How Resources are Matched in Resource Request Staffer

Resource Request Staffer uses Intelligent Staffing to find the best match for the selected resource requests. They are processed one by one, in the order in which they are listed on the Open Requests tab. Resources are matched according to the priorities and field weightings displayed in the Settings panel (or configured via staffing preferences). A resource can only be matched to one resource request. For information about how Intelligent Staffing uses priorities and field weightings to match resources to resource requests, see Intelligent Staffing Overview.

When the matching process is complete, the highest-ranked resources are matched to their corresponding resource requests. The highest-ranked resource is determined by how well they match the resource request according to the configured settings, provided they haven't already been matched to another resource request during the process. The matched resource is then displayed in the Matched Resource column in the Match Results tab, and the match quality percentage of the resource is displayed in the Match Quality column.

Using Simple Staffing

If the Enable Simple Staffing property is selected for the Resource Request Staffer component, the Chosen Resource column appears in the Open Resource Requests grid. You can then manually choose a resource for individual resource requests, instead of leaving the matching process to do it for you.

When you click Match Resources and a selected resource request already has a chosen resource, the chosen resource will not be overridden and will not be matched to any other selected resource request. The matching process still calculates the chosen resource's suitability and availability which you can review on the Match Results tab before deciding whether to shortlist, hold, or assign the resource.

On the Match Results tab, you can click the information icon on a resource request to view its details. A "Manually matched" message identifies manually selected resources so you can distinguish them from resources returned by the matching process.

Your chosen resources remain if you click Cancel during matching or switch between the Open Requests and Match Results tabs. Reloading the grid or filtering out corresponding resource requests clears these selections.

Note:

If the same chosen resource is matched to multiple resource requests that overlap, once you assign the resource to one of those resource requests, their availability is no longer accurate for the remaining resource requests.

Availability of Resources

The availability of matched resources can be calculated in one of two ways:

• The calculation considers a resource's total working hours available in their work calendar and their scheduled commitments, based on the start and end dates of the resource request.
• The calculation considers a resource's total working hours available in their work calendar and their scheduled commitments, compared with the preferred schedule on the resource request. This is worked out on a daily basis. The overall percentage value is determined using the difference between the total number of hours on the preferred schedule that the resource cannot fulfil, and the total number of hours on the preferred schedule. This is referred to as schedule availability.

If schedule availability is configured but the resource request does not contain a schedule, the alternative method to calculate availability is used instead of schedule availability.

Note:

If a resource's availability cannot be calculated, the match quality score also cannot be calculated. For more information, see Missing Resource Availability Overview.