Resource Capacity: Viewing Dashboards

Resource Capacity dashboards are a way to quickly determine where your team might be overloaded (and remedy the overload), forecast work capacity in the future and see where workloads are in comparison to resource targets. The Resource Capacity Analysis dashboard includes all assigned work: budget assignments, task work estimates, and schedule items. It is important to note that date charting is always based upon forecasted dates, so maintaining accurate dates in project plans will insure accurate forecasting. In this article we'll walk through the basics of how to make sense of what you see when you open your Resource Capacity Analysis dashboard. 

1. From anywhere in the application, click on the Capacity Analysis icon in the left navigation to navigate to the Resource Capacity dashboard.
   
   
   
2. The Resource Capacity Analysis dashboard opens displaying default panels. We'll start by taking a closer look at a single panel. Click the expand arrow in the upper right corner of any panel to open it into full screen view.
   
   
   
3. The panel expands. In this case we are looking at Work Remaining by User by Date. To get a clearer picture of exactly what is being displayed in this panel, click the Edit icon in the upper right corner of the screen to review the way this data is being shaped.
   
   
   
4. The entire dashboard goes into edit mode. Click on the Edit icon in the upper right corner of this specific panel to review the way its data is being shaped.
   
   
   
5. The Dashboard Panel Edit opens. First we'll click the Custom Filter Settings button to take a look at the data that we are viewing in this dashboard panel.
   
   
   
6. The Filter Capacity Inspector panel opens, displaying the filter criteria that are currently active for this dashboard panel. There are three main data types: Current Projects, Project Intake and Opportunities. In this instance only Current projects are being displayed in the dashboard panel. Click on the Filter icon for Current Projects to review any other filter criteria that have been applied.
   
   
   
7. The Filter Projects dialogue opens, displaying the filter settings that have been applied to the Current Projects data in this dashboard panel. We can see that only projects in an Active state (not archived) are being displayed, and that the projects are being limited to those who belong to "CO-Corporate", "DI-Dimensions", "GL-Global", or "IT-IT." In this area there are many options to further limit this data, using the dropdown menus to show only work for a specific project owner, customer, program, etc. Click Cancel to exit this dialogue and return to the Dashboard Panel Editor, or Apply to save any changes made and return.
   
   
   
8. Back in the Dashboard Panel Editor, the following elements are displayed:
   
   
   

   a.	Panel Title: Displays the name given to the panel automatically based upon the Chart Shaping values selected below. Custom panel titles may be entered when the Auto-Title OFF toggle is switched.
   b.	Shaping Templates: Several pre-configured template panels are available for easy panel creation. These presets include Work Remaining by Date/User, Work Remaining by User/Date, Work Remaining by User/Project, Work Remaining by Resource/Date, and Work Remaining by Resource/Project.
   c.	Value: Indicates whether capacity will be displayed in terms of Work Remaining (calculated by taking the total hours estimated for a task and multiplying by the percent complete--e.g. a 10 hour task marked 50% complete would have a work remaining value of 5 hours), Work Estimate (the total number of hours estimated for a task's completion), or both. When evaluating the work associated with projects that are in-flight, the Work Remaining will provide more accuracy by excluding the hours that have already been worked.
   d.	Targets: These are settings that may be configured at the Enterprise, Labor Resource Type, and User level to determine the target number of hours that should be worked. These targets appear as dotted lines across the top of the capacity chart displays and multiple targets may be displayed at once.
   e.	Group: This is where the grouping option for the data is selected. Options include Date, Project, Resource Type, Source, and User.
   f.	Group Display Options: Depending upon the grouping type selected, additional options will appear. In this example the group is set to Date, and the Calendar icon may be clicked to choose a date grouping option (Year, Quarter, Month, Week, or Day). For all other group types this shows a button to sort groups in ascending (A>Z) or descending order (Z>A).
   g.	User Values in Data Set: All grouping types that are not Date also offer the option to select the groups that are displayed--for example, certain projects may be selected to display and the unselected projects will not be displayed.
   h.	Sub-group: Data may be, optionally, sub-grouped. In this instance the data is grouped by month and sub-grouped by user. Once a sub-group has been added, a second button will appear where the chart display type may be selected--stacked or grouped.
   h.	Chart Date Range: The dropdown menu is used to define a date filter setting, and then a number is assigned to define the date range. The date range is displayed to the right.

   Click Cancel to return to the panel, and click Cancel in the Edit Dashboard dialogue to return to the main Resource Capacity Analysis screen.
   
   
   
9. Upon returning to this screen, we can see those settings in action. The work remaining for all active projects is grouped by user, and then sub-grouped by month. The legend for those months displays to the right. The personal target for user capacity runs above each user's chart displaying the target that corresponds to that user's capacity settings. The target value is determined by taking the daily target and multiplying it by the number of working days in the chosen interval. Learn more about setting capacity targets here. 
   
   
   
10. Hover over any column to see additional details.
    
    
    
11. Click on any column to activate the Drill Down option. Hold down the shift key to select multiple columns, or click and hold to create a marquee box over the desired columns. Once columns have been selected, click to drill down.
    
    
    
12. The Drill Down view of Resource Assignments opens, listing the tasks that make up the work being displayed in the capacity chart. The Type column indicates where this work comes from:
    

    	Work associated with a scheduled resource
    	Work associated with the work estimate on a task
    	Work associated with the budget on a task

    
    Note that in the example below the Start and Due Date columns show inaccurate dates for the first task in the list--the original dates are no longer feasible based upon forecasting using the Critical Path. The dynamic resource modeling engine is looking at the blue dates that appear below. Visit the project in question to update or modify the dates on the Critical Path.
    
    From this view, click on the Task Owner to reassign a task and redistribute the work load.
    
    
    
13. The Task Assignment dialogue opens, displaying options within the organization to replace the currently assigned resource. Either choose a resource here, or to get additional detail around the availability and skills of the resources, click on the toggle at the top of the dialogue.
    
    
    
14. In the detailed Resource panel, options are listed in order of best fit for the task at hand based on the resource type, skills required and that user's capacity. Check the box next to a resource to change the assignment. Then click Save to save changes.