.
Product line availability
Note: The previous resource planning is used by accounts that have already booked it. If you book Resource Planning now, you get the new Resource Planning, described in Feature Overview – Resource Planning.
Permissions
What someone may do in Resource Planning is set under Administration > My Company > Roles & Permissions:
Task | Area | Permission |
Schedule employees in projects, maintain work packages | Projects | Plan Data & Resource Planning (Edit) |
Maintain an individual employee's scheduling | Employee | Resource Planning (Edit) |
Project reports | Projects > Reports | Resource Planning |
Employee reports | Employee > Reports | Resource Planning |
Schedule yourself | Own permissions & my reports | My Planning |
Administrators have all permissions.
Additional menu items
The module makes the following new areas and tabs available in ZEP:
Planning
The main menu shows the entry Planning. Employees see their own day and week planning across all projects — the standard distribution per weekday as well as specific day scheduling. With the My Planning permission, employees can also enter their hours here themselves.
Work packages
The main menu additionally shows the entry Work packages. Employees see all work packages they are assigned to, with planned, actual, and remaining effort as well as the color-coded status indicator. They also maintain the remaining effort for their running packages here.
Time recording
In the time recording form, a specific scheduling with a time of day (input type From – To) can be taken over as a preset: date, times, project, task, and any stored note are filled directly into the booking form. This turns a planned scheduling into the actual project time entry with just a few clicks.
Employees
Under Employees > [person] > Employee Management > Projects, you store the standard scheduling per project, and under Employees > [person] > Planning the specific scheduling across all of the person's projects. Under Reports > Resource Planning, you find the Work Packages and the Project Times Chart of this person.
Projects
Under Projects > [project] > General > Project Team Member, you store the standard scheduling of the project employees. The menu item Projects > [project] > Resource Planning contains the planning matrix (Planning), the Work Packages, the Project Times Chart, and the Planning overview with all work packages of the project.
Data objects with work packages
Work packages can be assigned to the following data objects, and each object gets its own list for them:
Projects — all work packages of the project
Tasks — work packages of a task within a project
Tickets — work packages on a ticket from the ticket system
Subtasks — work packages of a subtask
Customers — all work packages of a customer across projects
Administration > Resource Planning
Under Administration > Resource Planning, a dedicated tile appears with the sub-items Settings and Mail templates for scheduling notifications.
Additional reports
The module adds reports in two areas, each under the Resource Planning tab:
Employees
Under Reports > Employees > Resource Planning, five reports are available, plus the Degree of employment without the Absences & Overtime area:
Planning – planned hours per employee and project
Scheduling/actual comparison – planned against actually booked hours
Work Packages – all work packages of all employees
Workload (work packages) – cumulative work factor per person and day
Open Capacity – remaining available work time
Projects
Under Reports > Project > Resource Planning, four project-related reports are available:
Planning – planned hours of all employees in the project
Scheduling/actual comparison – plan-actual comparison per employee in the project
Work Packages – all packages in the project with status overview
Workload (work packages) – workload heatmap of project employees
Distinction from other modules
Note: Resource Planning complements the Project Planning area: the planned hours stored there form the basis, and Resource Planning distributes these hours over work packages and scheduling assignments to concrete persons and time periods. With the Ticket System module, tickets can also receive their own work packages. With the Revenue & Costs module, planned hours from work packages flow into cost and revenue forecasts.