Hello,

Please clarify how the resources tie in with task types.

Should each of our staff members/ enterprise users be assigned as a resource? At this time we have resources left blank at user list screen.  Our company does not use the resource management tool, capacity planner or team manager as of yet. We are starting to experiment with external resources.

I was also wondering if not having resources assigned will somehow interfere with tracking time?

Thanks for your help.

Short Answer:  No.  If you don't have Resource Types set up (and if you're not using the cap planner, team manager etc...) it will not impact Task information. 

Super Long Answer:

Our product basically has 2 planning tools.  A high level planner (capacity planner) and a detailed planner (Task Application).

You use the Capacity Planner to do a high level estimate of what Resource Types you need to get the project done.  Once you move forward with the project you then use tasks to plan the details of how you go about getting the project done, and you assign those tasks to Specific Users and ERs. 

Capacity Planner = I need Developers to work 10 hours in March, 20 hours in April, and 20 hours in May, so total Developer Time is 50 hours.

Task Planner = I assign Steve, Nancy and John (all developers) to do development work - I give them tasks to work on and those tasks should boil down to 50 hours of planned and hopefully actual work based on my capacity planning estimate.

Changing hours in either the Cap Planner or the Task planner does not impact the other area, whether resources are assigned or not.

I think we (Daptiv) need to provide a glossary of terms post and sticky it - for the benefit of other readers:

• User - A person that can log in to the system and be assigned to do work, and update work
• External Resource -  looks like a User, but can not log in (and can not update work)
• Resource Type - a category that Users and External Resources can fit into (i.e. Developer, Business Analyst etc...)