About resources

A resource dictates who, or what, is responsible for completing a particular activity in a process. At the higher level processes of an enterprise, the activity resource is usually the process owner, i.e. the person ultimately responsible for the overall process. At the lower levels, resources are usually the job titles, machines and systems responsible for executing specific activities. Multiple resources may be assigned to a single activity as well as permitting single resources to be assigned to multiple activities. It is also possible to merge two resources.

Resources are managed in resource libraries. Rates can be defined for resources which allows for activity-based costing to be performed for a process. Users that do not possess specific cost viewing rights will not be able to see costs for resources in the Central Resource Library.

Note: It is possible to automatically update all resource names in a map. For more information see Updating draft resources.

Reporting on Resources

A number of resource-based reports are available in the Author Client, including:

Resources: Identifies where a selected resource exists within a specified scope of diagrams and displays information such as the diagram, activity, other resources, etc. Note that Suppliers are the other resources on any activities connected as inputs to a particular activity, and Customers are the other resources on activities connected as outputs from a particular activity.

Resource Groups: Shows a list of all resource groups.

Resource Costs: Builds a list of all resource within the specified scope of diagrams and includes all costing information relevant to the activity resource relationship.

Resource Usage: A usage count for all central resources. This is based on the resources used across a selected scope of diagrams.

User Resources: Lists all the users and their resource roles.

User Activities: Identifies all activities where a selected user or user group exists based on their assigned resource roles within a specified scope of diagrams.

For information on reporting see Generating reports.