Assigning Specialized Skill Set to User - Help?

[Christina_Jarosz]

We're in implementation stage and we're trying to assign (or identify?) a method where a specific user has a specialized skill. Ex. Out of 10 graphic designers, Jane Doe is the most experienced with xyz. Or, out of our group of data analysts only john smith has advanced experience with MS Excel. For background purposes - we are an organization with multiple lines of business that will be utilizing the same core marketing group therefore we will have multiple 'traffic managers' so to speak. Christina Jarosz

[randyr6740755]

There is an area called "Talk to me about" for each user in their "My Settings" area. Perhaps this would be a good place to put that kind of info. Randy Roberts ZPA - Zimmerman Advertising LLC

[DavidCo3]

Hi Christina, If you want to tie it in with assigning tasks to people with the relevant skills, then it would be best to use roles (multiple......one for each key skillset that you want to select resource by). That way, the scheduling tool will be able to match suitable resources to the tasks with that role. There can be some some reporting drawbacks from using the Role field for more granular skillsets, so best to discuss this with whoever is assisting your implementation. If you don't need to have the scheduling tools working with your skillsets, and you just want to have them for filters and views on user (resource) reports, then perhaps you can use custom forms attached to the users to store their skillsets and ratings. There are a couple of ways you could go about this, each with their pros and cons so please advise if you want to explore that further (and speak with your implementation consultant about it). David Cornwell

[Christina_Jarosz]

Hi David, We've discussed that option however that's not quite what we've had in mind. We're looking to identify what individuals in existing job roles may have a more advanced / specialized skill than others. For example - in our job role of Data Analyst we may have 25 users but there are a specific three that are really good at KeySurvey, or two that know how to use SurveyMonkey, or another that might be exceptional at Excel tools. These individuals may not realize they have been 'flagged' as being the 'pro' or the 'go to' person for those skill sets, however, when a request comes in we (whomever is reviewing the request) wants to be able to see who is the person that knows KeySurvey the best vs. just pulling any data analyst. We don't want to create a job role for all the different specialty skill sets. It could be a ton and would be counterproductive to our templates on top of it. Christina Jarosz

[AaronGo]

Put them in a Team. They'll have the Job Role as "Analyst", then be in the Team for KeySurvey. They'll get a notice that the Team has a new Task and can pick up that work from that. Aaron Godwin Gentex

[DavidCo3]

That's an interesting idea....as long as they are happy to go with team assignments rather than individual assignments, that sounds like a workable solution. We've actually started using another tool called Skills-Base which gives a much higher level of granularity regarding skillsets. However at the moment it is being used more to assess/rate/report on skills than to use them for assigning work. However it does have an API and I have some plans to link the skills into Workfront as Roles. In the future I believe Workfront may add skills as a sub-set of Roles so that it would work a lot more like you are looking for. If this happens we may be able to stop using Skills-Base. Regards, David Cornwell