Why complete your ERP/HRIS software with a management tool? resource planning ?

The 5 advantages of integration that change everything!

The best-managed project teams are those that share clear visibility into the workload schedule. This ensures that work is well distributed and that employees are not either over-staffed or under-staffed.

A tool from resource planning provides this visibility and simplifies the management of the schedule and the load by simplifying the assignment and optimization of work.

Many teams manage this on excel, and others on dedicated software. So why does this process need to be connected to the rest of the business management? What is the point of connecting the resources planning tool to the business management software?

Here are the 5 main advantages of natively integrating these tools:

Benefit 1: Increased visibility to make better decisions

The right tools resource planning provide complete visibility into schedules, the workload of teams and employees. They also make it possible to propose the best optimization decisions: choosing the right profiles to position on a project based on as many criteria as possible. The ability, experience, skills and even preferences of the employee.

The following data is used in the ERP or HR software and can be automatically transferred to the solution from resource planning :

Absences

Carrying out a load schedule without knowing who is on leave or who is stopped is an impossible exercise. Leaves must absolutely be up to date in the management solution. resource planning . Be your tool resource planning also manages leave and sends the data automatically to the HR tool, or the HR tool connects to send the information and adjust the capacity of people according to their absences.

Experience and project history

If your resource planning software allows it, you will be able to identify the best profiles based on their experience. For example, if you are looking for someone who has already worked for a client to facilitate the work, you will be able to enter this requirement into the system to better identify the appropriate profile. This information has already been entered into the activity tracker, since the employee has probably confirmed that he or she has already spent time on the project or completed tasks.

Collaborator preferences

The right tools at resource planning allow you to improve employee retention by taking employee preferences into account. For example, if someone wants to work on a marketing project to gain skills in that area, the resource planning tool allows them to indicate this and will consider it in searches as needed. By leveraging this information, your resource planning tool becomes the number one tool to help your employees grow and maintain their satisfaction. This type of information is valuable, and it should also be easily available in the HR tool, along with the rest of the employee's data.

Indicators on the work history of employees

These are their utilization rate , the distribution of time spent between client projects, internal projects, intercontracts, etc. These are all important data for evaluating an employee's performance. They are present in the tool resource planning who must be able to transfer them to the HRIS or directly accessible by management.

Advantage 2: real consistency between the financial management of projects and workload management

Good project management involves regularly updating the work remaining to be done on the project, in order to ensure that the forecast remains aligned with the initial budget. This update is generally the responsibility of the project manager who must estimate the work remaining to be carried out. However, in most activity management tools, the rest to be done is completely independent of the workload schedule of employees. Thus the project manager confirms the time remaining to be spent on this or that task, but does not allocate it to the employee who will carry it out and does not indicate over what period the work will be carried out.

It is therefore necessary to perform another input step in the planning tool to plan the associated load. This results in time wasted, double entry, and often inconsistent data.

Ideally, your tool resource planning is natively connected to your activity management tool, and updating the remainder to be done automatically updates the workload and capacities of the employees. The project manager kills two birds with one stone by updating his project to allow the margin forecast to be calculated, and by updating the employee workload forecast. The data is reliable, consistent and updated in real time.

It is even possible to let the employee (if he/she has the rights) update the remaining time to spend on these tasks. Automatically, the impact on the forecasted profitability will be adjusted and the project manager will be notified.

Advantage 3: this allows you to have a precise forecast of the activity, updated in real time

To manage a service activity (consulting, IT Services , agency), it is imperative to have clear visibility on the turnover and margin forecast in the months to come. This makes it possible to ensure that the forecast remains in line with the objectives or, if this is not the case, to know which projects are causing the deviations.

However, the best way to estimate the projected revenues and costs of a service company is based on the workload of the employees. A tool of resource planning adapted to the activity integrates the costs of each collaborator and allows you to calculate how the project will progress and the turnover and costs recognized over the next periods.

Make a forcast using the software resource planning is therefore much more precise than a calculation of what remains to be done in a classic ERP which does not take into account the precise evolution per resource and per month.

Thanks to this data, the tool resource planning will allow :

• Indicate the turnover and margins, by project and by team in the next periods
• To send the information to your ERP (or if it is itself natively connected to manage the activity to do so independently)
• Calculate the differences between an updated forecast that takes into account what has already been achieved and the initial budget of a project

Advantage 4: provide more visibility to employees, and improve satisfaction for better talent retention

If you have completed the previous steps, you now have the ability to analyze your projected utilization rate and analyze the amount of deviation from rate goals.

The war for talent is not a new concept, but it continues to intensify with the phenomenon of the great resignation which progresses in parallel. To bring more meaning to talents, we must always give them more visibility and flexibility in their career choices.

Giving them more visibility on their upcoming projects and their task schedule through a resource planning tool is a first step. Furthermore, allowing employees to proactively position themselves on projects that interest them on the same platform is an additional step that resource planning tools like Stafiz allow. Finally, taking into account the preferences and wishes of employees in the arbitrations of resource planning offers a real advantage over competitors who do not have this approach.

Better considered and better oriented towards projects that allow them to grow in the company and find meaning in their work is the best way to increase employee retention.

Advantage 5: no double entry and a lot of time saved!

A lot of data is systematically entered into the tools of resource planning as in activity management tools or ERP:

• Employees: you must indicate their name and their date of entry. As soon as the exit date is known, it must also be added to prevent this employee from being affected when he or she will no longer be available. All of this information is typically entered into activity tracking software and/or HRIS. Once the tool resource planning connected, the data is automatically updated to be entered only once but taken into account in both software.
• Teams: to better manage the workload of the teams, you need to know the distribution: to which team each employee is attached. Here again, the information is necessarily entered into the activity tracking software. No need to make a double entry if the connectors are in place.
• Skills files: certain HRIS tools allow you to integrate a skills file or even an employee experience file. The right tools resource planning allow you to use this data and update it according to the projects your employees are working on.

The algorithms of the tool resource planning then use this data to offer the most suitable profiles and facilitate the optimization of resources.

When choosing a tool resource planning , so remember to ensure that the activity and management of the resource planning are natively linked, or if not, by default, that there are connectors between your solutions.

Discover the Stafiz solution natively connected to accounting and payroll software such as Sage, SilaeExpert, Cegid or Nibelis.

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