Beyond the Spreadsheet
You can attempt to build a basic schedule by color-coding cells in Excel. That method usually works right up until you need to track additional data like project statuses, reference numbers, or linked proposals.
If you email a static spreadsheet to your team, you just have to hope they read the notes and see the attachments. Dedicated Gantt chart software solves this by centralizing the data. You can keep the view incredibly simple or make it as complex as your specific workflow demands.
Real-Time Tracking in Action
Visualizing your resource schedule does more than prevent double-bookings. It provides a centralized space to track availability in real time. When conflicts arise, project managers can spot the bottleneck and collaborate on a fix before a deadline is missed.
Engineering firm Pure Technologies is a perfect real-life example of this. They use www.ganttic.com to track more than 80 pieces of specialized equipment spread across North America. Before moving to a visual resource planner, tracking that much gear live was simply not practical. Now, their team has complete visibility over where every single technician and tool is located on any given day.
How do you use a resource planning chart?
You can easily color-code cells in an Excel template to book a resource. You might even squeeze in a project status or reference number. But as your planning requirements grow, the grid quickly runs out of space.
When you rely on spreadsheets, context gets lost. You end up emailing a static schedule to the team and burying critical links or notes in the message body, just hoping the recipient actually reads them together.
This is exactly why resourcing teams abandon ad hoc spreadsheets for dedicated software. With a visual planner like Ganttic, the context lives directly on the schedule. You can click a task bar to access linked documents, check real-time statuses, or leave notes for other managers. It gives you the freedom to keep the view incredibly simple or scale the complexity to match your actual workflow.
Benefits of using resource charts
By integrating resource allocation into Gantt charts, project managers can make their job of resource management easier and less time consuming. Not only does visualizing their resource schedules prevent overbookings and potential hiccups, but the built-in flexibility of Gantt charts make it easy to adapt to other changes.
Here’s a few of the tangible benefits that come with using resource-based Gantt charts.
Real-time resource tracking
One of the best things about Gantt charts is the way they provide a centralized platform for tracking resource allocation and availability in real-time.
This is quite helpful in cases where resource constraints or conflicts arise. As having a transparent visualization of resource assignments can help with collaborative problem-solving. Team leads or resource managers can easily identify potential bottlenecks or overlaps and work together to find solutions. That way ensuring that projects stay on track.
Engineering firm Pure Technologies is a real life example of how useful this real time tracking can be. Having used Ganttic’s resource-centric platform for the past 10 years to track equipment, which is oftentimes spread across North America. In doing so, Regional Director Allison Stroebele has pointed out how this has helped maintaining operational efficiency:
“We’re more efficient in our jobs. We can track at least 80 pieces of equipment now as well, which wasn’t practical previously. As soon as we started using Ganttic, our tool support people said, ‘This is awesome, we can track every single piece of equipment. We can keep track of where everything is in real-time.’ So it gives everybody better visibility on where equipment and technicians are and what they’re doing.”
Pure Technologies Regional Director Allison Stroebele
Real-time tracking is something that’s best done when you have a live Gantt chart that’s available to the whole team. So in order to take advantage of this, then it’s better to make the switch from a spreadsheet to a cloud-based app which allows more users and real-time tracking.
Improves communication
Gantt charts are visual by nature. This clear visualization of resource assignments and schedules promotes better communication among project team members which leads to a reduction in misunderstandings and delays.
That’s because Gantt charts provide a centralized platform where project team leads and members can easily access and understand their schedules. Each person can quickly grasp who is responsible for what task and when it needs to be completed. Which is turn fosters transparency and clarity in project communication.
With resource allocations clearly laid out in the Gantt chart, project team members have a shared understanding of project timelines and resource availability. This alignment of expectations ensures that everyone is on the same page regarding project progress and resource requirements. If something in the plan changes, then online Gantt chart makers also helps them update and notify team members faster than an email thread. Plus, in opposition to static Gantt charts in Excel, these timely updates can prevent confusion. Enabling team members to adapt their plans accordingly and act as needed.
Prevents project delays
Resource allocation is not a “one and done” kind of job. New priorities arise, people get sick, or projects may need to be pushed back. By visualizing resource utilization alongside project timelines, project managers can make informed decisions about how to act in these situations. As well as prepare them on better optimizing resource allocation and preventing future bottlenecks.
By regularly reviewing these visual resource plans, managers can identify opportunities for optimizing resource utilization and minimizing down time. This not only ensures that nobody is overworked and no machine is sitting idle for too long, but it guarantees that the deadlines you’ve promised to a client can be smoothly met.
And when your Gantt chart has built-in milestones, then you can know immediately that an important deadline is on the horizon. Making it easier to plan ahead with more resources before crunch time approaches.
Steps to creating a resource Gantt chart
When project and resource managers leverage the power of Gantt charts, many opportunities arise for streamlining project execution. As well as ensuring the efficient utilization of resources throughout the project lifecycle. Here’s a few tips for using a Gantt chart for your own resource allocation process.
Step 1: Add resources
Assigning resources to specific tasks within the Gantt chart allows for easy identification of personnel, tools, and equipment required for each project phase.
Let’s take the following use case:
Maybe you’re looking to book a bulldozer for a project located in Detroit.
Since you also want to keep track of the equipment, and book it for use, you can add this information directly to the resource on your Gantt chart. By utilizing custom data fields, add the machine’s location and reference number. Once the project manager in clicks on the resource, they’ll know that it’s the piece of equipment in Michigan with the reference number 57008.
This makes it easy to create a working capacity plan and ensure that the right resource is booked for the job. Since they’ll see right away which piece of machinery they are booking. And not accidentally scheduling the wrong one located in Chicago.
All the data is there, out in the open. For Gantt chart software that accommodates both human and non-human resources, this scenario applies to whatever you’re planning. Making it easier for managers to use it and allocate resources.
Step 2: Get an overview of resource availability
Integrating resource schedules alongside project timelines is one surefire way to stay ahead of potential resourcing conflicts. And a visual resource allocation tool can help eliminate the chance of double-booking the same person or piece of equipment for separate jobs.
But in addition to visually spotting these resourcing conflicts, Gantt chart resource planning software also has the ability to show you some deeper utilization metrics.
Get an exact overview of your team members’ planned and used times. Compare these metrics across days, weeks, or months and see how your utilization has improved or changed.
Some managers may also prefer to compare availability across teams, departments, or branches. In Ganttic, you can group resources by these different parameters and get the weighted average across the group. There’s also activity graphs and heat maps to visually pinpoint when there’s a rush on resource demands.
Step 3: Add key details like skills, roles, and pay
If you are in charge of a resourcing department then you know that one of the top things you need to be aware of is who you are scheduling along with what kind of skills, tech stacks, or certifications your resources possess. This information is crucial for project management, as it gives you the opportunity to put the best people on all the projects that are lined up.
While this information is necessary, it can also start to get unwieldy if it’s not properly organized or put to its best use. But in project and resource management Gantt charts, you can keep your scheduling simple, while also filling your tool with all your important data.
If you are staffing projects, you can add the location where the resource is based, in addition to their certifications, driver’s license types, skills, position, or even hourly rate.
This information can be sorted, grouped, or filtered in order to find the right person to fill the role.
Step 4: Allocate tasks to resources
On a resource chart, adding tasks are the simplest part. That’s because the allocation can be down with a quick drag and drop.
Start by selecting the resource you want to assign a task to, then click on the timeline where you want the task to begin. Enter details such as the task name, start and end dates, and any specific notes or data fields that keep your team informed.
With drag-and-drop functionality, tasks can be easily adjusted to reflect changing schedules or priorities, giving you flexible, real-time control over your resource allocation.
If you don’t know who you’d like to work on your task, then there’s also he option of creating unassigned tasks. That way all the jobs are laid out on the timeline. Once you begin resourcing, just drag and drop the task to the right person.
Step 5: Personalize and segment your Gantt charts
Sometimes everyone needs a new perspective in order to see things more clearly. When resource planning, it’s especially important to take a step back and pare down some data. That way you have clearer insights into your allocations, utilizations, and overall schedule.
In order to do this, consider some of the features online Gantt charts have to help with big data. You can use the information you have added to group resources, filter them, and create all sorts of saveable and shareable Views.
Views of resource allocation at a specific location or a View of crew members who hold a specific certification. Simply filter out the information that’s relevant and save what you see as a View.
Step 6: Asses priorities with task dependencies
The visual nature of Gantt charts extend far beyond simple resource schedules. As noted above, you can get direct insights into utilization and availability of your team.
But another benefit of Gantt chart scheduling is their ability to prioritize your workflow. These simple lines can help you see whether the work should be completed ASAP or if it can be moved back. And what will this affect if either scenario plays out.
Moreover, mapping dependencies within the Gantt chart helps in sequencing tasks effectively. And ensuring that resources are allocated in accordance with task priorities.
Resource Gantt charts VS. project Gantt charts: case study from Sunstall
It’s important to note that resource planning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The reason for its existence is rooted in finding the best and available resources for your projects. Leading to the age old question: do you need a resource Gantt chart or the traditional project-based chart?
Well, the answer is you can have both. As was found out by Ganttic’s long-term client, Sunstall. In order to plan out their projects’ workforce and equipment, it was becoming glaringly obvious to CEO and co-founder Helge Biernath, that they needed both versions to get their solar installation projects running smoothly.
“Before I couldn’t find anything that showed both – the Resource View, which could be compared side-by-side to the Project View. The other options were typical Gantt charts that showed tasks, whereas Ganttic was more resource-centric. And it allowed us to jump back and forth between the two.“
Sunstall CEO and co-founder Helge Biernath
With just a click of the mouse, it’s possible to switch between a Project View and a Resource View. Allowing you to get a complete picture of how your business activities are progressing. Check on your Resource View when you want to see what your team and vehicles are working on. Or to get an eye on the big-picture or for reports on client timelines, you can switch to the All Project Portfolio View. Take a look at the video below which showcases the difference between these Views.
Simplify Gantt chart resource planning
Ganttic is online Gantt chart software that makes it easy to turn even the most complex project schedule into something that simple to create, interpret, and accomplish.
Sign up for a free demo and we can show you how to get started with Ganttic’s custom data fields. Amplify your planning by streamlining your work processes.