Workforce Planning - Overview

Modified on Fri, 25 Sep at 1:32 PM

Resource Allocation (the Day-To-Day Tool)

Workforce Planning (or Capacity Management) in Cora PPM bridges project scheduling and resource management. It lets project managers define how many skilled people a project needs, period by period, and lets resource managers assign named individuals or teams to meet that demand.

Capacity Management in Cora PPM (referred to internally in some places as "SCM") is a resource planning and demand management module. It lets organizations track required resources (people and skills) across projects, compare demand with available supply, and analyze gaps within a configured framework of project types, resource hierarchies, skills, and roles.

The module has several interconnected functional areas:

Area

Purpose

Resource Allocation

Enter and manage how much of each skill or discipline is required per project, per period, in FTE, days, or hours.

Capacity Insights

View portfolio, project, and resource-level analytics showing demand vs. supply across selected date ranges, skills, and resource groups.

Scenario Planning (What-If)

Model future resource scenarios, including or excluding projects, without affecting live data.

Strategies / Resourcing Departments

Group resources, skills, and projects together using the localized term that defaults to "Resourcing Department." Administrators create and manage these groups.

SCM Terms (Localization)

Rename terms such as Demand, DMD, Approved, APP, Allocated, ALL, Gap, GAP, Requested, REQ, Rejected, and Legend to suit the organization’s language.

Utilization Bands

Configure up to 10 percentage thresholds used to color-code resource utilization in charts and grids.

Email Notifications

Send automated emails when resources are allocated, approved, or rejected, with configurable sender and current-user options.


Resource Allocation

At the project level, the Resource Allocation page presents a time-phased grid showing every skill the project has requested, broken down by month or week.

Grid View

What It Shows

Demand

How many FTEs, days, or hours are required in each period. This can be derived automatically from the project schedule when "Load from Schedule" is used, or entered manually.

Allocation or Gap

How much demand has been filled by named users or teams, or how much remains unfilled.

Individual Resources

Expanding a skill row reveals the specific people or teams allocated, each with a status of Requested, Approved, or Rejected.

Skills and their associated demand figures are set up per project by the project owner. Resource managers then add named users or teams beneath each skill and enter their availability for each period. Depending on configuration, those allocations may need to be approved by a designated demand approver before they count as filled.

The grid can be viewed in monthly or weekly buckets, and effort can be displayed as FTE, days, or hours. A color-coded legend (Req / All / App / Rej) makes the allocation status immediately visible. Cells where demand is not fully met are highlighted, with an optional threshold tolerance below which a minor gap is not shown as a problem.

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Why Does a Customer Use It?

  • Turn a skill need into a named, approved resource — no side-channel emails or spreadsheets tracking who has been asked for what.

  • One approval queue instead of ad hoc requests landing in inboxes and chat threads.

  • See demand vs. proposed allocation — or the gap — at a glance, color-coded per skill and period.

  • Three distinct, auditable states — proposed, approved, scheduled — instead of one blurry "assigned" status.

  • A full history of every approval and rejection decision on the project.

  • Auto-fit approved resourcing onto tasks instead of mapping each one by hand.


Common Use Cases by Project Environment

Project Type

Common Use Cases

? Manufacture-to-Order

  • Lock down named capacity before committing a ship date by getting a specific engineer approved against a confirmed order before the date is promised.

  • Prevent double-booking a specialist by routing every order’s proposal through one approval queue.

  • Skip manual task mapping by using Allocate to Tasks / Auto Allocate once approved.

? Pharma

  • Get sign-off before the filing clock starts by routing a named Regulatory Affairs resource to a Demand Approver.

  • Record why a request was declined as a comment on the line, not a side email.

  • Pull the approval trail for an inspection or audit straight from History.

?️ Capital / EPC

  • Break demand into monthly skill lines, such as Engineering, Process, and Design Lead, before naming resources.

  • Switch Demand figures to Gap ahead of a phase-gate review to see uncovered months.

  • Move straight from approval to scheduling onto detailed-design tasks.

?️ GovCon

  • Match labor categories to credentialed people, routed through a defined approver.

  • Keep proposing and approving as separate duties, which maps onto contract separation-of-duties rules.

  • Export the grid to Excel on demand for a funding or staffing review.


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