How to Do Resource Management in Jira?

What is the Resource Management Process? 

In general, the resource management process includes planning, scheduling and allocating people, technology, and money to a project. In other words, it is all about assigning resources to a project that requires them to succeed. 

Can Jira Be Used For Resource Management? 

The answer to this question is yes, but only on a very basic level. 

Jira offers several built-in features for managing resources effectively, including workload tracking and capacity planning. Therefore, its basic features can help team leaders manage projects and resource allocation in indicidual operations. However, Jira’s features are not suided for advanced project management or resource planning in longer perspective.

What Features For Resource Management Are Included in Jira? 

As mentioned above, Jira is one of the basic project management tools designed to help leaders with task-based resource planning. As a result, it’s suited to handle low-level project management consisting of: 

• Dividing work into multiple projects,
• Creating separate tasks and monitoring actual time spent on a given operation, as well as task progress.
• Short-term resource allocation,
• Jira time tracking,
• Day-to-day responsibilities, 

and other short-term obligations. 

In short, resource planning in Jira project management software allows project managers to create a project, divide it into subsequent tasks and assign people to it. Still, Jira’s resource management tools provides no insights into resource availability, resource utilization, team productivity or project budgeting. Additionally, Jira also can’t help you analyze the time tracked by your employee, as its capabilities for monitoring human resources are also limited.

What Features for Resource Management Jira Does Not Have? 

When it comes to long-term resource planning in Jira, this project management software turns out to be quite lacking. That’s because it does not have features such as: 

• Capacity planner with drag-and-drop interface allowing managers to monitor and manage resource utilization even for multiple projects,
• Project portfolio management with an overview of all the projects at once, 
• Skill management with information on employee’s skills, experience, certifications, etc.,
• Calendar with information on public holidays and other events that may interfere with project schedule, 
• Finances for project and any project resource, i.e. estimates, wages, overheads, and more. 
• General information on project performance based on the progress made by resources assigned to given operation and their rates.

As a result, while Jira resource management is possible, it is based on a very limited amount of data. Consequently, it may turn out to be inaccurate and lead to potential bottlenecks, schedule conflicts, overbooking or continuous changes in resource management throughout the duration of the project.

Jira Resource Planning: How to Plan Capacity in Jira?

To account for every project resource and create a comprehensive resource management plan based on capacity:

1. Go to Jira Settings > Products > Advanced Roadmaps (available in Jira Premium and Enterprise plans).
2. Create a Plan: Click Create a Plan and select projects, boards, or filters.
3. Define Team Capacity: Assign working hours and availability for the available resources. Verify
4. Visualize Workloads: Use the Capacity View to monitor workload distribution across sprints or time periods.
5. Adjust Assignments: Drag and drop issues to different team members to balance workloads effectively.

Managing Resource Allocation with Jira Components & Labels

Jira components and labels offer a variety of low-level resource management features you can use to plan work. While they are not suitable for long-term planning, they can help you expand Jira resource management and achieve more precise planning.

Use Components to Group Work

To group work in Jira resource management:

• Navigate to Project Settings > Components and create components like Frontend Development, Backend Development, or Testing.
• Assign issues to components to help distribute work across specialized team members.

Leverage Labels for Better Organization

To use labels to manage resoures in Jira:

• Use labels like high-priority, urgent, or blocked to categorize and prioritize work.
• Create JQL filters based on labels to manage workloads efficiently.

Monitoring Resource Utilization with Jira Dashboards

Create a Workload Dashboard

Navigate to Dashboards > Create Dashboard.

Add gadgets like:

• Filter Results: Displays workload based on saved JQL filters.
• Pie Chart Gadget: Shows task distribution by assignee.
• Created vs. Resolved Chart: Helps track workload trends.
• Workload Report Gadget: Displays estimated vs. logged time per team member.

Then, save and share the dashboard with your team.

Resource Management in Jira – Plugins 

As Jira is not suitable for resource and project management and cannot be used to boost productivity in a dynamic environment of professional services companies, Jira Marketplace offers numerous plugins and additional resource management software that can be integrated with it and serve as a seamless and valuable addition to the system. BigTime is such resource planning tool.

BigTime – A Perfect Tool For Expanding Resource Management in Jira

BigTime is the most comprehensive resource management tool that can be easily integrated with Jira. This solution was created to import all the necessary information from Jira and use them to create accurate and up-to-date plans for any operations and team members based on tracking tasks in Jira itself. As a result, managers do not need to transfer their resource management to a new tool – they can simply manage task and resources effectively on a small scale in Jira and see the bigger picture in BigTime.

BigTime – Basic Features For Project Resource Allocation

BigTime resource management offers: 

• Flexible, editable Gantt charts calendars for both people and projects, with information on resource utilization, schedule conflicts time tracking for each team member and each proect.
• Information on leaves, absences and public holidays that need to be included in the project schedule and any resource management activities.
• Smart drag and drop allocation with a search bar that can help project managers to look for the right human resources for the job and manage resource allocation, 
• Automatically calculated capacity for team members (absences and holidays included), 
• Skill management feature with information on experience, skills and certifications of employees, 
• A comprehensive overlook of all the projects and people involved in them, 

As a result, BigTime’s resource planning can provide project managers with both a detailed and general overview of all the operations in your organization, as well as their finances, expanding resource management in Jira. You can book a demo to learn more about it

Is BigTime A Standalone Resource Management Tool Or An Add-On? 

No – BigTime is a separate solution that can be integrated with Jira to import data in real-time. Still, that’s just another of its advantages. 

What Is The Advantage of Integrating BigTime With Jira Resource Management?

Thanks to being a separate system, BigTime is not limited by Jira’s structure, all while benefiting from all the data gathered in the program. It’s a more flexible approach that makes it much easier for the project managers to: 

• Monitor resource availability, optimize utilization and minimize costs of employee bench,
• Manage leave requests from team members, 
• Track time and profitability in billable projects, 
• Create and complete tasks and change them whenever a change is needed
• Check for public holidays before they interfere with the project, 
• Create innovative projects with brand new, flexible structure that is not available in Jira resource management, 
• Browse employee’s skills, experience and certifications, 
• Plan and monitor long-term projects with finance and planning reports.
• Allocate resources in Gantt charts and monitor their progress with time tracking.

You don’t have to take our word for it – you can test BigTime now and see it for yourself.