Human resource planning and personnel allocation are handled by resource managers, who work alongside project managers. They assess a company's ability to satisfy project staffing requirements, assign individuals to tasks, and acquire new employees. They may also be in charge of payroll and employee training.
Effective resource management can be the difference between substantial profit margins. And one of the most effective methods to improve your organization's effectiveness in this area is to use resource management software.
One may use resource management software to plan, schedule, and reschedule projects. It is a type of project management tool that aids in the planning, allocating, and tracking of all project activity. It is also known as resource planning software.
However, with so many options available, it is easy to become overwhelmed.
This thorough resource management software selection will provide great insight into what could work best for your business.
But before getting into the details of the best project managers, let's look into what resource management is and why it is essential for companies of any size.
What is Resource Management and Why is it Important?
Resource management is forecasting the workforce required for the future to achieve all the organizational goals. Resource management is uniquely collecting, distributing, and managing resources needed for a project. It is about considering how resources should be used efficiently to save time and energy. It gives a unique approach that helps to get optimal performance.
Furthermore, when the right skills and resources are used, it automatically tends to make a profit in your business. Several resources managers have become essential to every business through project management courses because of their efficiency.
Resource management not only provides a plan but also provides the best idea that makes sure that the work is getting completed on time without any wastage of energy and resources.
When one works according to the planning, scheduling, and improving the whole resource lifecycle and provides a successful project on time, resource management also decreases the chances of conflict among the employees. Resource management not only helps in better utilization but also helps to increase the employees' productivity. In the long term, resource management ensures that the business gets expanded.
Importance of Resource Management
- It helps to evaluate the shortage surplus of the workforce in every single department.
- It helps to reduce labor cost.
- It ensures that the right number and kind of people work together to achieve the organizational objective.
- It helps the organization cope with the changes in the competitive market.
- It helps avoid confusion in any tasks because of the pre-planning of the work before beginning the project.
- It helps to cultivate teamwork and team spirit.
- It also enhances a business's profitability and sustainability.
- It minimizes the cost of the resources significantly.
- It makes sure to bridge the gaps between capacity and demand proactively.
- It helps to increase productivity and add more value to the firm.
- It helps in bringing transparency and visibility into your team's bandwidth.
- Resource management helps to provide a safety net because it is pre-plan before starting to work on the project.
- Formulating the work plan helps to get better performance from all the employees.
- It helps to select the right resources for the right project.
15+ Best Resource Management Software
1. Scoro
Scoro is an amazing end-to-end project and resource management software. They have 100+ tools through which one can empower your team. They have a 14-day free trial for their consumers. In addition, they have featured guides and e-books on their website through which one can get amazing tips to make your work even more efficient.
They host multiple events to help the teams learn more about increasing their productivity. The software has everything that is required for resource management. In addition, they have a blog section where resource managers can learn about the software and get amazing tips for smart teams.
Scoro is one of the best-performing websites. Scoro enhances time management and productivity. Time is money, and Scoro ensures your time is utilized and all the work has been done without wasting time.
2. Meisterplan
Meisterplan is one of the best project planning tools and resource management software. The software has the best features like auto-schedule and extended histogram, which helps you work smartly on your projects.
The software provides a long-term strategic perspective so that there is clarity about all the requirements. In addition, they have Project portfolio management templates to get started with quickly.
The software maximizes the productivity of all the projects. There is a step-by-step guide for a better understanding. Meisterplan gives a free trial of 30 days, to begin with. After that, the software suggests the best fit options so that the work can be completed on time and efficiently.
There are events and meetings for the teams for their better clarification. In addition, they update the software from time to time so that the software provides accurate and all the information which is necessary for resource management.
The resource planning tool has the best resources, which help select the right member for the project.
3. Float
Float is one of the best resource management tools. It helps to plan and maintain teams' best work by planning, tracking, and scheduling the projects in one place. In addition, the software has the best resources like budget management and tracking, which helps reduce manpower.
The software has the smartest resources to work efficiently, increasing the firm's productivity. The software helps create project timelines and plan all the resources according to the project's needs.
The software schedules all the tasks and makes fast changes, making the work easier and less time-consuming. It also has the best autopilot mode, which gets synced with the calendar and sets custom work hours.
4. LiquidPlanner
Founded by Charles Seybold and Jason Carlson, LiquidPlanner is a management software company based and originated in Seattle. The first beta release from this company happened in 2008 when they publically released the software. This firm has achieved awards such as "Company of the year" in May 2011 and "Innovation Award" in 2012.
LiquidPlanner was recognized as the "best online project management software" in 2020. LiquidPlanner is a private company. RubyonRails was used to build this software. It claims to be the very first SaaS that expands to software as a service.
Software as a service-based management solution allows the user to describe their uncertainty in the estimation of tasks with the use of ranges. This software also devices probable schedules with its inbuilt schedule system. LiquidPlanner created an app in 2011 which allows the users to connect online project management software with Apple devices like iPhones and iPads.
There are many pros and cons of this software. The software is automatic and has intelligent scheduling procedures. It has many insight tools that assist the users. There are also some cons of this software. This software takes a lot of time to set up a project. It does not have any milestones or non-image attachments.
This company gets its funding from the Seattle-based Alliance of Angels fund.
5. Resource Guru
Resource Guru is one of the best resource management software which offers software and tech services. This software makes cloud-based team schedules. Resource Guru is best for resource or Project Managers, Producers, or people looking to schedule resources for their projects. Its source deployment and support are Cloud, SaaS, which expands to software as a service, and Web-based support.
It lets managers focus on important things instead of stressing over scheduling. Resource Guru might have a simple outlook, but it has extremely useful tools inbuilt with powerful features. Resource Guru's client list is also pretty impressive. It has clients like Disney and Deloitte.
The software has a leave management system for vacations, public holidays, and sick leave. With most systems, it is difficult to manage the leaves and holidays which are not set previously. However, with software like Resource Guru, managers can confidently add the holidays and hassle-free procedures.
6. ClickTime
ClickTime is a time tracking schedule that reduces costs, increases project visibility, and stays within the budget.
ClickTime timesheets are easy for everyone. Managers can follow a timeline so that employee burnout is reduced. In addition, the dashboards and reports can be used to keep the project within the budget.
ClickTime offers services that exceed time sheets. Click time also provides instant answers to questions related to businesses. ClickTime managers can analyze employees' performances and understand trends and patterns. It makes the staff smarter and increases productivity.
ClickTime has timesheets, and helps Export payroll and set automatic reminders. ClickTime provides personalized timesheets because not every time sheet is equal. In addition, they have unique tracking solutions for agencies, businesses, non-profit corporations, healthcare, IT, universities et cetera.
ClickTime reduces administrative costs and saves money by doing all the work of arranging, tracking, and planning employee schedules.
With ClickTime, there are no more horrors of updating Excel spreadsheets now and then. It not only tracks employees' work hours but also schedules work according to employees' availability.
7. Kimble PSA
Projects determine the successful availability of customers. Kimble PSA Is the solution that delivers entire project mechanisms. Kimble PSA handles everything from project estimation, employee tracking, and billing.
It is process centric and Provides businesses with alignment and guidance. The software offers help selling and stopping by advancing the sales team and keeping the data flowing. It keeps the sales pipeline accurate and up to date.
Kimble helps managers drive accurate forecasts to improve sales drive. It keeps the data updated from sales cycles. Kimble Enables cooperation between the sales and delivery; this connection allows teams to see a comprehensive view of the sales. The sales team is made accountable and empowered through Kimble. It helps keep the sales pipeline accurate and the data fueling.
The sales pipeline is an indicator of the health of businesses. Kimble PSA first proposed templates once a business idea is mature enough to discuss the scope of service. The proposal templates of Kimble are flexible.
The connection between Kimball and the sales force is seamless and allows the Teams to view customers from sales to delivery comprehensively.
8. Epicflow
By uniting distributed resources in one team and supporting global growth, Epicflow delivers projects on time and increases the profitability of the said company.
EpicFlow uses predictive analysis and real-time data to make informed decisions.
- The main features of EpicFlow are :
- What-if Analysis which forecasts information.
- Dashboard.
- Historical Load Graph.
- Future Load Graph.
- Resource Management
If you are interested in exploring project management in-depth, we encourage you to sign up for PMP online course and upskill yourself.
9. Active Collab
Active Collab gives a manager complete control over the work process. It allows the entire team to get organized and makes the work transparent. Meetings, team management, products and services, finances - Active Collab well manages all these.
Active Collab provides real-life customer reviews, which significantly improves project management. The daily to-do lists on active collaboration help keep track of work and progress. It has a single project management methodology which makes the work atmosphere easier to collaborate. It is like everyone has got their assistant.
No matter the pricing plan of this software, everyone gets unlimited projects. If the team has already started a project in another software, then simply copy-paste it to this software. Separate projects for each client can also be started. Each project which is assigned separately can also have a budget that is calculated. Projects can also be named so that everyone knows what to work on. The project can also be given a description, a label, or a category so that everything is clear.
If you're new to project management software can look at it as complicated and unclear. Active Collab has prepared sample projects for such people.
Active Collab acts like a personal trainer, preventing users from decorating their workplace with reminder to-do lists. Instead, Active Collab allows users to set up reminders directly in the task so that no work is missed, and everything is kept on track.
10. Precursive
Precursive offers high-velocity services, which help increase the revenue through advanced resources management and project management. Precursive combines task management, customer collaboration, and service automation. This is the only PSA platform from Starforce that combines all three tools.
Precursive boosts productivity and improves time, so that customer satisfaction is prioritized. This software schedules resources in a daily, weekly, or monthly planner. It also allows the users to reallocate work if there are any changes in the schedule.
It also has a capacity planner, allowing managers to deliver tasks to the right people. In accordance with the person's capacity, knowledge, and experience, the software would locate the right person.
Precursive is fast and flexible and allows the user full control. To avoid staff burnout, this software also has a utilization planner. This planner identifies who is free at what time and allots tasks accordingly. This way, no employees are overwhelmed by work.
There is major importance given to customer collaboration. In this, the customers could share the projects and tasks to make priorities. In addition, better commands can be given on real-time data, and with the help of resource managing analytics, managers can monitor projects.
11. Hub Planner
The Hub Planner resource scheduler is very simple to navigate. It gives a complete overview of the team's schedule and resource planning across events. It includes timesheets that allow the user to include time at the moment. This feature is extremely helpful as it identifies and distinguishes actual work and scheduled work.
Hub Planner allows the user to download real-time team analytics for all the projects and resources. A dashboard feature tracks the individual resource or project's performance, making management an easy task.
With this schedule, it is super easy to plan projects and budgets. With dynamic billing rates, project expenditures can be tracked easily. Team members can behave with transparency while scheduling the vacation days. The Vacation and Annual leave feature allow the user to request a holiday directly from the more scheduled.
Hub Planner is cloud, SaaS, and Web-based. It was founded in 2013 and is located in Sweden.
The features of Hub Planner are:
- Capacity Management
- Collaboration Tools
- Drag & Drop
- Forecasting
- Reporting/Project Tracking
- Resource Scheduling
- Search/Filter
- Skills Tracking
- Utilization Reporting
Klient PSA
With customer-centric Professional Services Automation (PSA), Klient PSA transforms services and client success.
It is a device analysis that delivers ten times faster than traditional PSA. This system is designed for corporations and small businesses. The enterprise version of this software is built on Salesforce. Users can manage several commands on one software.
One of the main objectives of this software is to provide top-notch customer service to potential users.
This company provides a PSA solution that includes:
- Task Management
- Resource Planning
- Timesheets & Expense
- Billing & Invoicing
- Project Proposal
- Team Collaboration
- Accurate Role & Resource Forecasting
- Reports, Analytics, and Real-Time Project Insight
- Customer Community
eResource Scheduler
eResource Scheduler is a resource management software that helps managers device human and nonhuman resources. For example, with E resource scheduler, Project managers can add upcoming bookings to the scheduling chart. This can be done by using the drag and drop interface.
This scheduler also saves from unauthorized resource breachers. Managers can also accommodate the rights and permissions of employees through this software.
This scheduler lets calculate the time spent on Resources and projects with the help of timesheets. Managers can also make financial reports on this software by segregating the billable and non-billable projects.
14. ONEPOINT Projects
Onepoint Projects is the market leader in providing an easy-to-use project and portfolio management (PPM) solution. Onepoint is a complete app that includes all functions.
The tool's most intriguing feature is the What-If scenario planning, which aids in the management of project uncertainties. The resource consumption view is another significant feature that distinguishes Onepoint. Service and technology are also excellent.
Each portfolio and project dashboard gives higher management a pleasant and straightforward overview. In addition, a free trial of ONEPOINT's unique hybrid approach to project management is available.
15. Ganttic
Ganttic is an online resource planning, scheduling, and management application. It effectively schedules projects, people, facilities, and equipment. Simple to use and fantastic for tracking assets to manage allocation. Excellent for team event tracking. The tool's drag-and-drop functionality does visual planning and scheduling simple. Ganttic makes collaboration quick and simple.
It enables the entire firm to schedule various projects in one location and instantly identify bottlenecks. In addition, it offers excellent customizability and a really friendly support crew.
It gave us more control over our resources and better use them. The time tracking UI and planning function is an excellent tool for small and medium-sized businesses where personnel management is a priority.
16. Journyx
Journyx is a customizable time and expenditure monitoring software for organizations that manage employee time conveniently and reliably for projects, billing, and payroll.
Journyx provides everything one needs to automate project management, billing, payroll, compliance, and accounting. It includes automatic data validation procedures and powerful analytics and reporting.
Journyx provides a variety of techniques for tracking employee time and attendance, including cutting-edge physical time clock hardware, straightforward web-based time clocks, and mobile app time input.
17. Kelloo
Kelloo simplifies resource management, planning, and portfolio management. In addition, Kelloo provides realistic plans with no surprises.
Kelloo is easy to understand and implement. Within an hour, you'll create resource strategies, assess your portfolio, and gain detailed visibility into your resources. Try us out and see what makes us unique.
Kelloo will assist in making the most of your resources and initiatives, regardless of the type, size, or shape. Agile planning, product roadmaps, portfolio prioritization, and dashboards help your teams achieve outcomes.
18. Resource Hero
Resource Hero is adaptable and customizable to our customers' needs. Directly integrated into the page layout. Resource Hero was created from the ground up by a professional service digital firm that has been in operation for over 15 years.
App user interfaces are straightforward, with spreadsheet-like interfaces that make data entry a breeze. Resource Hero gives users real-time insight on use and availability when projecting resources.
The software is 100 percent Salesforce native, extremely customizable, and adaptable to your organization's operations. Simple, targeted, and cost-effective job forecasting and tracking solution.
19. Retain
Be it a business of any size, retain turns out to be one of the leading software that can scoop up the burdens for the resource management team. The software is cost-efficient as well as flexible. With Retain, one can access real-time information from anywhere worldwide.
The software allows companies to process new demands of clients in a shorter period, which impacts the overall retention rate of clients. Regardless of the number of employees, retain helps balance the demand and churn out the maximum profit.
It provides an insight-driven decision and effective forecasting through a comprehensive view. Overall, the software will motivate the resource management team and get the job done more easily.
Professional Services by Retain:
- Expenses Tracking
- Project Time Tracking
- Time and Absence tracking
- QuickBooks Integration
- Custom Reporting
- Time Tracking
Top Cities where KnowledgeHut Conduct Project Management Certification Training Course Online
What are the Benefits of Using Resource Management Software?
Resource management helps in assigning the resources and balancing the team workload in a better way. The benefits of using resource management software are mentioned below-
- Resource management software has all the resources centralized, which helps the resource manager to select the right member for the project in just a few clicks.
- Using the right software will provide the team with collaboration tools that decrease any chance of confusion among the team members.
- The software generally has schedulers that systematically schedule everything and keeps the managers updated, decreasing irrelevant issues.
- Tracking the status of the project or the progress of the project is no longer a problem. They can track the project right away.
- The software gives the best solutions to your problems while completing the project.
- Planning the project is a task that takes so much of your time and energy. The software provides the benefit of planning the project efficiently and saving time.
- One can effortlessly share the documents and data with the team. Maintaining the confidentiality of the document or data is no longer a problem.
- It provides valuable information which increases the productivity of your project. It gives an estimate about the budgeting, reducing the manual work.
- It provides an insight into all the information required.
- It helps to maximize the utilization because everything gets updated automatically and on time.
- Managers no longer waste time making extra reports because all the information is just a click away.
- Whenever you are working on any project, sometimes you keep juggling additional tasks, scheduling, and planning, which need to be done simultaneously. But this is no longer an issue if you use resource management software. It forecasts all the requirements in advance, which makes your work easier.
- Resource management software has the best leading software that maximizes the productivity of your entire task.
- Resource Management is not a piece of cake; it takes a lot of effort and time. Managers have to schedule many meetings to discuss many things repeatedly. Resource management software can only handle this situation by tracking your problems in advance and keeping the team updated.
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Conclusion
Choosing the best resource management software is extremely important, whether a single project or a whole portfolio. At first, one may want to use free resource management software, but this software won't give adequate facilities. Hence, before choosing any resource management tools, one must look into the specifications and reviews and compare them with the requirements.
Enrol yourself to learn the project management skills by taking a PRINCE2 certification from KnowledgeHut.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q. What makes a good Resource Manager?
A resource manager's job is allocating available resources among different projects. A good resource manager can optimize the best possible distribution tactics using their skills and efficient resource management tools free. To be a good project manager, one must gain the required skills through the PMP course.
Q. What are resource management skills?
A resource manager has several responsibilities. To carry out these responsibilities, one must have the following skills.
- Communication skills
- Conflict resolution
- Domain knowledge
- Proactive planning
- Negotiation skills
- Risk management
One can learn these skills by taking a PRINCE2 certification.
What are the four management resources?
The resources available in a company can be divided into the following four categories:
- Physical Resources
- Financial Resources
- Intellectual Resources
- Human Resources
What are resource management techniques?
Breaking down resource management techniques.
- Resource Allocation.
- Resource Scheduling.
- Resource Leveling & Resource Smoothing.
- Resource Forecasting.