Working with Resources

Resources are a key component of cost tracking and cost recovery for events.

Logging resource utilisation against requests allows reporting of commitments and costs for that resource or across an entire event. Resources are typically physical equipment (such as bulldozers) however there are other types of resources (such as human resources) that can be accounted for.

There are 3 different types of Resources:

  • Equipment - physical equipment such as bulldozers, chainsaws
  • Service - a service provided generally by a person, team or organisation such as Tree Crew
  • Consumable - resources that get used up such as water, sandbags

Resources can be automatically placed into the "Global Resources" event or other global resource events, meaning you don't need to add them to individual events, as you needed to prior to version 4.13. The resources will be available in all events.

If a global resource is used in a record, it will be copied into the event to assist with tracking usage and costs. 

When you create a resource via the setting menu, it will have an option set by default to copy the resource into the "Global Resources" event.

You can edit any event to add a resource, if you don't have the resource needed in the Global Resources Event.


On this page



Viewing All Resources

Co-ordinators and System Administrators can view all of the available resources in the system. This is different to viewing which resources are part of an event. See Event Management for viewing an event's resources.

Step By Step Instructions

  1. Go to the Settings menu and choose Resources. The Resources Datagrid will be displayed. This shows all resources currently in the system. 
  2. You can filter resources by using the counters and search interface
  3. Click on the Title of a resource to view further details.
  4. Click New Resource to add a new resource record
  5. Consider if the resource should be in the "Global Resources" event, if not, uncheck the option



Adding/Removing Resources from an Event

Only Co-ordinators can add or remove resources to an event.  Resources are a key component of cost tracking for events and resources can be assigned to Requests.


Step By Step Instructions


  1. To add or remove a resource to your event, you firstly need to view the event record. To do this, click on the name of the event in the Event Selector at the top-right of screen.
  2. Next, click on the Resources link in the left hand menu. This will display a table of available resources for the selected event.
    • The "Resource" column displays the organisation and the resource name
    • The "In Use?" column displays whether the resource is being used in any of the events in the system
    • The "Cumulative Qty" column displays the unit of measure for the resource. This defaults to 1 unit.
    • The "Cumulative Cost" column displays the cost of the resource. This defaults to $1.
  3. Click on the Edit button
  4. Check or uncheck the resource's checkboxes to add or remove them from the event.
  5. Optionally add a comment about your resource change to appear on the Activity Log
  6. Click the Update button to save your changes

The resources have now been added to your current event and they can now be assigned to items.



Editing a Resource

Co-ordinators and System Administrators can edit existing resources.


Step By Step Instructions


  1. Go to the Settings menu and choose Resources. The Resources Datagrid will be displayed. This shows all resources currently in the system.
  2. Click on the title of the Resource you wish to edit.  A read-only view of the resource will be displayed.
  3. Click on the green Edit Resource button
  4. Update the necessary information. See the section on this page called Resource Form Fields for description of each field.
  5. If you see a resource marked as an "Ad Hoc" resource, this means it has been created from a request, which will have $1 as its unit rate, with an intention be be single use only
  6. Click the Save button to save your changes.

While we don't recommend changing an Ad Hoc resource into a reusable resource, please read the section below "Changing the unit rate for used resources" if you do want to.



Adding a Resource

Co-ordinators and System Administrators can add new resources. When a new resource is added, it is then available to be added to any Event.

There are two ways to add a resource into the system:

  1. When administering the system, and
  2. When creating a new request (known as "ad-hoc resources")

Adding a resource via the resource datagrid

  1. Click Settings then Resources to load the Resources Datagrid
  2. Click New Resource to add a new resource
  3. Fill in the resource form as per the Resource Form Fields section below.
  4. Click Save to finish

Adding an Ad Hoc resource within a request

Modules that support resources can support the addition of ad-hoc resources.

In brief:

  1. If you cant find a predefined resource, you can quickly create a basic Ad Hoc resource, if you are under time pressure. 
  2. When selecting a resource inside the item record (e.g. a request), enter a new name rather than selecting an existing resource, and a new resource will be created.
  3. The resource units will be "dollars", and the unit rate is $1 so the quantity is restricted to only entering in dollar amounts.
  4. The new resource is created when the item record is saved. 

See the section on Adding Resources to a Request for full details.



Linking Contacts to Resources

Resources can maintain links to contact records.

There are two contacts for a resource:

  1. the Organisation, and
  2. the Primary Contact.

The organisation is the system record responsible for applying system security. The Primary Contact can be linked to any contact record within any global event within the system.

Linking a contact

To link a contact,

  1. Edit the resource,
  2. Search for a contact to link, and
  3. Save the resource record.

Only contacts within global events can be linked, and the contact must be created prior to creating the resource. Multiple resources can be linked to the one contact. 

Appearance on requests

When a contact record is linked, the linked contact will appear when the resource is selected in requests and other registers.




Changing the unit rate for used resources

When a resource is used in Crisisworks, it calculates the individual cost in a record by multiplying the Qty x Unit Price. If you then change the unit price of a resource it will effect all of the individual costs for each record using that resource. For example, an Ad Hoc resource for a wheelbarrow is created which has a unit price of $1, if a qty of 50 is entered the total is $50 for this record. The wheelbarrow is automatically added to the resources system and to the current event, so someone else can now add the same wheelbarrow resource to another request. If you then change the unit price of the wheelbarrow to $50 in the resources system admin area, the individual usage cost will change to $2,500 which is Qty of 50 x $50 each. (see 2nd image below). If you want to keep this change, you will need to edit the linked requests and change the Quantities to reflect the new change. You can use the links from this screen to edit the request directly here.

The third image below shows the updated resource summary screen, where the cost per request is still $50 and where the resource has been changed from an Ad Hoc to a global resource, so it can be added to other future events.

   



Deleting a Resource

Co-ordinators and Administrators can delete a Resource from the system. 

When deleting a resource from the system there is no way to undo the deletion, so be careful when deleting a resource.


This is different to removing a resource from an event, see Adding/Removing Resources from Events (above on this page) if you wish to remove a resource from an event.


This is different to marking a resource as inactive. If you would prefer to mark the resource as inactive, edit the record and uncheck the "active" checkbox instead. This will keep the resource in the system but will remove it from all active lists.


Step By Step Instructions

  1. Go to the Settings menu and choose Resources. The Resources Datagrid will be displayed. This shows all resources currently in the system.
  2. Click on the title of the resource you wish to edit.  A read-only view of the resource will be displayed.
  3. Click on the green Edit Resource button
  4. Click the red Delete button at the bottom of the page. A message will appear asking if you are sure you want to delete the item. Click OK to confirm



Resource Form Fields

The following fields apply to resource records.

IDThe unique ID for the resource. This cannot be changed.
Type

The type of resource. Choose one of the following options:

  • Equipment - physical equipment such as a bulldozer
  • Service - a service provided generally by a team or organisation
  • Consumable - a resource that gets used up such as water, sandbags
NameThe name of the resource. This appears throughout the system where the resource is used.
DescriptionA brief description describing what the resource is.
Unit NameThe name of the unit of measurement for the resource. For example each, hours
Unit Prefix An optional unit prefix for the resources value. If the value is a dollar value, enter $ to appear before the value
Unit SuffixAn optional unit suffix to appear after the resources value. If the resource is measured in hours, then enter "hours".
Rate per UnitThe cost of each unit for the resource. If the resource is $10 per hour, then enter 10.
 Organisation

Choose which organisation owns the resource.  This is a required field.

If you specify "New Organisation for Resource", then a new organisation will be created and linked to the resource when the resource is created.

Primary Contact

A link to a contact that is responsible for the resource.

When creating a new resource, you can specify "Use Organisation as Primary Contact", and the organisation's contact record will be used. This is the default behaviour when adding new resources. Alternatively, you can search and link any global contact already in Crisisworks.

Category

 An optional category for the resource. This is useful for filtering or searching for resources. Choose one of the following options:

  • General (this is the default category).
  • Services - the resource is a service provided by someone
  • Fire Prevention - the resource is used for fire prevention
  • Equipment - the resource is a physical piece of equipment

Note that other categories may exist as part of optional modules. You should consult the relevant module guide for details before selecting any unfamiliar categories.

 Tags Tags can be useful to group or filter similar resources