10 Best Resource Management Software
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Human resources are at the core of resource management software. Project managers use it to keep tabs on what the team is doing and if they are free to take on more tasks. This is especially useful, considering most project managers are running 2-5 projects at the same time!
However, if you are currently on the fence about whether you should invest or not in software like this, let me give you a quick thought. Resource management software can help you create a culture of retention. How? It gives you information on the workload of your team. Having a view that shows you allocation percentages can help you control workloads and make sure your resources are not on the brink of burnout.
So keep your team at healthy (not 100%) levels of allocation, give them time to develop their skills, and enjoy a more committed and efficient team.
How We Picked The Best Resource Management Software
I evaluated and compared the most popular resource management tools on the market, both for their reviews and user interface. Then I weighed factors that make workforce management software a good option for resource management specifically, such as the ones that follow.
- User Interface (UI): The amount of information related to resources can be overwhelming, especially as our projects grow. Therefore, the software we use must make good use of white spaces and have easy-to-navigate toolbars and menus so we can find our way through the tool.
- Range of features: I looked at all the different angles from which you can see your resources. Whether that is from a timesheet, workload view, capacity hours, time reports, or project views by resource.
- Integrations: Some software on this list might not have the level of depth required to be excellent resource management software, but they use integrations to compensate for that. Integrations extend the functionality of a platform by connecting it to external tools.
- Pricing: I searched through pricing information to find if there are free versions of the software, free trials, and the starting price of paid plans. There should be a balance between price and value.
The 10 Best Resource Management Software Overviews
Have a look and sign up for some trials to test-drive and find the best resource management software for your case.
Parallax
Best for PS companies looking to aggregate functionality through integrations
Parallax is a resource planning and forecasting solution that is designed to help increase utilization and is natively built for integrations. In my opinion, it is best suited for digital services firms and software development teams looking to take full advantage of modern predictive resourcing and active forecasting to discover measured growth, higher revenue rates, and stronger margins.
Why I picked Parallax: Parallax gained a spot on my list because it does such a great job facilitating resource optimization for digital services companies. The tool gives you the ability to balance workloads, analyze utilization, and match the best available resources to the most suitable projects. I believe that this approach can definitely help optimize team performance and improve overall productivity. Extensive integration capabilities can further extend the platform's functionality.
Parallax Standout Features & Integrations
Features that differentiate Parallax from the other tools on this list include the predictive resource management functionality. The tool has been purpose-built for project and resource managers, providing you with the tools you need to efficiently evaluate and optimize supply and demand. With better resource optimization, you should be able to keep teams happy and satisfied, your projects and resources on track, and everyone in the team and the organization perfectly aligned on common goals. Other notable features include skills tags with an advanced database search of employees, customizable billing models, real-time project P+L reporting, and project accounting.
Integrations include Hubspot, Slack, Tempo, Salesforce, Jira, Harvest, Microsoft Teams, Asana, and Oracle NetSuite. The integrations approach of the platform ensures you can aggregate the best features of each tool in your current tech stack under one roof.
Pros
- Excellent predictive reporting capabilities
- No additional cost for integrations
- Responsive customer service support team
Cons
- No tracking for billable vs. non-billable hours
- Non-Agile teams may struggle with it
Kantata
Best all-in-one resource planning for services teams and agencies
Kantata is a well-rounded tool that bridges the core planning, execution, project accounting, and analysis systems in a single operating environment. It has modules for project management, accounting, resource management, business intelligence, and team collaboration for services teams and agencies.
Why I picked Kantata: What appeals to me about Kantata is their system of dashboards, live time and expense tracking features, and their great documenting system. The resource management module offers real-time utilization and margins at the project and even the task level. From what I've seen, Kantata truly offers a comprehensive RM suite that even includes accounting tools like project costing, budget management, and invoicing. Despite requiring time to really master, Kantata has been widely recognized as being easy to use and learn and I believe that Kantata's benefits are worth the time.
Kantata Standout Features & Integrations
Features that are particularly impressive include Kantata's professional services. The platform makes its Kantata BI Consultants available to users, meaning you have access to a team who can build reports specifically for your business and provide training to your resources to help mitigate the risks and costs of implementation. Further worthwhile features include resource forecasting, capacity management, skills management, scenario planning, and role-based planning.
Integrations include pre-built integrations with tools like Expensify, G Suite, Netsuite, Jira, Hubspot, Xero, Salesforce, Slack, Concur, Qualtrics, Dynamics 365, and Quickbooks. They also provide an integration platform called M-Bridge to help you build your own integrations.
Pros
- Easy capacity management
- Distinguish between soft and firm allocation
- Good reporting functionality for resource data
- Resourcing fully integrated with master planning
Cons
- Custom reports can be difficult to create without training
- Proofing solution is an add-on
- Advanced features are available only in the Premier and Enterprise editions of the application
Smartsheet
Best for advanced and custom workflow automations
Resource Management by Smartsheet, a high-level project and resource management software, helps teams make confident decisions about project planning, team capacity, budget forecasting, team utilization, and hiring needs in real-time.
Why I picked Resource Management by Smartsheet: I chose Resource Management by Smartsheet because of its dynamic reporting capabilities. If your team needs advanced workflow automations, I think that this is the tool for you. I especially admire how Smartsheet allows users to visualize complex data in an easy to understand and organized format, helping them to identify project trends and plan accordingly for the future. Users can also create project reports by filtering project data, get insight into historical data, and see forecasts on team utilization, actual vs. planned time reports, budget tracking, expense reports, and projects in the pipeline.
RM by Smartsheet Standout Features & Integrations
Features that are particularly beneficial include their unique project and resource matching functionality, which allows users to match team members to project requirements according to different criteria like disciplines, skills, and availability. Resource Management by Smartsheet also offers built-in timesheets, mobile time tracking, and expense tracking. Other notable features include project and resource matching, dynamic reporting, time tracking, a resource management panel, and a resource timeline for projects.
Integrations include apps like Slack, Brandfolder, Workplace, Microsoft Teams, and Facebook Ads. It additionally has a flexible API you can use to build custom integrations with the tools you use and automation through Zapier where you can connect to 1000+ apps.
Pros
- Combines time tracking and resourcing
- Able to forecast resource utilization
- Skills database helps resource allocation
- Intuitive for keeping timesheets and assigning hours
Cons
- Initial resource set-up is time consuming
- Bulk project edits don’t apply to resource field
- No transparent pricing for RM add-on
Float
Best for digital agencies and production teams
Float is a resource management, planning, and scheduling software that helps teams manage shared work schedules.
Why I picked Float: Float deserves its spot on my list because its scheduling functionality is so easy and intuitive. You can create new projects quickly, and assign them to your team within seconds. The schedule view gives you an accurate, high-level overview of your team’s availability and capacity, and you can drill down deeper using Float’s search and filter functionality. I especially love that you can set custom work hours, import and assign public holidays, schedule time off, assign custom tags like location and skills to your people and projects, and set a scheduled status to let everyone know when you’re working from home or remotely, or what you’re up to on a particular day.
Float Standout Features and Integrations
Features that elevate Float's offering include time tracking functionality. When added, you can access pre-filled timesheets and compare your team’s scheduled hours with the actual time spent on tasks to maximize future resource allocation. Real-time reporting lets you track your resource utilization, monitor project budgets, and forecast your team’s capacity. Further features that I think are notable include right-click menus for splitting tasks, an activity timeline to track changes, capacity management, multi-project planning, forecasting, and reports.
Integrations include Jira, Asana, Teamwork, Trello, Google calendar, Outlook Calendar, Slack, and thousands more through Zapier.
Pros
- 24-hour support with 30 min response time
- 99.5% uptime
- Mobile app for iOS and Android
Cons
- Updating staff/personnel list takes time
- Time tracking requires you to get a higher plan
Runn
Best for managing and tracking resources in real-time
Runn is a real-time resource, demand, and capacity planning tool with integrated time tracking and powerful forecasting capabilities. I think it is a great tool for getting a bird’s-eye view of all projects and people to instantly spot over-bookings and identify resourcing patterns.
Why I picked Runn: I chose Runn for this list because of how easy it is to create project phases and allocations. You can drag and drop assets, as well as toggle between monthly, quarterly, and 6-month views to plan for the short and long term. If you don’t have the right person at the right time, you can use placeholders instead, which I think is an excellent way to visualize when projects or teams will need to scale up and hire more team members to meet workload requirements. Planning out tentative projects also allows you to see how your resourcing plans might change if the work gets confirmed.
Runn Standout Features & Integrations
Features that make Runn stand out include its impressive visualizations of capacity, workload, availability, and billable and non-billable utilization. You can drill into different roles, teams and tags to compare trends and understand which groups are overbooked. Runn lets you track projects, view forecasts, utilization, project variance, and overall financial performance. And its built-in timesheets will help you understand how much time was worked compared to what was planned.
Integrations include apps like Harvest, WorkflowMax, and Clockify for importing project, client, and people data and syncing time entries. With Runn’s API, you can build your own integration to send data across your favorite tools.
Pros
- Drag-and-drop resource scheduling
- Intuitive utilization reporting and forecasting
- Easily identify overbooked/unavailable employees
- Over-budget predictions
- Powerful API
Cons
- No offline or mobile time tracking
- Limited number of integrations
Hub Planner
Best for midsize and large companies
Hub Planner is a resource management software with a full suite of scheduling, time entry, and reporting features. The core feature that caught my attention is the simple and usable Scheduler, which allows for project and resource planning and visualization. Users can drag and drop to plan projects and schedule resources. The tool also offers a multi-function menu, powerful filtering, and a dynamic team capacity bar. I particularly like how Hub Planner's multiple view modes allow for both high-level birds-eye views and granular views of projects.
Hub Planner has a powerful reporting engine with 70+ pre-formatted templates that I think is a great resource for teams. If you can't find what you're looking for in a template, you can create reports from scratch.
Hub Planner also has a number of inline workflows for timesheets, requesting vacation time, and a slick resource requesting & approval option. Their Unassigned Work feature is great for scheduling and forecasting ahead of the pipeline, and users can create custom fields at the resource or project level. Users can also customize schedule notifications and reminders.
They've taken a modular approach so you have the option to add or remove extensions to the base product, allowing teams to increase functionality or turn off bits they don't need. Inline integrations with Basecamp, Slack, iCal, REst API, and Zapier are available.
Hub Planner offers a pretty extensive 60 days free trial with everything included. There is an extensive knowledge base with tutorial videos, and their customer support is excellent.
Licenses begin at $7 per month, per resource with annual discounts available.
Pros
- Powerful & precise built-in reporting
- Excellent capacity planning & forecasting
- Search filter for available resources with skill sets & location
- Easy toggle between user/group
Cons
- Need to click into modal for more details on events/projects bookings
- Editing Custom Fields requires manual input or help from Hub Planner support
- Need an API or intermediary for MS Teams
monday.com
Best for simple workload and capacity planning
monday.com is a flexible work platform to help teams communicate in context and get a big picture of outstanding projects, available resources, and projected timelines.
Why I picked monday.com: I chose monday.com primarily for its smart design and straightforward interface. In my opinion, even team members who are lacking resource management experience can quickly get started planning timelines, assigning project ownership, and managing projects. The monday.com app also gives you the flexibility and power to run your team on the go, which I think is a great feature for busy managers. You can organize your daily work, projects, and teams as well as establish workflow automations, share documents, and create Gantt charts for further clarity.
monday.com Standout Features & Integrations
Features that I think really set monday.com apart from the crowd include their 5+ views so you can see your project information the way you want to. For example, with the workload view, you can easily see who’s able to take on more work and who’s not. It's easy to visually gain insight into your team’s work capacity and make adjustments to timelines or ownership accordingly, and in real-time.
Integrations include apps like Slack, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Excel, Google Drive, Gmail, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform, and thousands more accessible via Zapier.
Pros
- Color coded status great for resource overviews
- Easily create boards dedicated to operational resource tracking
- New features being rolled out regularly
Cons
- Gantt charts locked to mid-level plan
- May be too robust for small teams
- Comparatively complex pricing rubric
Saviom
Best for enterprise resource and workforce management
Saviom is a resource management software that I believe is best suited to large enterprises. It's equipped to provide a visual overview of complex team needs and scheduling for projects with multiple moving pieces.
Why I picked Saviom: I chose Saviom for this list because it allows you to quickly identify which resources should be allocated where, based on factors like cost, availability, location, and competency, across the enterprise. You can easily gain high level visibility even in the presence of complicated matrices (for example, when you have verticals like domains, regions, teams, and departments, in addition to individual projects). Their project forecasting functionality helps to identify future vacancies, while keeping an eye on financials like profit margin, revenue, and costs.
Saviom Standout Features & Integrations
Features of Saviom that I find particularly impressive include their real-time BI, which allows you to meet changing demands. You can build portals, analytics, reports, and dashboards that are tailor-made for your needs, since Saviom is highly expandable and configurable. You can also control the visibility of data with filters. Other notable features include a multidimensional resource scheduler and planner, advanced forecasting and capacity planning, and real-time business intelligence.
Integrations include Outlook, Google, Salesforce, Jira, and custom integrations you can build using its data exchange framework.
Pros
- Multidimensional resource forecasting & capacity planning
- Highly configurable & customizable RM solution
- Real-time resource optimization, modeling & simulation
- Highly flexible real-time reports, analytics & dashboards
- Seamless integration with other enterprise applications
Cons
- There is a learning curve as the tool comes with extensive features
- More suitable for medium to large enterprises
- Pricing is available only on request
Resource Guru
Best resource management software for fast and flexible scheduling
Resource Guru is a dedicated resource management software that aims to make resource management user-friendly with quick scheduling tools.
Why I picked Resource Guru: I chose Resource Guru for this list because of its conflict resolution capabilities. Resource management and team collaboration are built in to make resource booking more straightforward, with clash management, leave management, and a waiting list to prevent over-booking. It helps project managers make bookings simultaneously with no chance of stepping on each other’s toes. Clashes are automatically prevented, which I hope will save you a huge headache.
Resource Guru Standout Features & Integrations
Features that really stand out to me for Resource Guru include individual resource dashboards that allow each staff member to log in and know exactly what they should be working on. To monitor business performance, powerful reports help identify which projects and clients are being over-serviced and assist you with monitoring team utilization and future capacity planning. Other notable features include drag-and-drop scheduling, equipment management, meeting room booking, capacity planning, and forecasting reports.
Integrations include calendar apps like Outlook calendar, Calendly, and Google calendar. Thousands of additional apps are accessible through Zapier.
Pros
- Availability bar for capacity planning
- Very affordable per-user rate
- Attractive and flexible UI
- Daily resource summary emails
Cons
- Unable to sort resources by experience level
- No copy-paste of resource tasks
ClickTime
Best for managing projects, staffing, and capacity in one place
ClickTime is a SaaS product that focuses on resource management and time tracking for businesses. With ClickTime, you can easily track employee hours, allocate resources, and gain insights into your team's performance and productivity.
Why I picked ClickTime: I chose ClickTime primarily for its ability to allow customers to manage projects, staffing, and capacity at once. I think it's perfect for businesses that need to keep a close eye on their projects and workforce. ClickTime's user-friendly interface and powerful features make it easy to track time, manage resources, and analyze data, in my opinion. However, I think the most value comes from its ability to prevent costly over-servicing mistakes, scope creep, and runaway project costs.
ClickTime Standout Features & Integrations
Features include the ability to combine billing rates, project budgets, staff vacation time, and more for a real-time view into a business. ClickTime captures both billable and non-billable tasks to ensure utilization is on target, so you can watch for wasted time or administrative overload. Another one would be budget tracking because it helps you track project budgets and expenses, making it easy to see where your money is going and identify areas for cost savings. Finally, its mobile app really helps with the software's adoption as it allows tracking on the go, making it easy for remote and field-based teams to stay connected and up-to-date.
Integrations include Sage, NetSuite, QuickBooks, Jira, BambooHR, HiBob, ADP, Zenefits, Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, Box, Google Drive, Slack, and task management tools like ClickUp. It also supports single sign-on (SSO) with popular identity providers like Google, Microsoft, and Okta, making it easy for your team to access the platform securely. If you want to build custom integrations, you can use its API. However, if you don’t have the resources on hand to build your own custom integrations, they have a Professional Services team who can do the integration work for you.
Pros
- Time tracking with mobile devices
- Closer control over project budgets
- Supports multiple billing methods
Cons
- Resource planning available on Premier plan and higher
The Best Resource Management Software Comparison Chart
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the baffling array of resource planning software out there. Below, we’ve put together a reader-friendly table neatly summarizing basic info about the tools described in this article.
Tool | Trial Info | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Parallax Best for PS companies looking to aggregate functionality through integrations | Free demo | Pricing upon request | Website |
2 | Kantata Best all-in-one resource planning for services teams and agencies | Free demo | Pricing upon request | Website |
3 | Smartsheet Best for advanced and custom workflow automations | Freemium version available | From $7/user/month | Website |
4 | Float Best for digital agencies and production teams | 30-day free trial | From $7.50/user/month | Website |
5 | Runn Best for managing and tracking resources in real-time | Free trial + free version available | From $10 /person managed/month | Website |
6 | Hub Planner Best for midsize and large companies | 30-day free trial | From $7/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
7 | monday.com Best for simple workload and capacity planning | 14-day free trial + free plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Website |
8 | Saviom Best for enterprise resource and workforce management | 60-day free trial | Pricing upon request | Website |
9 | Resource Guru Best resource management software for fast and flexible scheduling | 30-day free trial available | From $3/user/month | Website |
10 | ClickTime Best for managing projects, staffing, and capacity in one place | 14-day free trial | From $10/user/month | Website |
Other Resource Management Solutions
None of the above work for you? Check out the below list of additional tools:
- Silverbucket
Best resource management software for project-based work
- eResource Scheduler
Best built-in financial module
- Meisterplan
Best for its role-based resource allocation prior to staffing
- Microsoft Project
Best RM software for Microsoft users
- Paymo
Best RM tool for remote teams
- Forecast
Best AI-assisted RM
- ProjectManager.com
Best for resource monitoring through project dashboards
- ActiveCollab
Best for built-in invoicing
- Planview Clarizen
Best enterprise-grade resource management tool
- KeyedIn
Best for resource management at the PMO level
Check out our video on resource management software here:
Resource Management Software FAQs
Find answers to common questions about resource management and resource management software.
What is resource management?
How do you create a resource plan?
What is a resource forecast?
How do you calculate project resources?
Do I need resource management software?
Should I still be using spreadsheets?
What is resource management software?
What are the benefits of using resource management software?
What features should I look for when evaluating resource management software?
What's an example of an effective resource management system?
Other resource management lists
- Enterprise resource planning software for resource management at large companies.
- Resource planning software to help you forecast required resources and their utilization on your projects.
- Resource scheduling software to help you schedule equipment, rooms, staff, and other resources.
- Resource allocation software, which is specifically designed to help you alllocated the right resources to the right projects and tasks.
- Free resource management software, in case you need a less expensive option that will still cover your primary needs.
- Marketing resource management software (MRM software) which is designed specifically for marketing teams.
- Resource tracking software, which combines resource planning with tracking to help you monitor and adapt your plan as you go.
- Open source resource management software for extra flexibility and (often) cheaper pricing.
- Web-based resource scheduling software, in case you require a SaaS solution, rather than an on-premise option.
What's Next?
Now that you know some of the best resource management tools, you might want to read our complete guide to workload capacity to get the most out of your team, boost morale, and improve output.
However, if you want to explore what you can do with Excel a little longer, here's an example and free template on resource allocation.