Resource allocation software: What to look for and how to choose

If you’re comparing resource allocation software, you’ve probably already decided that your current approach needs to change. Perhaps you’re still using spreadsheets to keep track of who is working on particular projects, or your resourcing information is held separately from your sales pipeline and project budgets.

As your business grows and your projects expand in scope, this approach will become increasingly difficult to manage. You might find it harder to keep track of who is available, match people to projects that require specific skills, and plan ahead when new work enters the pipeline.  

This is where resource allocation software can help. It gives you one place to plan who works on each project, check when people are available, and match their skills and experience to the work you need to deliver. It can also help you plan for potential projects in your sales pipeline, so you can see where you may need additional capacity before that work is confirmed.

If you’ve reached the point where the risks of staying with your current approach outweigh the risks of changing it, the next step is finding software that fits the way your firm works. In this blog, we will explain what to look for in resource allocation software, when it makes sense to replace spreadsheets, and how to evaluate vendors for your professional services firm.

Key takeaways

• Resource allocation software helps professional services firms assign people to projects according to their skills, experience, and available capacity.

• Comparing sales pipeline information with your current project commitments can help you plan your resourcing more accurately.

• Time tracking and project financial information can show whether the hours allocated to a project match the hours the team records.

• When comparing vendors, consider how well the software fits your fee structures, existing systems, teams, and approach to project delivery.

‍

What is resource allocation software?

Resource allocation software helps businesses plan, schedule, and track how people, time, and skills are assigned across projects.

For professional services firms, assigning someone to a project involves several decisions. A project may require specific technical skills or sector experience, while the person with that expertise may already have work scheduled elsewhere. To assign the right person to the project, you need to know what the work requires and who is available to take it on.

A resource allocation system stores information about your people’s skills, experience, and schedules, allowing you to search for suitable team members and check their availability when planning work. This is particularly useful if your employees work across several projects or if specialist skills are shared between offices.

When planning current work, you also need to consider what your teams may need to deliver next. If several potential projects are likely to start in the coming months, you can consult the sales pipeline to estimate how much additional capacity you may need. You can then consider whether to recruit, use specialist freelancers or change start dates before the work reaches the delivery stage.

You can also use dashboards and reports to monitor planned hours, time records, budgets and billing rates for work already underway. These figures show how much resource each project was expected to use and how much it is using in practice, helping you identify resourcing problems early enough to investigate them.

Core features to look for in resource allocation software

Skills-based allocation

When a project needs specialist experience, you need to find people who meet those requirements rather than simply choosing whoever happens to be free at the time.

A resource allocation system will let you record information about your employees and contractors, including skills, certifications, sector experience and software knowledge. You can then search for people with the qualifications a project requires and check when they are available.

For example, a healthcare project might require experience in that sector, while another project could depend on knowledge of a particular software package. Recording these details in a resource planning system means you can find suitable people without relying on individual knowledge or separate skill records.

Capacity planning and visibility

Before you schedule anything new, you need to know how much work each person has already been assigned.

A live schedule within a resource allocation platform can show how people’s workloads change over the coming days, weeks and months. CMap uses heat maps to highlight people who have too much work scheduled as well as those who have spare capacity.

You can then spot potential over-allocation before it affects a project and identify people who have time available to take on additional work.

“The resourcing feature of CMap has given us more agility when we need to see who’s working on what jobs and when they are available for other jobs. CMap’s ability to display heat maps has really been a game-changer for us.”

– Waqar Hussain, Finance Director, Peru Consulting

Pipeline forecasting and demand planning

Planning around your current commitments is important, but you also need to account for potential projects that could start in the coming months and the capacity they may require.

Resource allocation software can use information about potential projects to estimate future demand. By assigning a probability to each sales opportunity, you can model different levels of potential demand and see where additional staff may be needed.

If several likely projects are due to start around the same time, for example, you can start looking for specialist contractors or begin hiring before those projects reach the delivery stage. You can also consider whether a project needs to start later if the people with the required skills are already committed elsewhere.

Time tracking and utilization analytics

Time records provide useful evidence about how projects are using the hours that were allocated to them.

Suppose a project was planned around 100 hours of work but the team is recording time much faster than expected. You can compare the original plan with the hours being logged and investigate whether the scope, staffing, or project estimate needs attention.

Looking at this information across multiple projects can also help you improve future estimates and track how much time people spend on billable and non-billable work.

“At the end of each month, I’m able to track future utilization and compare that to actual productivity. This is really useful for understanding where we are going and driving productivity. All of this makes me a better manager.”

– Guy Wilson, Operations Manager, twentyfifty

Built-in operational intelligence

When you're planning resources, you may need quick answers about staff capacity and project performance. You might need to find out who is available next month, check whether a project is approaching its budget, or identify where a staffing shortage could occur.

Some platforms now let you ask these questions directly rather than creating a report or exporting data. CMap Chat, for example, lets you ask questions in plain language about your people and projects, such as who is available next month, how much budget a project has left, or where you may need more capacity.

This can be useful when you need an answer quickly and do not want to spend time building a report to find it.

‍

Resource allocation software vs spreadsheets: when to make the switch

Spreadsheets remain a common way to manage resources, with recent research showing that 70% of resourcing teams still use them to organize staffing.

While spreadsheets can be useful for managing a relatively small number of people and projects, it can become harder to keep the information accurate as your business grows.

You may have to update several files, check that different teams are using the latest version, and manually transfer information between them. When schedules change frequently, making sure every file reflects the latest changes becomes increasingly difficult.

There are several warning signs that a spreadsheet-based approach is becoming difficult to maintain:

Your resourcing meetings take hours to prepare for. If someone has to collect schedules from several files before a meeting can start, your team is spending valuable time preparing information rather than deciding how to use it.

• Project overruns are becoming common. If projects regularly use more hours than planned, you may need better information about how staffing decisions are affecting project budgets.

• You are relying on contractors at short notice. Bringing in external support because nobody spotted an available internal resource can add unnecessary cost, particularly when the relevant skills already exist within the firm.

• People are being double-booked. This can happen when different teams or offices maintain separate schedules and cannot see the same record of commitments.

• You are struggling to coordinate people across offices or regions. When teams share resources across locations, separate workbooks can make it difficult to see who is already committed and where capacity is available.

Dedicated resource allocation software addresses these problems by keeping project assignments and staff schedules in one place. You can update allocations as projects change and see those changes when you plan other work.

It can also reduce the manual checking involved in resourcing. Instead of copying schedules between files, you can use current allocation information when deciding who should take on a project.

The financial side of resourcing becomes easier to manage too. When allocations, fee estimates and project budgets are recorded in the same system, you can see whether the people assigned to a project match the hours and costs allowed for that work.

‍

How to evaluate vendors: a checklist

A vendor demonstration gives you an opportunity to see how a platform works, but you should always assess it against the way your firm operates. The following checklist can help you compare different providers.

1. Functional fit and sector design

• Is the platform designed for professional services and project-based businesses?

• Can it support your fee structures, including fixed-fee, time-and-materials and retainer work?

• Can you manage internal employees and external contractors in the same system?

• Can managers make schedule changes easily?

2. Operations and financial integration

• Can managers see resource allocations alongside job costing and fee estimates?

• When staffing changes, can you see the effect on project profitability?

• Can you turn a sales opportunity into a project budget without entering the same details again?

• Does the platform integrate with accounting systems such as QuickBooks, Xero or Sage?

3. Usability and adoption

• Can project teams enter time easily through a browser or mobile app?

• Can the dashboards be tailored to different roles, from project managers to practice leads?

• Can employees see their upcoming schedules and project responsibilities clearly?

• Can users quickly search for answers to common resourcing questions?

4. Implementation and support

• What onboarding support does the vendor provide?

• How will existing spreadsheet or legacy data be migrated?

• Is customer support available during your UK and US operating hours?

• How does the vendor continue to develop the platform and its core features?

During demonstrations, ask vendors to show you how the software handles situations your team encounters regularly. You could use a typical project that needs particular skills, for example, or ask the vendor to show what happens when a project needs more hours than originally planned.

This will tell you more about the practical experience of using the system than simply reading a list of features.

‍

Manage resource allocation with CMap

If you're looking for resource allocation software that connects with the wider project and financial information you use to run your firm, CMap is built to do just that.

CMap is built specifically for professional services firms, including architecture, engineering and consulting businesses. The platform gives you a single place to plan your people, manage projects and keep track of the information that informs those decisions.

When you’re planning a project, you can use information about people’s skills and availability to decide who should work on it. As the work progresses, time records and project budgets give you the information you need to see how the project is performing. You can also take potential work in the sales pipeline into account when planning your future resource requirements.

If you want to see how CMap handles resource allocation alongside the wider needs of your firm, book a demo with one of our software experts today.

‍

FAQs

What is resource allocation software?
Resource allocation software helps businesses plan how people, skills and time will be assigned to projects. It lets managers see staff schedules, find people with the right experience and plan future resource requirements as new work enters the sales pipeline.

How does resource allocation software help protect project margins?
Resource allocation software can show planned hours alongside project budgets, billing rates and cost information. If a team starts using more hours than expected, managers can spot the difference and investigate before the project moves further away from its original budget.

Can resource allocation software manage contractors as well as employees?
Yes. Dedicated resource allocation platforms can include employees, freelancers and subcontractors. Managers can then consider internal and external capacity when staffing projects and account for the different rates paid to those resources.

What information should resource allocation software track?
Resource allocation software should track the information you need to decide who can work on a project, including people’s skills, experience, availability and existing assignments. Depending on your firm, you may also need to record certifications, software knowledge, sector experience and whether someone is an employee or contractor.

Can resource allocation software help with future projects?
Yes. Resource allocation software can help you plan for potential projects by using information from your sales pipeline alongside your existing resource commitments. You can assess the capacity a potential project may require and consider hiring, contractors or changes to project start dates before the work is confirmed.

What should professional services firms look for in resource allocation software?
Professional services firms should look for software that supports the way they plan and deliver client work, including skills-based allocation, capacity planning, pipeline forecasting, time tracking and project financial information. It should also be easy for the people responsible for resource planning to use and support the way your firm operates.