Working with Resources in Project Management

People you assign to work on a project are called project resources. These resources can be your employees or vendors you hire as subcontractors.

Anyone you use as a project resource must first be marked as a project resource on their record. After that, you can assign them to project tasks. Only project resources can be assigned to project tasks, which helps you track and measure labor information for your projects.

For example, when you set up an employee record to show that person as a project resource, you can record their hourly labor costs and days available to work. This data helps you with scheduling and calculating profits for a project. You can override resource rates later on individual tasks if needed.

For any employee or vendor you want to assign as a resource on projects, you must complete the steps below to set them up as a project resource.

Setting Up Project Resources

Complete the following steps to use resources on your projects.

1. Check the Project Resource box on each employee and vendor record that you want to assign to projects.

   Important:

   To assign vendors and employees to complete project tasks or manage projects, they must first be identified as a project resource on their record. If you clear the Project Resource box after they’ve been assigned to a project, they’ll still be available if you use the Display All Resources for Project Task Assignment preference when creating your project in NetSuite.

   Read the following for more information:

   • Identifying an Employee as a Project Resource

   • Identifying a Vendor as a Project Resource

2. Create one or more work calendars to set work and non-work days, and assign a work calendar to each resource.

   Read Project Resource Work Calendars.

   

3. Create project resource roles.

   Read Creating a Project Resource Role.

After you’ve set up resource records and roles, you can start using these resources on projects. For each project task, select a resource and the role they’ll use to complete it.

For example, Amy Nguyen is identified as a project resource and has a Standard U.S. Work Calendar assigned on her employee record. When she's selected as a resource on the ABC Office Expansion project, her role is identified as Staff.

In addition to specific employees and vendors, you can also create a generic resource to act as a placeholder when creating project plans and templates. Generic resources are used when a specific resource hasn't yet been selected. For more information, read Generic Resources.

General Notices