11 Best Resource Management Tools (Honestly Reviewed)

Here’s the reality most project managers find out sooner or later: project resources are finite.

Without proper methods to analyze the available resources, their utilization, and which skills to map with specific tasks, your project is doomed to fail - no matter how detailed your plan is.

There must be something that can help tackle this, right?

You bet. Enter resource management tools.

• What are resource management tools?
• Benefits of using resource management tools
• Best resource management tools

Quick refresh: What are resource management tools? 

Briefly, resource management software helps project teams improve visibility into their resources by helping resource planning, workload management, reporting, and more. 

Such a tool also lets you:

• Forecast resource needs for upcoming projects for efficient project budget management.
• Automate scheduling and time tracking to save you time and money.
• Review your employees’ work schedules, skills, and availability.

Benefits of using resource management tools

The real benefit of using a resource management tool, however, is that it helps you optimize resources across multiple projects simultaneously. It enables you identify ways to get more done with fewer resources - which improves project profitability without raising costs. 

Here’s a full rundown of the benefits of using resource management tools: 

Balance healthy workloads

Resource management tools give you a great visualization of the whole team's workload and make it easy to see when someone has too much work to handle within specific periods of time. This helps you make adjustments when needed and eliminate the risk of employee burnout. 

Help employees develop their skills

Resource management tools help you create a skills index to keep track of everyone’s skills and professional interests as well, as their relevant seniority. This makes it easier to surface opportunities for upskilling and skill development, and find the people most interested in those opportunities.

Identify and fix resource conflicts

When you are working with a single resource pool and multiple projects at the same time, it is easy to double-book your resources or cause some conflicts. With a resource management tool, however, this is easier to avoid, as you will always have sight of individual workloads and projects assigned. 

Improve resource visibility across all projects

With reliable software at hand, it's hard not to spot resource issues before they cause trouble. Advanced systems will alarm you about potential risks to run overtime or over budget with time enough to take corrective measures. You will easily see if your resources are spread too thin or if someone has too many commitments. 

Maximize billable work and resource utilization

Resource management tools are all about making the most out of your existing resources and avoiding overstaffing. They also help you see if people are losing time to admin tasks or other non-billable work that could be optimized for increased profitability. Not to mention the fact that when work hours are logged, the work provided will never slip through the cracks and you can be sure to bill your customers for all the services provided. 

Forecast resource demand and future capacity

A good tool will help you make accurate predictions about the way your resource situation will change and the way it can impact your bottom line so you can make staffing decisions accordingly. 

Support hiring decisions and training requirements

With all the insights accumulated from your resource management tool, you will be able to easily tell if someone needs extra training or if there are some skills gaps to fill with new hires.

Best resource management tools

In the past, resource management was an incredibly manual process. Because of its complexity, many organizations relied on a combination of multiple spreadsheets, email, and other tools to manage their resources across different departments.

This created a lot of inefficiencies as well as errors that could cost companies millions of dollars in lost productivity and revenue.

As project managers started to realize that colored-coded spreadsheets were too error-prone and difficult to maintain, it led to the gradual emergence of advanced solutions. Resource management tools and techniques have been developed to address these challenges by providing organizations with one centralized system for managing resources across entire departments and projects.

So without further ado, here are the top resource management tools that can significantly improve resource planning, resource allocation, and resource scheduling.

1. Runn - The best resource management tool for IT and custom software businesses

Runn is probably the best resource management tool you’ve never heard of but actually need. Runn brings together projects, people, timesheets, and profits under an intuitive interface, so teams of all sizes can forecast their revenue and future capacity needs with accuracy.

You can use Runn for both improving your resource allocation process and measuring resource utilization.

Key features: 

• An overview of current and tentative (not yet approved) project timelines, milestones, and user hourly allocations on the same calendar. This gives you clear insights into overbookings and any potential resource clashes that might occur. 
• Easy resource scheduling. Just click and drag on the timeline to add the work days, then specify the work hours. If you’re not happy with the initial scheduling, split it, transfer it to someone else, or assign it to a placeholder if you don’t know who to assign it to yet. (Talk about quickly editing changes!)
• Dynamic reporting. Besides resource management, the tool excels in profitability. A few examples are dynamic reports that feature the scheduled vs. actual work variance and the project’s financial projections. This makes Runn a strong fit for agencies and service businesses in general, who need to predict whether their projects are on budget and inform clients about possible course corrections.
• Skills management features. Runn is built for businesses that depend on assembling highly technical teams who have all the skills needed to tackle complex projects. You can tag all your employees with their skills, technical specialisms, and experience level, so you are always able to search and find out who on your team is capable of what.

What’s worth noticing is that Runn is putting people front and center. I’m talking about their current workloads, future availability, holidays, even billing rates, and actual payroll; something that will help you balance resources and costs more efficiently. You can then filter after their role, team, and skills to find the right talent for a project.

Price: 

$8 per user/month. Enterprise packages are available — please contact the team for a custom quote. 

2. Float - Resource scheduling tool for small teams

Float bills itself as a resource management software that can be used for capacity planning and resource scheduling, implying more functionality than typical project management resource tools.

Key features: 

• Minimalistic design. It features a date range selector that allows you to visualize your team’s workload, resource availability, and capacity for a given period.
• Merged timelines. Float’s timeline merges the actual scheduled time with the logged one. Time tracking users will love this, as they’ll better understand their efforts in relation to the initial resource forecasts.
• Personal tags. Equally valuable are the personal tags to identify skills at a glance, the “Me” toggle for viewing individual hourly bookings, and the possibility to set a scheduled status to alert your team that you’re working from home (connects with Slack too).
• Simple analytics. You can keep tabs open on your resource utilization, project budgets, and time off without too many configurations whenever you access a people or project report.

Despite its amazing features, the lack of a project revenue forecast stops Float short from becoming a complete resource management platform. Another drawback is that the amount of overbooked hours is only available under the user’s unscheduled column and not on the actual timeline. 

Price: 

Starts at $6 per user/month.

Dig deeper: Runn vs Float - Putting the Best in Resource Planning to Test

3. Resource Guru - Simple entry-level resource management software

Resource Guru is an early player in the project and resource management tools space, now doubling down on fundamental resource management features for high-growth teams. 

Key features: 

• User-friendly interface. In the past year, the platform’s design has evolved into a sortable table layout where clients, projects, bookings, resource availabilities, and days off are skimmable at a calendar view level.
• Resource clash management. This is Resource Guru’s main differentiator. You can automatically prevent overbookings — those with diagonal bars over a red background — by putting them on a waiting list that you can deal with later on.
• Physical resources tracking. Another unique feature is physical resources to account for meeting rooms and equipment, although they cost extra. 

However, because of its straightforward approach to resource management, Resource Guru lacks some capabilities other platforms offer, such as integrated timesheets, advanced reports, and native integrations with third-party apps. 

For this reason, companies that value capacity planning over profitability will find Resource Guru a reliable HR resource management platform. 

Price: 

Starts at $4.16 per user/month and $2.08 per non-human resource/month.

4. Kantata - Enterprise resource management tool

Previously known as Mavenlink, Kantata is a popular enterprise project and resource management tool specializing in resource optimizations.

Key features:

• Master planner. The master planner feature displays workloads and allocations across all projects, helping you take a resource-first approach to managing resources.
• Team builder. This feature helps with resource allocation, letting you staff projects by recommending resources based on their role, skill, and availability. Note that each criterion can be weighted on a scale of 0-10 to create your recommendation engine.
• Resource forecasting. This feature is Kantata’s ace in the hole. Project managers can compare the actual resource costs against a project’s total revenue to better understand their project pipeline’s needs and timing. Beware though, resources with different hourly rates might mess up your final profitability figures.

Since Kantata is an enterprise tool though, some customers expect to have more granular features such as requesting resources for approval. They also want to be able to add resources directly at a project level, but these are features this resource management tool lacks. 

However, on the whole, Kantata works best for companies looking for a solution that connects resource optimization, business intelligence, and automated workflows under a single roof. 

Price: 

Quotation-based.

5. Resource Management by Smartsheet - Resource planning tool by Smartsheet

Previously 10,000ft, Resource Management by Smartsheet pledges to be a resource capacity management tool that supports companies with their hiring decisions.

Looking more like a Smartsheet add-on rather than a stand-alone app, Resource Management by SmartSheet ticks all the standard resource management features. 

Key features: 

• Resource schedule. It gives you a talent pool for matching skills with job roles, timesheets, and a visual resource allocation heatmap that acts as a window into your team’s capacity.
• Granular account settings. The tool’s key strength lies in the granular account settings that customize different resource-related aspects.

One con, however, is that this resource management tool compromises user experience. The interface is rather clunky, the horizontal scroll inexistent, and you can't drag and drop bookings on the resource calendar.

Timesheets also don’t show up on the main schedule, but the platform is robust enough to support existing Smartsheet customers. 

All in all, existing Smartsheet users stand to benefit most from this tool. Still, a more intuitive interface and a double-way sync between bookings and project phases dates would improve the experience.

Price:

$7 per user/month.

6. Saviom - Resource planning for enterprises

Yet another enterprise IT resource management tool, Saviom has sacrificed usability for extensive customization to reduce enterprise-related resource costs. 

The platform has emerged as one of the key enterprise market players ever since 1999 (yes, you read that right!). 

Key features:

• Filters and levels. Built upon an ERP framework, Saviom helps project managers sort their resources after a combination of filters and levels. View resources based on their availability or the project allocated to perform proper resource leveling.
• Skill matching. Those short on time will also appreciate the skill-matching feature, although it works more like a filter than a dashboard.
• Demand forecasting. Forecasting future demand and financials in an Excel-like interface allows you to better keep tabs open on KPIs to benchmark against each month.

Being an ERP tool, the business intelligence dashboards are as customizable as they get — even though some custom fields may be unavailable in reports. 

Additionally, integrations exist to connect with your existing workflows and process. This drives the point back to Saviom’s focus on customization, which ultimately enables scalability across all resources. 

Price: 

Quotation-based. 

7. Silverbucket - Resource management tool for architects and engineers

Silverbucket promises to be the smartest planning tool for project businesses, meaning those that charge by the hour. And for good reasons. 

Key features:

• Granular resource management. This project resource management tool gives you the freedom to allocate specific people or roles as a resource, even at a task level for more fine-grained resource management.
• Monitor project risks. Silverbucket covers various project risk types, resource risk included, to react proactively against threats.
• Robust skill management. With a skill map that organizes skills under a hierarchy, different competency levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert), and a competency analysis, you’re well-equipped to build the right team for each of your projects.

As for reports, reference customers experience some issues. They are not so flexible, as fixed-rate projects and part-time schedules can ruin final numbers.

Silverbucket makes up for this with a great resource forecast chart, accompanied by a resource baseline for comparing the project post-mortem results with the initial allocation plans.

Price:

Starts at €9 per user/month.

8. Hub Planner - HR resource management tool for large organizations

Hub Planner proves to be a strong human resource management tool.

Key features:

• Percentage-based resource allocation. Hub Planner has nailed the resource scheduling part, allowing the allocation of resources as a percentage, a number of hours per day, or total hours spread evenly across days.
• Unified timeline. Unassigned work resides on the same timeline as the usual bookings so you can be aware of the future resource demand in relationship with the current one — from a single place.
• Vacation request engine. The human resource planning part shines best when it comes to vacations and PTOs. A vacation request engine is literally powering the tool, allowing employees to request time off directly form the scheduler. Project managers, in return, can approve or reject it — as well as configure their email flow chart to automate the HR process.

All these features make Hub Planner a great choice for large organizations that employ hundreds of employees. The very few complaints revolve around the difficulty of assigning colors to bookings and the platform’s initial high learning curve. 

Price:

Starts at $7 per user/month.

9. Teamdeck - Best agile resource management tool

Teamdeck acts as a single source of truth, reuniting resource scheduling, time tracking, and leave management under a sleek UI.

Key features: 

• High visibility. Bookings, timesheets, and availabilities are stacked up by default one under another to limit distractions and increase the overall visibility. You can still re-arrange them and save the preferred view, along with a few indicators for the remaining and tracked hours.
• Time tracker. Teamdeck aims to simplify time tracking by introducing a start-and-stop timer for convenience, in addition to the classic timesheets. After everyone has logged their hours, you can create a utilization hill-chart report to measure their productivity and spot patterns early on.
• Robust reporting. There are six available report templates to help you out. While the custom ones allow you to group data after specific parameters, say the overbookings for a specific project and job role.

Thanks to its reporting feature and granular interface, Teamdeck has, without a doubt, the potential to serve many industries. However, the best fit would be as an agile resource management tool in our opinion.

Price:

Starts at $3.60 per user/month.

10. Productive - Best resource management tool for agencies 

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Productive is the one-stop shop for agencies of different types and sizes when they’re seeking to improve anything from resource planning and budgeting to reporting and time tracking. This tool gives you a unified system to consolidate all agency data. It helps you run projects all the way from prospect to payment and makes complex budgeting a lot simpler. 

Key features:

• Resource planning. This feature helps you balance your team’s workload and gives visibility into everyone’s setup: who’s working on what, who’s off or on vacation, etc. You can also use this feature to create placeholders for upcoming work so you can later hire contractors or additional staff and see how much it will cost you. 
• Budget planning & forecasting. The tool signals you when a project is about to run out of money and helps you stay on top of all financials. You can use this unified system to plan and predict your finances, as well to bill your customers for the delivered work. 
• Workload management. This feature is one of their latest additions but it is of great values to agencies of different sizes. It helps you visualize everyone’s daily and weekly workloads so you can be sure to never spread your resources too thin or risk timely project delivery. 

Price: 

Starts at $9 per user/month when billed yearly. 

11. Silverbucket - resource planning tool for project-focused businesses

Silverbucket makes resourcing easy with a user-friendly interface. It helps you with competency management (matching the right people to the right work) and ensures you utilize past learnings to always do better in your next project. Ultimately, this tool helps you optimize your resources and increase invoicing rate while delivering high-quality work. 

Key features:

• Time tracking. This tool is tailored to meet the demands of project-based businesses and time tracking is of essence in such setups. Here you can log hours and compare actual results with what you initially planned. 
• Competencies. This tool helps you stay in the know of your talent pool and the skills people bring to the table. You can even run competency analyses to see if there is some skill you have in surplus or another one your company is really lacking and could benefit from acquiring. 
• Resourcing overview. With this tool you can get as granular as you want when it comes to your resources. You can zoom out to see what’s happening with the whole company or zoom in on specific individuals and check what their workload is like and how you can optimize it further. 

Price:

Starts at €8.9 per planned person/month.

What’s the best resource management software for you? 

The correct answer depends largely on your team’s needs and budget.

All you need to remember as you select a resource management tool is that the software should:

• Give you the means to see who’s working on what, when, and for how long.
• Help you find the right person for the right job (read: assist with efficient resource allocation).
• Ensure your employees don’t burn out in the process (help you track their vacation, for example).