Resource Loading in Game Plan

Resource loading can be viewed and adjusted in real-time in the Game Plan, giving you tools to effectively manage loading and ensure timelines are reasonable based on the resources available.
To open the Resource Loading Pane (RLP) in the Game Plan, click the Status Panes drop-down arrow then select Show Resource Loading.
You will then be prompted to open a standard view. Since resource loading is a function of a resource's workload across all projects, typically an option that includes all projects is best, for example, Resources with Critical/ Near on this project and their other projects.
The Resource Loading Pane is displayed at the bottom of the Game Plan.
Resources with critical path tasks are shown above those with near-critical tasks etc. The color of the icon to the left of the resource's name indicates the resource's highest level of criticality, for example, Bob has at least one critical path (pink) task and John has at least one near-critical path (orange) task while Sue and Mary only have Normal (yellow) criticality tasks.
The number in parentheses, for example "Bob (8)", is the hours of capacity of the resource. All the resources shown below have eight hours of capacity every day.
Each day in the RLP is color coded based on the percentage of loading for the resource on that day. Orange and red cells indicate that the resource is overloaded on those days.
It is probably more sensible to evaluate loading on a weekly basis instead of a daily basis. To do so, click the Zoom Out icon twice in the Game Plan.
The numbers in the RLP cells are now showing hours by week. Orange and red cells indicate that the resource is overloaded during those weeks.
When you expand a resource, the tasks and their criticality, lifecycle, project, and days of slack are shown.
And, it's a live report - the impact of changes is seen in real-time!
To improve performance, you can temporarily disable the auto update. Simply uncheck the Update Loading box. The RLP will not auto-update as changes are made, however it will update the next time you check it.
The RLP can be configured in many ways, here are a few examples...
1. One or more projects can be analyzed. As a best practice, to accurately assess a resource's loading, you must include all projects on which the resource has tasks.
2. A date range can be specified (Note: shorter date ranges improve performance). It can be helpful to look back a few weeks to see if there are any Planned tasks starting in the past (if the Summary Owners are keeping their portion of the plan up to date, there shouldn't be any). And you only need to look in the future
  
  The start and end dates are displayed in the RLP as orange, vertical lines with labels...
3. Loading can be expressed as a percentage of each resource's Availability instead of Capacity. Everyone tends to have the same Capacity, e.g., 8 hours/day, while Availability varies from person to person, so using Availability is more accurate and informative.
  
  Now the color coding is based as a percentage of each resource's Availability (not Capacity). In this example, Bob's Availability = 25 hours/week and Mary's = 10 hours/week (the number in parentheses next to each person's name), hence the color coding of the cells is different for each person. Since Sue only has 10 hours/week on average and she has critical path tasks, we want to make sure she has everything she needs when she is working on these tasks to prevent any unnecessary delays.
4. And many more!
To hide the RLP, click the Status Panes drop-down arrow then click Hide Resource Loading.
Now that you have the RLP configured just the way you like, the next time you show the RLP, select Last used/saved settings.
Want to learn more? Contact a Customer Success Engineer today!