1. Configure Resource Pool and Metadata Tags

Building Your Resource Foundation

The Resource Pool is the backbone of Timebars' resource management capabilities, serving as a centralized repository for all resources who perform work on tasks. Using Timebars' Spreadsheet Sync feature, you can efficiently build and maintain your resource list with comprehensive metadata including roles, cost rates, skills, and availability. This approach eliminates the tedious process of entering resources one by one through forms or complex interfaces, saving valuable time while ensuring data accuracy.

Metadata and Tagging

Similarly, the Tags Table drives Timebars' metadata organization, providing consistent picklists throughout the application for attributes like Project Manager, Status, and Health indicators. This metadata-driven approach enables powerful filtering, reporting, and visualization capabilities while maintaining data cleanliness. By configuring both resources and metadata through familiar spreadsheet interfaces, you create a solid foundation for efficient resource management before any scheduling begins.

Key resource pool information captured in Timebars:

1. Essential identifiers: Resource ID, name, short name, and labor type (human or generic)
2. Resource capacity: Workday calendar hours, quantity (supply), and default percent availability
3. Financial data: Pay rate for accurate cost calculations and forecasting
4. Classification data: Primary role, primary skill, and other organizational attributes

2. Establish Work Packages and Build Structure

Work Packages & Tasks

The next step is defining your project's structure and relationships. Timebars offers two approaches: 1. Spreadsheet integration for bulk creation of tasks and manual creation of hierarchies, 2. Canvas Bar Creator for direct visual arrangement. As bars are created, they automatically establish parent-child hierarchical relationships, enabling organization of project, workpackage and individual tasks.

Task Relationships

Beyond the inherent hierarchy, Timebars supports explicit task dependencies that define work sequence. These relationships instruct the scheduling engine to automatically reschedule successor tasks when predecessors move, maintaining your project's logic. Creating these relationships is intuitive—simply drag a successor task's beginning edge over a predecessor's ending edge until the red dashed indicator appears. The scheduling engine enforces these relationships during rescheduling, ensuring your project schedule remains intact despite timeline changes.

The power of Timebars' integrated approach to structure and dependencies:

1. Efficient creation: Quickly build project structures through spreadsheet import or direct Canvas interaction
2. Cascading updates: Moving parent bars automatically repositions all child elements while maintaining internal relationships
3. Logical sequencing: Task dependencies ensure work proceeds in the correct order despite schedule adjustments
4. Visual clarity: The hierarchical structure provides intuitive organization that mirrors your actual work breakdown

3. Allocate Resources to Tasks

Matching Skills to Work Requirements

With your project structure and task relationships established, resource allocation brings your plan to life by assigning specific people or generic resources to individual tasks. Timebars makes this process remarkably intuitive through the Resource Allocator - a movable popup that displays your complete resource pool with all associated metadata including roles, skills, and availability. This powerful tool allows managers to make informed decisions when matching resource capabilities to task requirements, avoiding over allocations visually.

Scheduling Engine

As resources are assigned to tasks, Timebars automatically creates gold-colored allocation bars beneath each task, calculating hours and costs based on an intelligent formula: Percent Allocated × Workday Hours × Task Duration. The scheduling engine handles these calculations automatically, providing instant feedback on resource utilization and project costs. Resource allocation can be fine-tuned at any time through the Hours Calculator popup, allowing for precise control over percent allocation without affecting the master resource pool data.

Key capabilities of Timebars' resource allocation system:

1. Availability visualization: Double-click any resource to display their current allocation across the timeline before making assignments
2. Targeted resource filtering: Quickly locate appropriate resources by filtering the pool by role, skill, or searching by name
3. Flexible allocation adjustment: Modify the percent allocation for any resource assignment to front-load, back-load, or level-load resources
4. Real-time cost calculation: Instantly see the financial impact of resource assignments based on pay rates and scheduled hours

4. Monitor and Adjust Resource Allocation

Optimizing Workforce Distribution

Balancing resource supply and demand is critical for project success, and Timebars provides multiple visualization tools to help managers prevent overallocation while ensuring optimal workforce utilization. The Resource Usage reports offer comprehensive views of allocation data, allowing you to examine demand by hours or FTE, weekly or monthly, and by individual resource, project, or role. These powerful visualizations highlight potential resource conflicts or capacity issues before they impact your schedule, enabling proactive management of your workforce.

Adjusting & Otptimizing

When adjustments are needed, Timebars makes the process remarkably straightforward. You can modify resource allocations directly on the Canvas by editing the percent allocation, reassigning resources to different tasks, or adjusting task durations and timing. As changes are made, the system automatically updates all calculations, providing immediate feedback on the impact of your adjustments in terms of percent allocated as yellow vertical bars at the top. This closed-loop visualization and adjustment capability ensures resources are never overallocated, maintaining team well-being while maximizing productivity.

Multiple perspectives for resource management:

1. Canvas timeline view: Yellow vertical bars show individual resource allocation percentages at a glance
2. Tabular resource reports: Grid formats display detailed allocation data for precise analysis
3. Resource bar charts: Visual representation of supply and demand across time periods
4. Resource Usage reports: Comprehensive views of allocation patterns across projects and roles

5. Track Progress Against Baselines

Measuring Performance and Variance

As projects move from planning to execution, the ability to compare current status against the original plan becomes essential for effective management. Timebars elevates this capability by supporting multipe baselines, allowing you to capture snapshots of your schedule at any point with a single click. These baselines serve as reference points for measuring progress, identifying variances, and documenting the evolution of your project over time. Timebars gives you complete flexibility to establish baselines at key milestones or decision points and to maintain a history of all baselines taken so they can be reassigned for visual comparison at any time.

Baseline Visualization

The baseline comparison extends beyond simple schedule dates to encompass the full spectrum of project metrics including resource allocations, costs, and percent completion. Timebars' visualization capabilities make these comparisons intuitive, displaying baseline information directly on the Canvas alongside current forecasts for immediate recognition of variances. This comprehensive baseline tracking integrates seamlessly with Timebars' reporting system, generating variance reports that highlight deviations from plan and enabling proactive management decisions before minor issues become major problems.

Key benefits of Timebars' unlimited baseline approach:

1. Historical documentation: Maintain a complete record of how your project has evolved over time
2. Variance identification: Quickly spot schedule, resource, and cost deviations from planned baselines
3. Performance measurement: Calculate and report on schedule and cost performance indicators
4. Proactive management: Identify trends and potential issues before they significantly impact the project