Resources

Resources in Synergist represent users that enter timesheets or that can be assigned work, either directly via estimating or via the resource booking system.

Normally when a new user account is set up a resource record is created at the same time, although this is optional if the user in question will never enter time or be allocated work in Synergist.  Resource records are maintained in file maintenance under Users & resource.

Details

The details tab holds the main information relating to this resource.  The default charge code is set here, this charge code is always available to this resource.  It will be selected by default when timesheets are entered for this resource, but this can usually be changed.  If your system is set to restrict timesheets to default charge codes you will not be able to change it during timesheet entry, but all other setups allow selection from a list of available charge codes.

The curency used for time costing drop down can be used in conjunction with the resource level costing option - select a currency, tick resource level costing and enter a value (in the chosen currency) in the cost rate box that is now displayed.  Note that this resource level costing can be used with base currency if you want to specify cost rates per person, rather than have them derived from a department or from the charge code.  This article describes all the different places cost (and charge) rates can be set in Synergist, and what the order they are chosen in is.

Resource level charging is similar and allows you to set charge out rates per staff resource.  Note that the currency selection drop-down is not relevant to charge rates, charge out currency is always determined by the job.

The colour picker is used to identify calendar bookings assigned to this resource.  Again, resource booking colours can be set in several places, there is a hierarchy for determining what the colour of a booking will ultimately be.  This article has more detail.

Start and end dates are used by certain reports to establish availability of resources, clearly a resource has zero availability before its start date or after its finish date.

Freelancers are covered in detail in this article.

Synergist has a default calendar loading, which is the maximum hours that be scheduled against a resource before hitting 100% / turning red.  A different value per resource can be entered if required.  You will see the effects of this by switching to the loading view in calendar bookings.  See this article for more.

Hours required and target hours are used in various dashboard and standard reports.  Hours required is used to calculate missing timesheets, ie the resource must enter additional timesheets for the week.  Target chargeable hours is used to compare actual utilisation against a target and is used to build the data on sthe capacity dashboard and the staff utilisation report.

Resources can enter timesheets on any day of the week, including weekends, but the weekly interface displays weekends (Saturday & Sunday by default) with a different background colour to differentiate them from working days.  If a resource has a different working pattern, for example doe not work mondays, then ticking the specify days box allows you to choose their normal working days.  Excluded days are then displayed in the same way as weekend days.

Resource Skills

Resource skills are a way of defining which charge codes are available to a resource during timesheet approval.  You need to use the option in company settings > switches labelled "Charge code is resource skills restricted".  Only the charge codes listed here will be available to this staff resource.

You can also use this tab to specify resource-specific cost and charge rates for certain charge codes.  Note that this does not require the company setting option mentioned above, cost / charge rates specified here will be used in all setups, subject to the hierarchy mentioned previously.

Team Skills

Team skills are very similar to resource skills in that they can be used to limit the list of charge codes available during timesheet entry, and can also be used to over-ride the cost rate for a charge code.  The resource gives you a view-only list of these skills, allowing you to see in a single resource record any resource skills and any team skills available to the resource.  Team skills are set up and maintained via the Team interface, read m ore about them in this article.