What are resourcing requests?
Using placeholders, resourcing requests allow you to stay on top of your resourcing processes and ensure that all stakeholders are informed every step of the way.
You can submit resourcing requests and add comments to any placeholder at any time. The status of your requests will update accordingly so you can then filter by request type and focus only on the ones that need your attention.
You could find this useful if your organization is often facing these challenges:
Project teams are competing for the same resources
Resourcing teams are juggling multiple people to assign work to
Hiring teams are lacking a single place to dive into upcoming hiring needs
There are 4 request statuses:
No Request (default status)
All placeholders will have a No Request status by default. To set a placeholder as this status, either do not make any requests or cancel a request.
Request Raised
When you need the placeholder to be filled and the work transferred to a real person. We recommend using this instead of "Propose to Hire / Hire Proposed" if you know someone already in the organization will be able to do it.
Request Responded
If someone selects "Respond to request" after a request has been made. They must leave a comment.
Hire Proposed
When you don't have someone who can take on the work, so you need to hire.
Making resourcing requests
Only admins and editors can make requests and leave comments. Viewer users can still view the requests and comments.
From the Project or People planner, click the 3-dot menu on a placeholder. Hover over Requests and select Request <role> or Propose to Hire
(Optional) Leave a comment about the nature of the request e.g. skills required or your preferred person for the work
Click Confirm Request. A yellow icon will appear next to the placeholder to indicate their status
You can change between statuses as many times as you want. You will be encouraged to leave a comment every time you make an update.
You can also add and view the comment history relating to a placeholder. Hover over the yellow icon to see the most recent comment.
All resourcing requests and updates made in the last 30 days will be viewable from the Project History Log. See what changes were made, when, and by whom.
Filtering by resource request type
You can filter both the project and people planners by the type of resourcing request.
When you filter the project planner by Resourcing Request, all the projects containing placeholders that currently have that status will show.
Responding to resourcing requests
If the status is Request Raised
You can:
Transfer the work to someone. The placeholder details and comment history will be deleted once it has been transferred.
Respond to the request, such as providing options on who to transfer to, or alerting the requester that no one has suitable availability. The request's status will change to Request Responded.
If the status is Request Responded:
You can:
Read the latest comment to determine what to do next.
If the status is Hire Proposed:
It's time to do some hiring.
You can:
Keep the status as Hire Proposed until you've found someone (then transfer the work to them). The placeholder details and comment history will be deleted once has been transferred.
Respond to the request, such as asking for more clarification on hiring requirements. The placeholder's status will change to Request Responded.
⚡ Note: Resourcing request types do not impact what users can do to placeholders in Runn. Regardless of the request status, you can still:
Transfer placeholder work to people at any time
Leave comments on placeholders at any time
What happens to reporting?
Project Totals
All placeholders, regardless of their status, will be included in project totals.
When a placeholder's status changes, the cost, charge and workload for that project are assumed to remain unchanged. This is because placeholders take the cost and charge from the role's default rate and cost.
Business Costs (or business capacity)
As placeholders are only attached to projects, they do not add to Business Costs (or overall business capacity), regardless of their status. The business cost for all placeholders is $0.
The total business costs will only increase when you hire a new person to do the placeholder work and create a contract for them. In this case, the added business cost will come from the new person's contract.
Example of how to use resourcing requests
A project manager has planned out a project in Runn. They don't have a designer to do the work. They click “Request Designer” on the designer placeholder and leaves a comment to give more detail about the kind of person they'd like.
A resource manager filters the planner by the “Request Raised” filter. They click "Transfer" and finds someone in the company to do the work.
If they can’t find anyone suitable, they can click “Propose to hire”. Alternatively, they could click "Respond to request" and leave the project manager a comment about adjusting the schedule or changing their requirements.
A hiring manager filters the planner by the “Hire Proposed” filter. They read the comments left by the project manager and/or resource manager and begin the hiring process.
If they need further detail, they can click "Respond to request" and ask more questions.
When they have hired someone and set them up in Runn, they add the person in Runn and then transfer the placeholder work to them.
