Allocation is the process of planning, scheduling, and allocating resources in the best possible way. The ultimate aim is to maximise your resources’ efficiency. This, in turn, will help the success of your project, task, or monthly objectives.

 

You will now be able to build project teams based on team member’s skills, working patterns and capacity to maximise resource efficiency.

 

We’ll provide a bird’s eye view of your allocated work, enabling you to manage and plan resources to give an ideal timeline of the project to foresee and avoid problems.

Getting started


With Allocation, you can manage project allocation and people skills right from within Sharktower. The feature is available via the "Allocation" link in the top banner of any project page.


If you haven't yet accessed Allocation, you will be presented with this view:



Allocation uses the working patterns set at the organisation level, in the above scenario the business do not work at weekends so these are excluded from any calculations.

To begin, click the "Settings" button on the top right of the screen.


Project settings

  • Enter your planned start and end date 
  • Enter your budget* (*Note that budget in this sense means "Hours", as stated.)



Upon entering a budget, you'll see that this is reflected in the Hours section to the left of the calendar:




Adding resource


With your start/end date and hours recorded, it's now time to add a resource to the project.

Start by clicking "Add Resource", you can then select people from Sharktower's suggestions* (by clicking '+' to the right of the person's name)



On the subsequent screen you can confirm your selection, once added these will now appear on your calendar view.


Adding unassigned resource


In the scenario that you know, you will need resource but are unsure who to assign the work to, you can add any number of "Unassigned" resource by increasing the number in the list where you see "Unassigned".  You will later be able to assign a job role to these entries.


Once you're happy with your selections, click "Next" to continue.


Then, to confirm your selection, click "Add to Allocation" on the next screen.



The calendar will then be updated with the added resource and information will be displayed for each user. 


Adding resource allocation work items


The next step is to begin adding work allocation to your added resources.  You can do this by clicking on the calendar on the relevant row for that resource and on the relevant date that the work is set to start.


A window should then appear that enables you to add the detail of the work involved;

  • Set the title of the piece of work
  • Add a description 
  • Add a from and to date
  • Set the total hours required (the default is 100%*)
  • Specify the required skills for this work


NOTE: if you attempt to add hours which are in excess of your default working patterns or the user's working patterns, you'll receive a warning to alert you to the risk of over-allocation. 


You can set a colour which will distinguish the allocation item from others in the calendar view.


Finally, click "Save"


With the allocation saved it will appear in the plan view, you can click any allocation items to see and edit their details and add comments.


Replacing resource and unassigned roles with new team members


Any allocations in the calendar can be replaced by hovering over them and selecting 'Replace team member'.



Select a team member from Sharktower's recommendations and confirm replacement once you're happy. The plan view will then update with the selected person added to the plan along with the work allocation if added.



Utilisation


As you plan builds with more work items and allocations, you'll see valuable at-a-glance utilisation information:


  • Hours (displayed in the top left) will increase in line with the budget set
  • Daily utilisation will be displayed at the top of the plan.


It is easy to see how the project's work allocation is spread across the team and days where there may be over or under-resourcing.