Using SharePoint and Infowise UF for Resource Management and Scheduling

Hello and welcome to the second part of our two-part series on resource management in the modern enterprise. Though I will be continuing with some ideas from the first part, you’ll find that this article also stands alone as it pertains primarily to Resource scheduling, an offshoot of the broader topic of Resource Management. So, without further ado, let’s get into the article.

As you may remember from the last article, I am an executive and frequently act as a project manager in the software-as-a-service area of tech marketing. I have around a decade of experience in the field and have worked on small startups to multinational companies. Resource management is, in my opinion, one of the absolute most important tasks a leader must deal with, either directly or indirectly. As a summary of the last article, Resource management is the practice of planning, scheduling, and allotment of human and financial, and technological resources to a project or program. Resources can include Human power as well as tangible assets.  

Resource Scheduling is a specific facet of resource management that pertains to the physical element of the application of resources. Resource management as a field includes everything from the planning, development of resources to budgeting. Still, that temporal aspect of planning the application of the resources your business has available is a significant logistical undertaking in and of its self. As you probably know by now, doing so without any dedicated tools is almost impossible beyond a very small-scale operation. Even managing personal scheduling without digital tools can be challenging, so the difficulty is increased exponentially across an entire business. Many software development businesses have seen this need in the market. They have answered it by developing enterprise tools that either have dedicated resource scheduling functions or are designed entirely for that role. Microsoft Sharepoint is one such tool and is capable of many functions, including and beyond resource management and scheduling. Here at Infowise have designed an overhaul that improves that original software that many businesses already have by introducing the ability to create and use interactable forms that can hold and transform data within the Sharepoint workspace. This toolset, which we’ve called Ultimate forms, comes with a collection of ready-to-use forms that can immediately be deployed, many of which are designed for resource management. I’ll get into those forms soon enough, but for now, let’s talk about the practice of resource scheduling and important considerations during the process.

The first stage of scheduling comes before any resources are actually allotted. This preliminary phase pertains to the analysis of the task and is crucial to ensuring that a sufficient quality and quantity of resources are committed in the scheduling process. This analysis should include calculations on the duration of commitment to serve best the function of the temporal aspect of the scheduling process. Without effective analysis before commitment, your scheduling process is bound to either waste resources or under-commit them.  

The primary phase of the scheduling process is the logistical planning phase, wherein resources are strategically scheduled to fulfill roles in the solution of the predefined task. Constant considerations of overextension and under-commitment must be made in this phase and should be informed by the information gleaned through analysis of the task. Depending on the field of practice, this stage can vary drastically. In one case, scheduling could involve committing a certain number of employees to a task, whereas in another, you may be scheduling the use of server space. The critical part of this phase is applying information gained from the analysis of the time element of the task. Goalposts need to be set so that the job can be successfully closed in a reasonable timeframe; otherwise, you risk project creep and wasting resources that could have been used elsewhere to benefit the business.

My final phase for resource scheduling comes after the completion of the task for which the resources were scheduled, and that phase is the analysis of the success and accuracy of scheduling. This is an important step for future scheduling procedures because, just like the preliminary analysis, it can provide important information on how your resources actually perform in real-world deployment rather than in hypothetical planning. This information is invaluable, and failing to collect data from it is exceptionally wasteful. SharePoint and

Infowise UF for Resource Management and Scheduling

The Ultimate Forms Toolset can, of course, aid you in analyzing the task, scheduling resources, archiving, and analyzing said data, so naturally, in my next series, I’ll explain just how those tasks can be accomplished. Still, for now, I’ll leave you with this. Do not underestimate the importance of tidy and prudent resource scheduling because those few wasted hours or under-committed employees can mean the difference between profitable and not. Big victories are won in small increments, so ensuring that you do your due diligence is very important in the logistical end of your business.

I look forward to connecting with you in the next article, and in the meantime, if you have any questions or would like to try the Ultimate Forms toolset for Sharepoint, either contact us or try one of our many online demos. Until next time!