8 Best Resource Management Software & Scheduling Tools

Resource management software and resource scheduling software have come a long way from colored spreadsheets, prone to human errors. That’s why I’ve decided to do a detailed review of the best resource management and scheduling tools to help you match your current project demand with the available resources.

You’ll get an overview of each tool, along with screenshots, key takeaways, and a comparison chart at the end to help you make a more rational decision. Plus, there’s a rundown on a bit of theory. There are many work software for your daily activities and client work, but I’ve narrowed them down to those that do great at resource management and scheduling.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at the best agency resource management software out there.

Resource Management Software

1. Paymo

Team scheduling module in Paymo

Paymo is a resource management software and scheduling tool with native time tracking, task management, Gantt charts, and invoicing.

Paymo first started out as a time tracking tool and gradually developed into a robust project management platform. Granted, team scheduling would be incomplete if not laid on the foundation of a tried and tested time tracking software to better evaluate hourly bookings, workload, etc. Moving on.

Albeit the module’s name – Team Scheduling – I still consider it a top resource management software because it has the best of both worlds. Firstly, it allows you to plan task durations and set dependencies between them.

Secondly, it reunites team capacity, workload, and availability on a visual timeline to help you allocate resources accordingly across your small business. With tasks and bookings in sync, you can map resource changes on the actual project plan, which is vital for good resource management.

The automatic resource scheduling feature is worth looking at, as Paymo sets up automatic ghost bookings based on the previously added task dates. This is good because what’s left is to convert them into real bookings instead of manually adding them one by one. No worries if tasks don’t have a start and end date, you can still drop unplanned tasks directly into a user’s schedule.

To forecast future resource demand, you can toggle between a weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly timespan. Plus, what users love is that you can book resources by the hour for meetings using the daily view. The daily view is similar to a calendar but with hours on the horizontal axis.

Paymo also comes with a built-in leave planner to plan vacations without leaving the scheduler. Pair this up with the professional user analytics that gives you an overview of a user’s remaining paid vs. non-paid leave days and their current performance. You’ve got yourself a strong combo for resource management.

Key features

• Gantt Charts and Portfolio Gantt Chart
• Schedule timeline with users/projects/unscheduled work views
• Drag and drop functionality for resource scheduling
• Auto scheduling based on previous task details
• Auto-sync between tasks and bookings
• Resource capacity indicator at a user/task/project level
• Vacation and leave management
• Timesheets for tracking planned vs. actual work time

Pricing

Starter – $5.95 /user/month

Small Office – $11.95 /user/month

Business – $24.95 /user/month

2. Runn

Projects Timeline in Runn

A new cloud resource management software on the market, Runn has by far the slickest and most intuitive interface out of all the resource management tools out there.

At one glance, you can view all your project timelines—including tentative ones that haven’t materialized yet from a sales perspective—and important milestones, along with the available resource pool in a so-called Planner.

Tasks are planned through a simple drag and drop, while the editing options include task splitting and multi-selection to ease the resource planning part. All in all, the learning curve is shallow.

I also like that you can add placeholders to account for work that needs to be done. Many users say they are unsure to whom to allocate work in the first place. This is where the placeholders become helpful. Depending on the project, there are also different rate cards for each user to factor in junior and senior payment rates.

At the same time, Runn boasts visual charts to evaluate your team’s current capacity and workload, their remaining availability, and actual utilization in terms of billable vs. non-billable work. A new addition is the people costs chart, which allows you to see the overhead you incur daily with salaries – a great feature if you run payroll.

This employee resource management software stands out through its dynamic and straightforward financial reporting. Personalize your reports to monitor the project’s profitability, performance, and overall spending based on the date when the budget was breached and the actual amount. People’s KPIs and missing timesheet reports are available and look professional too.

Key features:

• Scoping for project planning
• Schedule timeline with users/projects views
• Drag and drop functionality for resource scheduling
• Split, transfer, and multi-select for resource allocation
• Placeholder to indicate resource demand for a role
• Different rate cards for users & HR overhead calculator
• Resource utilization and financial reports
• Timesheets for tracking planned vs. actual work time

Pricing:

Startup – Free, up to 5 users

Pro – $10/user/month

Enterprise – Custom

3. Toggl Plan

Team Schedule in Toggl Plan

If you’re looking for a simple web-based resource management solution with not too many bells and whistles, Toggl Plan has your back.

The online tool comes with a simplistic, colorful design that makes project planning and scheduling resources fun. Define project segments on a separate left column, then plan out task durations with a drag and drop on the timeline for each segment.

Too bad that there are no task dependencies. At least milestones appear on top of the calendar dates, so you never miss any important updates ever again. You can also turn them into company-wide leave days.

Scheduling resources is simple; just switch to the team timeline to visualize your team’s current workload and availability daily. One common reason for complaint is that the staff capacity is not visible, which is why some users feel that the tool is limited.

Otherwise, it would have covered all resource scheduling basics. Luckily, any changes made to the schedule also get reflected at a task level.

To probe against future demand, Toggl Plan lets you zoom out weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly. This way, you’re better prepared to know whether you should hire more people or shuffle resources with a strategic mindset first.

The best part is that you can publicly share the project and team timeline with external clients and choose to show milestones, and keep the preferred zoom level.

If you compare it to similar resource management software, the major difference is that it lacks an integral feature that a good resource management solution should include—a time-tracking module. For this, you’ll have to purchase a subscription to Toggl Track.

Key features

• Project and team timeline
• Scoping for project planning
• Drag and drop functionality for resource scheduling
• Auto-sync between tasks and bookings
• Daily workload and availability
• Shareable project and team timeline
• Zoom levels for weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly timespan
• Custom color coding for tasks and schedules

Pricing

Solo – Up to 5 users

Team – $9/user/month

Business – $15/user/month

4. ClickUp

As an all-in-one project management tool, ClickUp has a wide range of customizable features that enable teams to build their platform according to their specific business needs.

With over 15+ custom ways to view your work, ClickUp makes it easier to plan, schedule, and allocate resources more effectively. Plan your work over time and create visual roadmaps in Timeline view to keep your unscheduled, assigned, and overdue tasks visible. Then manage your team’s work capacity in Workload view to ensure you’re allocating tasks appropriately. To get an even higher-level overview of your resources, simply use the Box view and Dashboards to get a completely unique view that lets you see workload and capacity at a glance.

ClickUp can also be connected to over 1,000 other work tools to help bring all your work in one place, keep your most-used apps together, and streamline your workflow.

And if you need to take your work on the go, simply download the mobile app. Any changes made in the app automatically sync to your desktop app in real time, making resource management as easy for you as possible.

Key features:

• 15+ custom views, including Box, Workload, Timeline, and Gantt view
• Profiles feature shows what each person is currently working on
• Custom Fields such as capacity to set weekly work capacity
• Dashboards with customizable widgets
• Add a single or multiple assignees
• Global time tracking and time estimates
• Drag and drop functionality
• Custom automation

Pricing:

Free Forever Plan—Free

Unlimited—$5 per member/month

Business— $12 per member/month

Business Plus—$19 per member/month

Enterprise—Call Sales for pricing

4. GanttPRO

If you prefer using an online Gantt chart as your main planning and project management tool, then GanttPRO may be a great option for you.

This professional resource management and scheduling software lets users easily and visibly manage their projects.

GanttPRO is useful for teams across various organizations and spheres, including software development, finance, construction, education, marketing, event planning, manufacturing, digital agencies, etc.

With its help, you can plan work and resources, schedule tasks, set deadlines, and collaborate with stakeholders. The tool allows creating unlimited projects and working with unlimited resources, even using a free trial.

A handy online Gantt diagram is a perfect source to schedule activities, set dependencies, add milestones for project tasks, and work with the flexible WBS hierarchies. You can also prioritize tasks to make sure your deadlines are met.

GanttPRO has a clean user interface and an intuitive UX/UI design. Besides a professional Gantt chart timeline, you can utilize a board view or a task view. Import and export features are also available here.

This resource management and scheduling tool is reliable for in-house teams, freelancers, and remote workers.

Key features

• Advanced resource management
• Intuitive Gantt charts for professional planning and scheduling
• Drag and drop task management
• Team collaboration
• Real-time notifications
• Time tracking
• Budget management
• Export/import
• Reporting
• Helpful templates

Pricing

• Basic – from 7.99 /user/month if billed annually
• Pro – from $12.99 /user/month if billed annually
• Business –  from $19.99 /user/month if billed annually
• Enterprise – available on demand

5. Forecast

Schedule in Forecast

As the name suggests, Forecast is a project planning and resource allocation software that comes with powerful automation and resource forecasting features.

Their AI-powered auto-scheduling, for example, is much more different than Paymo’s in the sense that it matches a list of tasks with the available resources per their role and current workload while also sequencing them on the project timeline. Some users feel that the learning curve is a bit steep, though. Though auto-scheduling is an interesting feature, bear in mind that this is just a provisional resource forecast. You can save it and use it for future projects.

After you’re done with the resource planning, you can quickly spot over-allocated users and make adjustments thanks to the visual resource heatmap. This one gauges everyone’s utilization rates against their initial capacity in a grid-like view, highlighting potential bottlenecks early on. This resource heatmap is ideal for complex projects.

Forecast also offers rich user profiles. You can document each team member’s role, team, and available skills. There are parameters to search after when matching resource demand with resource capacity in a strategic way.

Resource management-wise, the resource utilization report is not to be ignored, as it compares the total billable vs. non-billable allocated hours for each user, in case you want to calculate your projects’ profitability. Or make sure your team is working only on the projects with the highest revenue.

One common reason for complaint is that the pricing is a little steep due to its incremental seats, and it might not be ideal for small teams.

Key features:

• Scoping for project planning
• Schedule timeline with users/projects views
• Auto scheduling based on current workloads and task dependencies
• Resource heatmap with over- and under-booked hours
• Timesheets for tracking planned vs. actual work time
• Resource forecasting suggestions
• Rich user profiles with roles, teams, and skills
• Resource utilization reports

Pricing:

Lite – $270/10 users/month (annual plan only)

Pro – $460/10 users/month (annual plan only)

Plus – available on demand

Resource Scheduling Software

6. Float

Schedule in Float

Float is the leading web-based resource scheduling software packed with many helpful features amidst its simplicity. Or perhaps should I say because of it.

The people area shows you the entire team’s schedule and their current workload and leave days. To probe deeper data, use the search bar or predefined filters that sort information in a descending or ascending order.

I like that the resource scheduler also comes with an activity feed, allowing you to follow updates as they unfold chronologically and perhaps spot inconsistencies along the way.

If you want to update the schedule, right-click on a task to split, re-assign it, or duplicate it on the go. Or use the quick shortcuts to apply the exact change to multiple tasks. Many users love the speed and smoothness of the updates.

You can also set a scheduled status to alert the team that you work from home or are out of the office. As well as set tentative tasks in case they haven’t been confirmed yet.

On the other hand, user profiles come with job titles, departments, and tag fields, making it easy to organize your team after searchable terms. In return, they can also clock in their work time and compare it with the initially scheduled hours, thanks to the pre-filled timesheets.

Float doesn’t disappoint on the reports side either, displaying logged vs. scheduled hours, future scheduled workload, and the billable vs. non-billable ratio of logged hours in an easy-to-understand bar chart timeline.

It also has project reports, but they’re too simple, in my experience. For example, projects are either under or over an hourly or financial budget. This major difference is why I didn’t include it under the project resource management tools.

Key features

• Schedule timeline with users/projects views
• Drag and drop functionality for resource scheduling
• Split, duplicate, and multi-select for resource allocation
• Placeholder to indicate resource demand for a role
• Scheduled statuses and tentative tasks
• Resource schedule change history
• Resource utilization and financial reports
• Timesheets for tracking planned vs. actual work time

Pricing

Resource Planning: $7.5/user/month

Resource Planning + Time tracking: $12.50/user/month

7. Resource Guru

Schedule in Resource Guru

Perhaps one of the oldest online resource scheduling software on the market, Resource Guru still keeps their ‘99s website design alive. However, the interface has undergone a major update, packing enough punch power to help you effectively manage resources of any kind.

You read that right. This is one of the few software for resource scheduling that lets you manage people and physical and non-physical resources, like meeting rooms or conference calls. It’s an interesting feature, no doubt. Nevertheless, every non-human resource costs in Resource Guru. These will show up on the schedule timeline, with the possibility of booking them on an hourly basis.

Back to people, the scheduler gives you the big picture of your team’s workload and remaining availability on the same timeline. A nice addition against burnout is the ability to add bookings on a waiting list in case the person you’re trying to schedule is overbooked already.

Resource Guru is ideal for remote teams, as it considers different time zones. Mention each user’s time zone, then plan your resources accordingly. You can also specify hourly intervals for when a user is available for work to avoid any resource clashes.

However, Resource Guru is limited in some respects—the lack of task dependencies and time-tracking makes some users feel that the software might not be sufficient for their needs.

Like Paymo, this cloud-based resource scheduling software comes with a more robust built-in leave planner than others in its category. I’m talking about customizable leave types, part-time support, and paid vs. unpaid holidays.

It has fully customizable permissions, with each user seeing their current and future workload in a personal dashboard. No need for human resource management software anymore.

But what I have against Resource Guru is their pricing scheme. Resource Guru offers three plans—Grasshopper, Blackbelt, and Master—at seemingly attractive prices. Is this really the case?

All plans are available for accounts with 30 (human) resources or more and non-human resources cost too. It’s worth noting that a Grasshopper plan paid annually costs $75 plus $24.9 (non-human resources), totaling $99.9/month.

The Blackbelt amounts to $161.5, and the Master plan $261.9—if paid annually. Otherwise, your team of 30 users and non-human resources costs $120, $195, or $315/month.

Key Features:

• Schedule timeline with workload and availability
• Human, physical, and non-physical resources
• Add bookings to a waiting list
• Account for different time zones
• Custom fields for teams and skill tracking
• Individual dashboard for current and future bookings
• Resource utilization reports
• Vacation and leave management

Pricing:

Grasshopper – $3/user/month (minimum 30)

Blackbelt – $5/user/month (minimum 30)

Master – $8/user/month (minimum 30)

8. Teamdeck

People Schedule in Teamdeck

For simple resource scheduling software, time tracking, and leave management all-in-one, Teamdeck wins the ticket.

Bookings, timesheets, and leave days—yes, even timesheets—reside on the same resource plan, with visual indicators for the remaining bookable and tracked hours. At your choice, you can display or hide either one of those timelines or re-arrange them as you see fit. Don’t forget to hit save at the end to keep the customized view.

Roles, skills, and departments can be accounted for with the help of custom fields. On the other hand, projects are straightforward to create or import from a CSV, text, or XML file.

Where Teamdeck stands out in terms of benefits, though, is the robust leave management. People can request full or half-day leaves to be further approved by their project or resource managers while also motivating their reason. The leave days will automatically get deducted from each user’s total.

I also like that you can create resource utilization and time off reports from templates, saving you the hassle of adding them from scratch. Since there’s a timesheet module, you can also run payroll and see how much you should pay each one of your team members.

Key Features:

• Project bulk import
• Schedule timeline with workload, availability, timesheets, and leave days
• Customizable schedule timeline
• Custom fields for teams and skill tracking
• Resource utilization reports
• Vacation and leave management
• Vacation approval
• Timesheets for tracking planned vs. actual work time

Pricing:

Basic resource – $1/user/month

Team member – $3.99/user/month

Comparison chart — top 8 resource management and resource scheduling software

So what’s the best software for resource allocation, you may ask, after so many reviews? I’ve put together a comparison chart below for all the online tools to make your life easier.

 

Top 8 Best Resource Management & Resource Scheduling Software for 2022

Resource management vs. resource scheduling

To better understand the difference between those two, let’s analyze what’s a resource.

In traditional project management, a resource can be any type of asset required to complete a project – be it human, physical, or technical equipment. For good reasons, the more modern approach leans towards naming human resources as people, but it doesn’t exclude the rest.

Moving on, resource management refers to the act of planning, monitoring, and optimizing resources. As a project manager, this implies that you need first to identify the number and types of resources required.

If they’re people, this is usually done after a specific role or skill set that fits the project at hand. Only then can you do a proper resource distribution, a.k.a. balance out resources per their allocations – either via resource-leveling or resource smoothing – and forecast future ones.

Allocating the right people for the appropriate tasks is resource scheduling, which is part of resource management and optimization. This involves evaluating the current workload of each team member, checking their future availability, and prioritizing tasks accordingly, so there are no project delays.

To summarize, resource management deals with planning and identifying resource demand. In contrast, resource scheduling deals with allocating the existing resource capacity to delay the project.

How does this work out in a software context, though?

Criteria for resource management software

In my experience, resource management software entails a bit of planning, so don’t be surprised if you see Gantt Charts or timelines with task dependencies included in their suite. They’re more encompassing in this sense, leaning more on the project management software end.

Apart from this, consider the following feature criteria for resource planning software:

• Planning tools: Is it easy to create a clear project breakdown with assigned users, deadlines, and dependencies? Look for calendars, timelines, Gantt Charts, or any type of planning feature that allows you to schedule project phases.
• Skills management: Can I filter after specific skill sets? You should create detailed profiles of team members with skills, location, belonging teams, and filter after different parameters such as custom tags or clients.
• Resource forecasting: Can I forecast demand for future projects? Ideally, the resource management system will be your trusted adviser and calculate future demand based on the previously forecasted projects.
• Analytics: How easily can I gauge project and user capacity to the current resource utilization? The more granular you can be, the better.

Criteria for resource scheduling software

On the other hand, resource scheduling software is more oriented towards scheduling resources per se. This means you’ll want a clear overview of the whole team’s capacity, both at a macro and micro level, so you know where to make trade-offs and when.

Here are the feature criteria that we took into account for the best resource-scheduling software:

• Bird’s eye view of resource schedule: Can I see the entire resource schedule for the whole team, including current workloads, remaining availability, and unscheduled work?
• Automatic scheduling: Does the resource planning tool make suggestions based on the existing data? Preferably, some sort of mechanism or automation either allocates resources on your behalf or speeds up the process altogether.
• Visual alerts: Are there any available burndown graphs or visual indicators that work for me, not against me? You want tools that signal the resource utilization status or progress both at a user and project level.
• Leave planner: Will I know whom to rely on? Although often overlooked, a built-in leave planner can save you time when it comes to allocating the right amount of work to the right people without overburdening them.

Benefits of resource management & resource scheduling software

Of course, some of the features listed above might overlap or come in pairs.  For example, planning might be accompanied by an overview of the project schedule. Or real-time analytics might be part of a dense user profile filled with different metrics.

However, both resource management software and resource scheduling software come with a set of advantages:

Increased visibility. Effective project planning is deemed to help deliver projects on time and within budget. But this is just half the story. You also need to know which resources are available, their current workload, and future availability.

Resource management and resource scheduling software give you a visual overview of your team’s schedule. This way, you can match the available people with the right tasks based on their actual efforts. Plus, avoid resource clashes and resource shortages.

Closer ties with clients. If you think about it, a resource management solution or a resource scheduling software is, in fact, a communication tool. Project managers can monitor the correct deployment of resources against the initial resource forecast. Similarly, product managers ensure the correct deployment of resources, but against product goals and outcomes. If curious about which is better in pm, read this article on project manager vs. product manager responsibilities.

At the same time, stakeholders and clients can follow the project progress straightforwardly — a clear project schedule instead of a long and painful meeting.

A healthier work environment. Having simple resource management software and resource capacity planning software in place can boost overall team accountability. It might sound too good to be true, but knowing whom to report to and what’s on your plate at any given moment brings in a sense of reassurance.

Your colleagues can finally productively organize their efforts without burning out in the process. This will also increase the quality of the delivered work, as everyone can contribute to the full extent of their skills and not scramble their efforts on tasks with low impact.

First published on December 3, 2021.