For thousands of teams worldwide, Slack is the main communication channel and a hub where work happens. Is it possible to also use Slack for project management and resource management?
While Slack may not replace your favorite project management tool or your resource management software, a clever integration will definitely help you work more productively and stay up to date with the most important events happening within your team.
Here on Teamdeck’s blog, we have already written quite a bit about using Slack for project management. However, we haven’t yet had a chance to tell you how you can use Slack for project resource management purposes. Now it’s a perfect opportunity to do that as we have recently launched Teamdeck’s own Slack resource management integration. In this blog post, you’ll find out how such a Slack bot can be useful for team leaders, project managers, or regular team members.
Note the examples in this part of the blog post are based on the features’ of Teamdeck—a complete resource management solution and its Slack app. If you want to learn step-by-step how to install and configure the Slack bot for different use cases, check out our tutorial.
So, how can Slack boost your resource management efforts?
When your company is running several projects at a time, which is the case for many agencies and software teams out there, things change quickly. Someone needs to take a couple of days off, and there’s a need to alter the timeline, etc.—schedule changes are not uncommon. Still, to keep things under control, it’s best to monitor these types of updates to make sure projects stay on the right track. When you integrate your resource management app with Slack, you can automatically direct notifications about changes in projects’ schedules to a selected Slack channel. Such a channel allows team leaders and project managers to stay on the same page and be aware of minor and significant changes in different projects.
For your team members, it’s essential to have clarity regarding their assignments. Sure, some employees may be assigned to long-term projects. However, other employees (e.g., illustrators, DevOps specialists) will likely switch projects quite often or even work on a couple of projects at once. Things get even more challenging in employees’ part-time management who may easily miss important updates regarding the projects they’re involved in.
For these people, it’s essential to know what they should focus on on any given day. If your company uses a resource calendar, they can log in to their account and check what’s in store. Using a Slack integration, you can make things even easier for them. For instance, each employee can set a daily notification with a summary of their bookings for that day. Knowing what they need to work on, your employees can get started with their tasks right away.
When planning a project or assembling a new project team, you need to cross-check potential team members’ availability. After all, you don’t want to re-allocate resources or hastily hire new people soon after the project kicks off because you forgot to check someone’s vacation schedule. With Slack resource management integrations, you can easily check your teammates’ availability within a selected period and receive this information directly via Slack. It’s convenient when you’re in the middle of a resource scheduling meeting and want to quickly confirm that a given person will be able to join the project.
When it comes to managing employee time off requests, some companies still rely on emails or sending time off forms. Unfortunately, these methods are usually quite time-consuming for both employees requesting time off and people responsible for evaluating the requests. Resource planning tools often come with features that allow employees to request vacation days directly within the app. It’s already a more convenient option than, say, having to explain their request over an email. However, when you use Slack, you can connect it with your resource management software and enable team members to send their vacation requests via Slack. Such integration will also be appreciated by your HR team having all vacation requests in one Slack channel, as they can easily track down any past messages they need at the moment.
You likely realize that employee time tracking can be very beneficial and support your team’s project management efforts. However, it’s only the case when your employees fill out timesheets regularly and accurately. Otherwise, the data will be full of guesstimates that won’t help you to evaluate your project’s health. Unfortunately, when you have a busy schedule, it’s easy to forget about switching the time tracker or entering your tracked time in the timesheet at the end of the day. What’s the solution to this issue? Reminder messages you can receive via Slack. This way, you won’t forget about time tracking and will have precise data about your workload and productivity.
Usually – for example – marketing project management software is where you store information about project requirements, tasks, or milestones. That’s an integral part of the project. Still, you can’t forget about aspects connected to your human resources: their availability, workload, timesheets, etc. You can find these insights in the resource management tool your company is using.
How can you support project management using Slack integrated with your resource management app? All of the use cases described above will be helpful for project managers who need to know what’s going on with their project. Additionally, PMs can also receive daily summaries about absences in your team, everyone’s schedule, or even the hourly availability of freelancers and part-time workers participating in the project. All in order to stay on top of everything happening within the team.
As you can see, a robust resource management app that can be integrated with Slack could be a massive time saver for your team and a tool for smoother collaboration and team communication. Of course, before you connect anything with Slack, you have to find resource management software that’s perfect for your team.
Teamdeck is an app that offers resource scheduling, time tracking, and leave management system features, plus powerful project and team analytics. We’ve designed it with flexibility in mind, so you should be able to tailor the app to your team’s needs and processes, not the other way round.
Do you want to check whether Teamdeck is the right fit for your company? Schedule a call with Aniela, Teamdeck’s customer success expert. During the call, you’ll get a chance to describe your team’s challenges and needs in terms of resource management. Then, we will show you how to address them with Teamdeck. Ready to plan and track your team’s work without unnecessary hassle? Give us a try!
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