The Resource Hero Matrix interface works just like a spreadsheet and was designed to make entering forecasts or actuals over multiple dates as easy as possible.
Time Range and Navigation
The view and navigation controls can be found at the top of the matrix. Let’s look at each in detail:
View
Resource Hero allows you to view your data in Month, Week, or Day.
You can think of how these views will display your data by saying “I want each column in the matrix to represent one X” where X is the view that you are selecting. For example, if you select the Day view, each column will represent one day.
Time Range
The available options for the Time Range selector will depend on the view that you have selected.
- If you select the Day view, your available time ranges will be the calendar months.
- If you select the Week view, you have a range of options to include calendar quarters, entire year, etc.
- If you select the Month view, the time range will default to entire year.
Year
The Year selector allows you to select the calendar year + / – 10 years and will always default to the current year
Calendar Week
If you are viewing the matrix in the Time Tracking view, you will also have a control that allows you to select the calendar week.
Navigation Arrows
On either side of the time selection dropdowns are the blue navigation arrows that allow you to move left and right depending on the time options that you have selected. For example, if you are looking at the Week view on the 4th Quarter of 2016 and click on the right navigation arrow, your view will change to the 1st Quarter of 2017.
Entering data into the Resource Hero matrix
Hours
The matrix looks and acts just like a spreadsheet allowing you to use your arrow, tab and enter keys to move around and uses standard keyboard commands like copy, paste, and undo.
Inputting data is as easy as selecting a cell and typing in a number.
By default, each matrix is configured to work with either Forecasts or Actuals. Data entered into the Forecast matrix represents the hours that you think you will spend on a specific effort, while data in the Actual matrix represents the hours that you did spend.
Utilization Coloring
For each Resource that you create, you are required to set a Min Target Weekly Hours and a Max Target Weekly Hours. As you are entering data, Resource Hero takes into account all of the records that a resource is assigned to for the currently selected day, week, or month and, after comparing to the resources target min and max weekly hours, provides real-time color feedback: gray if a Resource is below their target, green if they are within their target and red if they are over their target.
Notes
In addition to entering hours into the matrix, on the Day and Time Tracking views there is also a mechanism for entering in Notes.
Clicking on the Show Notes button will display the notes entry field and it will be activated after you select a cell from the matrix.
Saving
After the first time that you make a change to a matrix, you will notice that the Save button turns from grey to red. This is a reminder that you have unsaved changes.
Once you have finished entering your data, click the Save button to store the data in your Salesforce database.
How is data saved in Salesforce?
Data is stored differently depending on the View that you are using.
If you enter data while on the Day or Time Tracking views, hours will be saved exactly as you have entered them.
For the Week and Month views, hours are broken down based on your work week settings.
Examples:
- On the Week view we enter 40 hours into the week of 10/24/2016 and click save. Switching over to the Day view we can see that the 40 hours was split up into 8 hours for each work day.
- On the Month view, we enter 210 hours on October 2016 and click save. Switching over to the Day view we can see that the 210 hours was split up into 10 hours for each work day (as there are 21 work days in October 2016).
- For additional details on how data is stored in Salesforce as well as how to customize your work week settings, see the Resource Hero Data Model and Customizing Custom Setting support posts.
