Resource Planning shows the workload of your employees and projects on a continuous timeline. You create assignments directly in the planning view, move them, and adjust their duration. This article summarises which menu items, permissions, and reports the module adds to ZEP.
Note: This article describes the new Resource Planning, which appears in ZEP as the main menu item Planning. If your main menu also contains Work packages, you are still working with the previous resource planning. Its features are described in Feature Overview – Scheduling and Work Packages.
Product Line Availability
Resource Planning is tied to a product line and requires ZEP to have activated it for your account.
Note: Resource Planning is available in ZEP Compact and ZEP Professional. It is not included in ZEP Clock.
If you do not use resource planning yet, booking the module gives you the Resource Planning described here straight away. If you already work with the previous resource planning, nothing changes for now. ZEP initiates the switch for you once you have contacted support. How the switch works and which data is transferred is described in Switching from the Previous Resource Planning.
Permissions
You control who may view and edit Resource Planning through the roles and permissions matrix (Administration -> My Company -> Roles & Permissions). Five entries are relevant.
Entry | Module and group | Effect |
Plan Data & Resource Planning | Projects | View and edit the plannings of a project |
Resource planning | Projects > Reports | Analyse project-related Resource Planning reports |
Resource planning | Employee | View and edit the plannings of individual employees |
Resource planning | Employee > Reports | Analyse employee-related Resource Planning reports |
My Planning | Own permissions & my reports | Edit your own planning yourself |
The project-related and employee-related entries are set by default for administrators, system administrators, controllers, and department heads. For the project permissions, project controllers, project managers, project managers with budget responsibility, and customer managers with budget responsibility are added.
Note: The entry "My Planning" is set by default for administrators, system administrators, and controllers only. To let employees edit their own planning, you have to enable this row explicitly for the relevant role.
Additional Menu Items
Resource Planning adds a main menu item, one tab each on the project and the employee detail page, and a dedicated area in the administration.
Planning
The main menu item Planning opens your own planning. Above it sit three tabs that are visible depending on your permissions.
Tab | Content | Visible to |
My Planning | Your own planning across all projects | All users |
Project planning | Several projects side by side on one timeline | Users with project permissions |
Employee planning | Several employees side by side on one timeline | Users with employee permissions |
Project Detail Page
The detail page of a project shows the tab Planning. It lists all employees of this project with their plannings and the project key figures. From there you plan the entire project team on one timeline without leaving the project record.
Employee Detail Page
The detail page of an employee shows the tab Planning with all projects the person is planned for. You see this person’s workload across all projects, and you create new plannings or adjust existing ones directly. This shows at a glance whether the person still has capacity left across all their projects.
Administration > Planning
Administration gains the box Planning with the submenu item Settings. There you define whether employees are notified when their planning changes. The setting applies company-wide and affects everyone who is planned in Resource Planning. Details are described in Basic Settings – Resource Planning.
Additional Reports
Resource Planning adds two reports. You reach both through the Reports menu in the "Resource planning" group.
Employee Reports
Both reports are available under the employee reports.
Planning/Actual Comparison compares planned hours with recorded hours, grouped by employee.
Planned capacity utilization compares available capacity with planned hours, per employee and department.
Project Reports
The Planning/Actual Comparison is available under the project reports, grouped by project. Planned capacity utilization is not available here because it is calculated on an employee basis only. Use the project view to check how closely a project follows its plan, and the employee view to find bottlenecks and free capacity in your team.
Note: Only one of the two resource plannings is active in your account at a time. The two reports described here therefore take the place of the previous ones. Old and new reports never appear side by side.
Separation from Other Modules
Resource Planning draws on data from other areas, which makes it more precise.
Note: With the Locations and Departments module you can filter the views across several employees and projects by department, and planned capacity utilization shows the department as a separate column. With the Project Planning module, planned hours become available, so Resource Planning shows open planned hours and warns when they are exceeded. If price groups are stored, Resource Planning also shows the planned revenue.