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Resources and Roles › How to Create Resources and Roles

How to Create Resources and Roles

As a resource manager or application administrator, create roles first as placeholders for the resources that your projects require. Then, create the resources that you hire to fill the demand that the role allocations represent. Finally, assign your resources to the right project teams.

For example, create a role for a field technician and then create resources for your staff and contractors. You can create an advanced role for a lead field technician with more skills. Create a nonlabor equipment role whenever a project requires machinery. Then create a resource entry for each available piece of equipment that your company owns or leases.

The application uses the financial properties of the resource to apply the correct rates and costs to their work transactions as they are processed. To post to CA Clarity PPM and appear in financial pages and reports, enable the financial properties for a resource. The financial actuals are visible in the product only for resources that are financially enabled.

The following graphic shows the steps for creating resources and roles.

How Resource Managers Create Resources and Roles in CA Clarity PPM

Follow these steps:

  1. Review the Prerequisites.
  2. Create a Labor Resource or Role or Create a Nonlabor Resource or Role.
  3. Assign Skills (Labor Only).
  4. Financially Enable a Resource or Role.

Review the Prerequisites

Verify that your administrator has satisfied the following prerequisites:

Create a Labor Resource or Role

You can create a labor resource using either the Home or Administration menus. When you create a labor resource from the Home menu, your administrator can activate their user status and assign rights and login credentials.

Follow these steps:

  1. As an administrator, you can create new labor resources using the following substeps. If you are not an administrator, skip this step.
    1. Open Administration. From Organization and Access, click Resources.
    2. Complete the required fields including a unique user name and resource ID.
    3. Click Save and Continue to navigate through the tabbed pages for the new resource.
    4. Click Return and confirm that your new resource appears in the list with active status.
  2. Open Home, and from Resource Management, click Resources.
  3. Click New.
  4. In the Resource or Role field, select Resource.
  5. In the Resource Type field, select Labor.
  6. Click Next.
  7. Complete the Create Resource-Labor page including the following fields:
    Primary Role

    Indicates the primary role for the resource. Roles can change from investment to investment. A primary role lets other CA Clarity PPM resources see at a glance the primary area of expertise of a resource.

    Category

    Defines the category that identifies the area of expertise of the resource.

    Example: Software Development or Product Marketing.

    External

    Specifies whether the resource works for an outside company.

    Default: Cleared

    Availability

    Defines the number of hours in a business day that the resource is expected to work. The availability number is automatically multiplied by five, which is the number of days in a standard working week.

    Default: 8

    Note: This field is mandatory and must be greater than zero for the Labor type of resource or role. ETC is based on the availability. An expense type of resource or role that is assigned to a task does not have a default ETC.

    Input Type Code

    Specifies a code that is used for the resource in financial transactions.

    Track Mode

    Indicates the tracking method used to enter time for this resource.

    Values:

    • Clarity. Staff members enter time against their assigned tasks using timesheets.
    • None. Non-labor resources track actuals through transaction vouchers, or through a desktop scheduler, such as Open Workbench and Microsoft Project.
    • Other. Indicates that actuals are imported from a third-party program.

    Default: Clarity

    Open for Time Entry

    Specifies if the resource can use timesheets to track time that is spent on task assignments. When cleared, the resource cannot log time on any project.

    Default: Selected

    Include in Datamart

    Specifies the resource for inclusion in datamart. When cleared, the resource is not added in datamart.

    Default: Cleared

    Resource Manager

    Identifies the name of the person creating the resource.

    Default: The resource currently logged in.

    Booking Manager

    Indicates the default booking manager for this labor resource.

  8. Click Save.
  9. To define the resource or role availability, click the Calendar tab.
  10. (Optional) Click the Properties tab, and click Contact Information. Complete the fields and save your changes.
  11. As an administrator, if you did not perform Step 1, activate the new resource and create a password for login.
    1. Open the Administration menu, and from Organization and Access, click Resources.
    2. Enter a filter to find the new resource by ID or by status.
    3. Open the resource and change the status field to Active. You can also select the resource and click Activate.
    4. Set a password and confirm password.
    5. Click Save and Return.

Create a Nonlabor Resource or Role

You can create nonlabor resources and roles including equipment, material, or expense. Create a role as a placeholder in a project to help you plan for tasks and estimate the scope of work.

Follow these steps:

  1. Open Home, and from Resource Management, click Resources.
  2. Click New.
  3. In the Resource or Role field, select Resource or Role.
  4. In the Resource Type field, select Equipment, Material, or Expense.
  5. Click Next.
  6. Complete the page including the following fields:
    Parent Role

    Specifies the role one-level higher than this role in a hierarchy.

    Example: The Application Developer role is a parent to the Web Developer role.

    Primary Role

    Indicates the primary role for the resource. Roles can change from investment to investment. A primary role lets other CA Clarity PPM resources see at a glance the primary area of expertise of a resource.

    Category

    Defines the category that identifies the area of expertise of the resource.

    Example: projector, server, truck

    External

    Specifies whether the resource works for an outside company.

    Default: Cleared

    Availability

    This field represents the number of hours in a business day that the resource is expected to work. The availability number is automatically multiplied by five, which is the number of days in a standard working week. ETC is based on availability calculations. A resource or role of type expense that is assigned to a task does not have a default ETC.

    Default: 8

    Note: This field is mandatory and must be greater than zero only for the Labor type of resource or role. Material and equipment (but not expenses) can also have an availability value.

    Resource Manager

    Identifies the name of the manager with access rights to perform duties such as setting the allocation for this resource.

    Default: The resource currently logged in.

    Resource Manager

    Identifies the name of the person creating the resource.

    Default: The resource currently logged in.

    Booking Manager

    Indicates the default booking manager for this labor resource.

  7. Click Save.
  8. To define the resource or role availability, click the Calendar tab.
  9. (Optional) Click the Properties menu, and under Main, click Financial. Complete the fields and save your changes.
  10. (Optional) For labor and expense resources only, click the Properties menu, and under Main, click Contact Information. Complete the fields and save your changes.

Assign Skills (Labor Only)

You can use skills to describe the talents a labor resource or role possesses for project tasks. Defining the skills of labor resources is helpful to other users who want to assign the most qualified resources to roles on projects.

Follow these steps:

  1. Open Home, and from Resource Management, click Resources.
  2. Open a resource or role.
  3. Click the Skills tab.

    The Resource Skills page appears showing the skills for the selected resource or role.

  4. Enter filter criteria for an existing skill or click Show All.
  5. To add a skill to the list, click Add.

    The Select Skills page appears showing all of the skills available in the skills hierarchy for all resources and roles.

  6. Enter filter criteria for an existing skill or click Show All.
  7. Select a skill and click Add.

    Note: To add a skill to the skills hierarchy, contact your administrator.

  8. Click Save.
  9. For each skill, select values for the Proficiency Level, Interest, and Weighting fields.
    1. Assign proficiency levels for labor resources as a rating that indicates how well the resource performs the skill.
    2. To indicate how important this skill is for the resource or role, assign an interest level. For example, a resource with an interest level of 7 - Medium has a greater interest in performing a skill. A resource with an interest level of 4 - Medium represents less interest.
    3. Use the weighting factor as a tiebreaker if there are multiple skills that have the same proficiency and interest.
  10. Click Save.

Financially Enable a Resource or Role

You can financially enable any resource or role that is involved with financial transactions. Enabling the resource or role includes associated financial data in features such as financial planning and forecasting.

Follow these steps:

  1. Open Home, and from Resource Management, click Resources.
  2. Open the resource or role.
  3. Click the Properties tab and select Financial under Main.
  4. Complete the Supplemental section including the following fields:
    Financially Active

    Indicates whether the financial attributes for a resource or role are enabled to record financial management activities against an investment.

    Transaction Class

    Specifies a user-defined value that groups transaction types for financial processing of the resource or role.

    Resource Class

    Categorizes financially enabled resources and roles for financial processing.

  5. If the resource or role type is labor, perform the following steps:
    1. Complete the Financial Department and Financial Location fields.
    2. Mark the resource as financially active.
  6. (Optional) For resource entries only:
    1. Complete the Rates and Costs section including the following fields:
      Target % Billable

      Refers to the percentage of the targeted billing rate that is billable. Enter the target percentage billable for this resource, if applicable.

    2. Complete the fields in the Expenses section.
  7. Save your changes.