Resource Skills

This article provides a guide on how to manage and resource assign skills in BigChange. Understanding how to effectively manage skills within the platform can help ensure that resources are allocated efficiently and that all accreditations are kept up to date.

Creating a Resource Skill

Once your skills have been created, they can be assigned to resources.

To add specific skills for a resource, from the top menu, select "Account Settings", and then "Settings".

From the side menu, select "Resources", followed by "Add - Edit".

Select the resource, scroll down to Skills section, select "Add" and select the desired skill from the drop-down box. If the skill has an expiry date, enter this in the box, otherwise, leave it blank. Repeat this process for each skill as required.

Setting up Alerts for Skill Expiry

BigChange allows you to create alerts for when a skill expires. To create an alert, select "Alerts" from the top menu.

Select "Create new alert +" .You can customise the alert to specify which resources will trigger the alert, the number of days in advance that you wish to be notified, the alerted recipient(s) and method(s), and the email subject and message content.

1. Who - Which resources will trigger the alert - you can choose from all, a specific group, or a specific resource.
2. What - Select ‘Has a skill expiring’.
3. When - Type in the number of days in advance that you wish to be notified. If you want to be alerted at two intervals, for example, 30 and 60 days, you should create one alert for each timeframe.
4. Send to - Type in the alerted recipient(s) and method(s). This example shows an email address going to the manager of the resource, and a text to the resource concerned.
5. The email subject and message content can be customised here if required. The blue boxes act as keywords and will be updated with the resource name and name of the skill.
6. Message - This is the default message which will be sent unless a customised Template is selected in (7) or (8).
7. Email body template - If you have created your own email template for alerts and set 'alert' in the Template usage tab, then you can choose to use your custom template from the dropdown list.
8. SMS Template - If you have created your own SMS template for alerts and set 'alert' in the Template usage tab, then you can choose to use your custom template from the dropdown list.
9. Message footer (email only) - Select if you wish to attach a linked footer to your email.
10. Select Save

Setting Skills Constraints for Jobs

If you create a job type that should only be scheduled to resources with a specific skill, you can set up a constraint to notify you should you try and allocate a job to someone who lacks it. If you are using the Scheduling Assistant, it will automatically pre-filter and only offer suitably skilled resources as resource options.

To add "Constraints" for Resources:

1. From the top menu, select "Account Settings", and then "Settings". From the side menu, select "Schedule", followed by "Job Types".
2. Select the applicable Job Type, followed by the "Constraints" tab.
3. Select "Resource" in the "New constraint" section.
4. Complete the popup form, populating any or all of the fields. Repeat this for each skill needed on this job type.

Should  you schedule a job to a resource that doesn’t have the skills needed, the job will appear on the schedule with a red outline and a hammer and spanner icon above it.  Hovering on it will show the issue: