How do you track operational work for resource planning?

[AmandaGr]

We are in the beginning stages of using the Workfront Resource Planner to view resource allocations across our enterprise. We're currently struggling with how to best account for "operational" work in the Resource Planner. Many of our users work on non-project related tasks (i.e. service tickets), and that work doesn't appear in any projects, so it isn't allocated in the Resource Planner. This provides us with an inaccurate picture of a user's capacity. Has anyone come up with a good way to account for operational work? Amanda Graham Idaho Supreme Court

[JaneBr]

Hi Amanda Majority of people working in our IT Department have some availability for project work over and above their business as usual (BAU). In readiness for 2019 as part of our Ops Planning we will be trialling each team having a BAU plan whereby their BAU % commitment, i.e. the amount of time they need to spend on 'keeping the lights on' is locked down. The different teams across the department have differing requirements as to how much they want to manage their BAU tasks in WF. We are therefore starting by giving everyone a consistent template with one task that shows the total BAU hours for the year (with a fixed task constraint). They will then have a number of other tasks that they can tailor with zero hours but these will appear in their timesheets so that actual time can be recorded against them. Some teams want to put hours against these, which is fine, as long as the hours against the BAU pot are deducted. Some teams don't want to have to manage their BAU tasks to this degree which is also fine. The result is that, when the users are viewed in the Resource Planner, it gives us visibility of their availability for project work as this will show in the 'DIF' field. It will also be essential that time off is consistently entered. Let me know if you would like any further detail or screenshots as happy to oblige. All the best Jane Jane Bradshaw BAKKAVOR LTD

[TamiJo]

We refer to this work as production support, so we created a role called "Production Support". Everyone in IT has this role, and we adjust the percentage of FTE between that and their primary role. We are just starting to use the Resource Planner, so I'm not sure yet of the impact there. Fingers crossed it translates. Tami Johnson SAIF Corporation 503.373.8702

[MoniqueEvans]

I'm currently trying to solve for a very similar situation with my own group. We are going to create Operational projects with role/team specific tasks that are relative to the individual so they can log time there instead of making personal tasks or having general hours. However, the only way I can think for these to show on the resource planner is to equate planned hours for the year and have the individual contour them (if access level allows) accordingly. Which could get messy... Monique Evans Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.

[TaraKr]

We are using a primary role for our engineer's project related work, with two other secondary roles that account for service tickets and administrative work. For example, they are allocated 75% of their time to their primary role, 15% to service tickets role and 10% to admin role. The only issue is that in the resource planner, I will still see the users 40 hours as available; it's not until you expand into the project that you'll see only 75% of their available hours associated to the project. It could be confusing. Tara Krause Aspire Technology Partners