Building a bespoke resource management system for complex project scheduling

Stoneseed provides turnkey project management services, helping companies better plan, allocate resources, and deliver projects. The work necessitates a clear view of people and teams, schedules, availability and timesheets, expenses, and project commitments.

For a business focussed on project delivery, resource management is a core function. It is critical to planning, assigning, tracking, and reporting on projects. Managers need to know which resources are available, where there’s friction, which projects are running, and how time is being recorded for them.

After reviewing off-the-shelf resource management tools, Stoneseed found nothing that matched the unique way it works. Some included superfluous features and functions. Others lacked specific requirements. And some were simply hard to use efficiently.

First Option Software built and delivered a bespoke Resource Management System – Stoneseed RMS, designed around the way the company actually works. 15 years later, the platform has had relatively few updates, which shows just how well the original design matched Stoneseed’s needs. Now, the business has a centralised view to manage projects and resources efficiently.

Stoneseed’s needs were complex, specific, and unique. It needed to manage resourcing, timesheets, absences and holiday applications, expenses, project schedules, and reporting, all in a single connected platform. A generic cookie-cutter tool might have gone some of the way, but wouldn’t have provided the ideal balance of project resource management and HR. These tools would also have forced Stoneseed into a standard workflow, without enough support for the features that were most important.

The challenge was not in simply creating somewhere to store project information. Stoneseed instead needed a working system to help project managers plan ahead, understand what was coming and what was needed, approve timesheets, and manage resources to deliver projects smoothly. This was a clear case for going bespoke, and building a system that matched the business, rather than asking the business to find workarounds to match the tool.

Stoneseed needed a system that could:

• Provide a centralised view of projects and resources
• Support planning and scheduling
• Show resource availability over upcoming weeks and months
• Highlight bottlenecks and blockers early
• Manage timesheets and approvals
• Handle holidays, sickness, and staff expenses
• Provide historical access and reporting
• Give staff an easy way to access timesheets
• Connect project management with resource management 

The system also had to be flexible enough to adapt to changing business needs, while remaining logical and easy for anyone to use, particularly as project managers, clients and staff resources all interacted within the RMS.

First Option Software developed RMS from the ground up, working closely with Stoneseed to fully understand the context in which it would be used. With a very detailed spec sheet, First Option created detailed plans and UI design concepts. These were then iterated through various key user flows and scenarios, ensuring the system was robust enough for anything that might be thrown at it.

The result was a web-based application that connects project planning, resources, and reporting. Rather than these being separate admin tasks, the RMS brings them into a single operational view which supports all necessary detail for project planning and delivery, without needless complication.

Project planning is a core part of RMS. Stoneseed needs to keep track of multiple projects at any given time, with resource allocations, schedules, and other upcoming commitments. The RMS links project planning directly with timesheet and resource management, giving project managers and teams a cohesive way to control their scheduling.

There are two key screens which facilitate this planning. There’s the resource planner, which gives an overview of availability over the coming weeks and months, and helps managers see where there’s capacity, and where there may be bottlenecks. Then there’s the project planner, which gives an easy view of projects, both current and in the pipeline, with functionality to show more detailed information such as resource allocations and shortages.

Resourcing is affected by absences, such as holidays and sickness, as well as expenses. If these live separately to a project planning system, managers won’t have an accurate picture when assigning resources and reviewing scheduling.

RMS balances project resource management with HR management. While a feature-rich system, it remains efficient and intuitive, while allowing the system to support future growth.

First Option developed RMS as a web-based application, allowing users to access it via a browser, rather than having to rely on installed software. The UI was built with Bootstrap and Flat UI, which provided a flexible basis for a tailor-made platform.

The software itself was built as a Java web application stack, using technologies such as Hibernate for database interaction, and WildFly as the application server.

The result is a reliable, accessible system that can be adapted as needs change over time.

RMS was initially developed and launched more than 15 years ago, and has not required a major update since. This is particularly unusual for a bespoke ops platform, and it shows how closely the original design matched the requirements. The system continues to support Stoneseed. The real test of a tool like this is not launch day, but whether the software continues to benefit the business years later.