Resource pools overview
As a resource manager, you can manage your resources by adding users to resource pools.
Efficient resource management cannot happen without populating your Resource Pools with users and attaching them to projects. This a prerequisite for using the Resource Planning functionality.
For more information about the prerequisites needed before you can start using Resource Planning, see the “Prerequisites for working in the Resource Planner” section in Resource Planner overview.
For information about creating and managing resource pools, see the following articles:
Overview of Resource Pools
- A Resource Pool is a collection of users that are needed at the same time for the completion of a project.
- A Resource Pool can be shared across multiple projects, programs, or portfolios when it is associated with all the projects in the programs and portfolios.
- You can either create a Resource Pool and populate it with existing users upon its creation, or you can create the Resource Pool and associate it with an existing user or with a new user as you are creating or editing the user.
- After you populate your Resource Pools with users, you can associate them with projects and templates, and manage your user allocation to the projects more efficiently.
- You can associate as many Resource Pools as needed with a project, template, or user.
Criteria for associating users with a Resource Pool
There are several ways to structure your Resource Pools.
We recommend the following approaches:
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You can have all the users in the same Resource Pool belong to the same team.
For example, if you want all the users of a Marketing team to be available for a project, you would want a Marketing Resource Pool where you would add all the users in that team. You can then associate the Marketing Resource Pool with the projects the members of that team are assigned to.
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You can have all the users in the same Resource Pool fulfill similar roles, especially if the roles are in high demand and must be budgeted separately.
For example, you may have external resources that work as Consultants that you want to have available for a project from time to time. You can create a Resource Pool for Consultants that you can attach to your projects, where you can place both users that are internal or external Consultants.
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You can also create Resource Pools by department or cost center.
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We do not recommend adding all users in the system to one Resource Pools if you have a large number of users, or if you manage resources for a large number of a projects at a time.