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Last Updated: 2023-06-23
Setup Considerations: Resource Plans

Setup Considerations: Resource Plans

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of resource plans. It explains:
  • Why to set them up.
  • How they fit into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What They Are

Resource plans in Workday help you to staff your projects and enable your workers to charge their time against a project.

Business Benefits

  • Create and update resource plans.
  • Reduce data entry for commonly used information.
  • Staff your projects with qualified workers.
  • Configure custom objects to extend Workday to meet your unique requirements for resource plans.
  • Enable project workers to log their time with Workday Time Tracking.

Use Cases

  • Specify the window of time that workers can record their hours on a project.
  • Control the content of resource plans to reduce effort, maintain consistency, and avoid errors.
  • Find qualified workers who are available for project work.
  • Balance the distribution of project assignments across your workforce.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
Will your resource plans contain common information?
You can create templates for resource plans to populate the common information that most users need to enter. Templates streamline data entry and reduce user errors.
Do you want to enable workers to log their time on any project or only on assigned projects?
Use the time entry template to enable project workers to log time to any project, without having an assignment on a resource plan.
Otherwise, you must assign project workers to a resource plan before they can log time to the project.
What date range do you want workers to access when they log their time on a project?
Workers on a resource plan can log time against a project or a project task. Workday automatically populates the date range with the start and end dates of the project.
You can configure a narrower date range for workers to log their time on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task by using the dates specified in:
  • Resource plans.
  • Project plan tasks.
  • Task resources.
You can use multiple sources to continue narrowing the date range. Workers can only log time where the selected date ranges overlap.
How will you find workers for your projects?
Workday provides multiple reports that you can use to find workers to add to your resource plans.
You can configure the
Find Workers
 button to launch the report that best suits your needs.
What are the requirements for your project roles?
You can simplify your staffing effort by specifying the requirements for your project roles. When defined, a Find Worker report returns the workers who match your requirements.
Which project roles should you restrict to project hierarchies?
You can restrict the availability of project roles to specific primary project hierarchies. This restriction simplifies role selection and reduces data entry errors. Child hierarchies inherit role restrictions from their parent hierarchies.
Restrict project roles using the
Maintain Project Roles
 task.
How do you want to organize your project roles?
You can specify the categories for organizing the project roles on the resource plan lines. Use the
Maintain Project Role Categories
 task to add or change your values.
How do you want to approve new or modified resource plan lines?
To enable manual approvals, configure the
Project Resource Plan Line
 business process.
If you don't configure this business process, Workday automatically approves both new and modified resource plans.
How do you want to approve new project workers?
To enable manual approvals, configure the
Request Worker
 business process.
If you don't configure this business process, Workday automatically approves new project workers.
Do you want to differentiate between the confirmed and potential workers assigned to a resource plan line?
You can configure the project booking status to specify the commitment level of a worker on their assigned resource plan line. Use the
Maintain Project Booking Status
 task to specify the values.
Example: Hard Booked and Soft Booked.
Do you want to restrict project workers to selecting only their assigned projects in their expense reports?
You can restrict the project worktags that workers can select when they create or edit an expense report.
To limit workers to selecting only the worktags for their project assignments, configure the
Expenses Options
 section on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task.

Recommendations

Configure the
Find Workers
 button to open the
Find Available Workers for Project
 report to streamline the staffing process. This report enables managers to see an overview of worker qualifications and their availability all at once.
Create templates for your resource plans to reduce the time users spend on data entry. The templates prefill the fields with information that is common to all your projects.
Configure resource scheduling to view and manage resource assignments from 1 location with the
Manage Worker Assignments
 report.
Create your resource plans at the project-hierarchy level when the projects within the same hierarchy use the same resource plan. This configuration:
  • Reduces the time spent on data entry.
  • Maintains consistency.
  • Avoids errors.
Restrict project roles to specific primary project hierarchies to streamline data entry.

Requirements

Before you can create resource plans, you must first create project:
  • Hierarchies.
  • Roles.

Limitations

You can't add the same worker to more than 1 resource plan line when the worker has:
  • The same project role.
  • Overlapping dates.
  • Different standard cost rates.
You can't delete a resource plan line when:
  • A task resource references the resource plan line.
  • It has a pending worker assignment.

Tenant Setup

Access the
Projects
 and
Expenses Options
 sections on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task to configure the project-specific options.
Depending on how you configure your resource plans in Workday, you can:
  • Set the date range within which workers can record their hours on a project.
  • Enable project and resource managers to use a specific report for staffing their projects. Managers launch this report from the
    Find Workers
     button.
  • Restrict workers to select project worktags associated with their assigned resource plans.
  • Enable resource scheduling to use the
    Manage Worker Assignments
     report.

Security

Domains
Considerations
Business Process Administration
 in the System functional area.
Users secured to this domain can edit the
Project Resource Plan Line
 and
Request Worker
 business processes.
Manage: Business Process Definitions
 in the System functional area.
Users secured to this domain can manage the
Project Resource Plan Line
 and
Request Worker
 business processes.
Set Up: Project
 in the Projects functional area.
Users secured to this domain can:
  • Create, edit, and view templates for resource plans.
  • Restrict project roles to primary project hierarchies.
Set Up: Project Hierarchy
 in the Project Tracking functional area.
Users secured to this domain can create, edit, and view resource plans on the project hierarchy.
Set Up: Project Tracking
 in the Project Tracking functional area.
Users secured to this domain can:
  • Create, edit, view, and maintain project roles.
  • View resource plans.
Manage: Project Resources
 in the Project Tracking functional area.
Users secured to this domain can:
  • View and manage resource plans.
  • View project resources.
  • Use the
    Get Resource Plans
     web services.
Manage: Advanced Project Resource Management
 in the Projects functional area.
Users secured to this domain can use the
Manage Worker Assignments
 report.
Set Up: Advanced Project Resource Management
 in the Projects functional area.
Users secured to this domain can:
  • View worker availability.
  • Staff projects.
  • Use these web services:
    • Get Requirements for Resource Plan
    • Put Requirements for Resource Plan
To ensure proper access, review these team member roles and activities:
Domain Security Roles
Considerations
Finance administrator
Configures tenant setup information.
Project administrator
  • Edits the
    Project Resource Plan Line
     and
    Request Worker
     business processes.
  • Creates templates.
  • Creates resource plans for project hierarchies.
  • Manages and views resource plan information.
  • Uses web services.
Project manager
Resource manager
  • Approves changes to the resource plan lines routed by the
    Project Resource Plan Line
     and
    Request Worker
     business processes.
  • Creates resource plans for individual projects.
  • Manages and views resource plan information.
  • Adds workers to resource plans.

Business Processes

Business Processes
Considerations
Project Resource Plan Line
 in the Project Tracking functional area
Enables users to:
  • Create resource plans for a project, but not the project hierarchy.
  • Use the
    Submit Resource Plan
     web service.
Has a security policy that enables you to open up approvals to various security groups. You can also enable manual advancement to the next step by a business process administrator.
Contextual security for the supervisory organization is only available for workers assigned to a project, not workers pending approval. Because of this security, when you configure a definition step with a supervisory organization manager, you must also configure a
Worker is Assigned
 condition rule.
Request Worker
 in the Projects functional area
Enables changes in worker assignments or associations.
This business process:
  • Is a required subprocess of the
    Project Resource Plan Line
     business process.
  • Supports the resource plan for the project, not the project hierarchy.
  • Creates a separate event for each resource plan line that you modify.
  • You can also set up permissions that enable you to manually advance the business process to the next step.

Reporting

Reports
Considerations
Manage Worker Assignments
Use to:
  • View project resource assignments, time off, and holidays.
  • Compare workers for project assignments.
  • Drill into and manage project assignments.
To enable this report, set up resource scheduling.
Find Available Workers for Project
Use this report to find both qualified and available workers for their projects.
You can configure Workday to launch this report from the
Find Workers
 button on the resource plan line.
Find Worker for Project
Project and resource managers use this report to find qualified workers for their projects.
Workday automatically launches this report, by default, from the
Find Workers
 button on the resource plan line.
You can use these report data sources to create custom reports:
  • Project Resource Plan Line Events - All Statuses
     on the Project Resource Plan Line Event business object.
  • Project Resource Requirements
     on the Project Resource Requirement Parameter business object.
  • Project Roles
     on the Project Role business object.
  • Project Standard Cost Rate Sheet
     on the Project Standard Cost Rate Sheet business object.
  • Resource Plan Details
     on the Project Resource Plan Detail business object.
  • Resource Plan Details Search
     on the Project Resource Plan Detail business object.

Integrations

Web Service
Considerations
Get Resource Plans
Submit Resource Plan
Manages data on resource plans and resource plan lines for both project hierarchies and projects.
Submit
 initiates the
Project Resource Plan Line
 business process for approval only for resource plans on projects, not project hierarchies.
Get Requirements for Resource Plan
Put Requirements for Resource Plan
Manages data on resource requirements for resource plans.

Connections and Touchpoints

Feature
Considerations
Resource Forecasts
You must have a resource plan with assigned resources to create a resource forecast.
Project Budgets
You can create a project budget based on a resource plan.
Time Entry Templates
You can enable workers to log time on any project or project task, even if they don't have an assignment on a resource plan. Use the time entry template to enable this feature.
Expenses
You can restrict project workers to select only the project worktags for their assigned resource plans when they create an expense report. Use the financial tenant settings to enable this feature.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships across your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.