Resource Guru

Best SaaS tool we use in our business

Pros:

Resource Guru literally transformed our business. It’s a super simple, yet incredibly powerful scheduling tool. It was very easy to implement and there was no friction onboarding the team. We’ve even setup some automations using their API, which feeds the data into our operational reporting. If you’re looking for a resource management and scheduling tool, look no further than Resource Guru.

Cons:

The only thing I would like to see them add is a ‘do this every time’ option when I am asked how to handle a clash, rather than making me choose every time. Our business is such that we have to rearrange the schedule A LOT, and it gets annoying having to select an option over and over when I’m switching people’s schedules and it’s only going to be a temporary clash for 2 seconds. That’s a very small complaint though. Other than that, the software is perfect!

Simple and to the point - Resource Gu does the one thing we need most, and it does it extremely well

Comments: It has been a significant enhancement o our workflow. Our prior use of our CRM system to do what Resource Guru does was costing us at least a full day per week. Now we get it all done in an hour our tow.

Pros:

Simplicity and focus. Resource Guru solves one problem, a problem that is key to our business - which is project resource assignment and scheduling. It does it quickly, and easily. Our prior tool required us to understand a complex CRM system with multiple interrelated functions. Resource Guru gives us the availability, assignment and schedule tools we need to deliver our projects without needless overhead.

Cons:

I would like more user defined fields when we assign a resource to a project. We assign a project sales phase type to each project, and we assign an individual billing rate to each resource, which can be different for each day of the project. We currently do that using a strict taxonomy in the "Notes" field and them use an Excel macro to parse that information out for sales and revue forecasting. While this doe take a bit of management and programming magic - it is still orders fo magnitude less complicated that it was previously when we managed this data in our CRM system. Having those filed would just make our lives all that much simpler.

Great product but no development

Comments: Whilst it Guru is a promising, flexible and easy to use product it really is just bare bones at the moment and they have failed to deliver any additional functionality since launch despite increasing pricing. The forums are filled with requests and suggestions for highly useful add-ons and improvements that always receive the same answer "It's on the road map but we are working on other aspects of development". However, there have been no new releases and even the highly anticipated Vacation and Leave function slated for October 2015 has not actually been delivered. In fact the only thing that has changed is a change in pricing model that has upped the cost of the product. So, to conclude, even though Resource Guru has great potential the increased cost combined with a complete lack of development and capacity for integration make it a waste of time and money. Sad really because conceptually it is a fantastic product.

Extremely handy software, easy to use, visibly appealing, great to manage and schedule.

Comments: Positive, I do enjoy managing RG for our company. My company want us to migrate and start using the schedule planned for Office 365, but I had to push back and explain that this software is up to date, already does everything we need it too and Office 365 still has a long way to go before we can use it for what we want. It's safe to stick with RG that we know how to work, we know what it does and what i can't do and it works, no need to change something that isnt broken.

Pros:

I like the appearance of the software - its clear, self explanatory, easy to navigate, see the bigger picture to jiggle schedule resource about, etc. I like how easy and quickly the support team are there to assist when needed. I like how it shows you who has booked what and the daily reminders via email of what is coming up, etc.

Cons:

It isn't a negative but I would like to have a scheduling log, to see at what time and date did someone book a slot onto the schedule. I manage the Creative Studio, depending how many campaigns and the urgency in hitting these deadlines, I need to keep track of the entire departments availability, knowing when i can move things around in order to deliver last min projects. Only myself should have booking access, but I currently share it with Creative Directors, so they can schedule in my absence, but I can't see when they have booked them in so i can keep track. Is this something you could implement, please? Thanks,

Alternatives Considered: Microsoft 365

Reasons for Switching to Resource Guru: Office 365 is still a very new software that requires lots of updates and features adding to it, that yourselves already provide.

Kudos

Comments: As a small, but growing organization, we were having trouble measuring how our creative resources were being allocated. Resource Guru quickly solved that problem.

Pros:

The software was very easy to implement and even easier to use. The reports page provides a great, visual presentation of our creative department's utilization for the week. Until we started using the software, we were unable to track enough data to inform a successful creative resource meeting. Now we have visibility into the upcoming weeks which has significantly decreased our dependence on freelance talent.

Cons:

The waiting list and overtime feature can be a little confusing. The hours don't get added to resource bookings and increase the utilization percentage. It would be great if the overtime hours pushed the utilization percentage over 100% to clearly highlight over-allocated resources.

Alternatives Considered: Smartsheet and Microsoft Excel

Reasons for Switching to Resource Guru: Using Excel and Smartsheet required too much effort and the Project Managers would not be able to effectively track changes in resource allocations.