ResourceGuru Review with Tests — Is It a Good Software in 2024?

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This in-depth ResourceGuru review reveals how good (and not so good) the tool is at what it does. You might already know that ResourceGuru is a popular resource scheduling tool, so let’s see how it streamlines your resource management process.

For a team manager or a project owner, optimal resource utilization is the goal. That’s where tools like ResourceGuru shine. The main idea is that the tool lets you use your people and resources efficiently.

For an honest and genuine ResourceGuru review, we’ve extensively researched and tested the tool’s primary capabilities in real-time. Below, we’ll explore what ResourceGuru is, what it can do, its pricing, and compare it with other tools like Monday.com and ClickUp in the space.

ResourceGuru Pros and Cons

What is ResourceGuru – Overview

Traditional resource scheduling spreadsheets might help you record and track resources, but dedicated and developed software could do a lot more. With that motto, ResourceGuru came online in 2012.

This cloud-based software comes with solid features exclusively designed to manage your resources, going beyond what any leading PM tool could offer. “Resources” here don’t just refer to people, it could be money, equipment, office space, and meeting rooms.

ResourceGuru isn’t just a tool; it’s a forecasting and scheduling system that ensures no one in your team is overloaded. Instead, it aims to set realistic goals for everyone.

ResourceGuru doesn’t rely solely on Gantt charts that typically focus on completing projects within deadlines. Rather, the tool follows people’s first approach, maintaining a proper balance between employee workloads and project goals.

With ResourceGuru, you can put a stop to:

Furthermore, creating project plans and scheduling resources is a breeze with ResourceGuru. Not only that, the tool also provides powerful filters by location, skill, experience, and more to pick a perfect resource for any task.

Plus, keep an eye on what truly matters with the tool’s overview of your project deadlines, who’s working on what, team member availability, and more.

Is ResourceGuru a Good App?

What you want in a good resource management platform is an easy way to understand who’s occupied with tasks and who’s got some free time and assign tasks accordingly. ResourceGuru respects your team’s time, ensuring even distribution of tasks among team members, efficient calendar schedules, and effective leave management.

For a straight reply to whether ResourceGuru is a good app, our testing of various resource management tools found that ResourceGuru is perfect for project managers looking for a simple tool with clear scheduling capabilities.

Plus, you can get alerts when someone is busy at the time slot you need them. That’s not all, the tool supports time-off and leave management features for better visibility into the teams’ availability, making it a good choice for managers to plan the timeline.

ResourceGuru’s dedicated scheduling and managing features streamline resource management exceptionally well, yet it has some limitations in creating custom fields for different types of resources and automating resource allocation.

So, ResourceGuru is an ideal choice for small and mid-sized teams for whom resource scheduling is a thing. Still, large enterprises looking to streamline their entire workflow wouldn’t benefit from this tool.

ResourceGuru Key Features – What Do You Get

ResourceGuru has a range of versatile features to make resource scheduling easier for anyone across different industries. So, let’s dig deeper into some of its core functionalities.

Resource Scheduling

ResourceGuru shows who is idle and who is overloaded so that you can rebalance workloads for even distribution.

Sometimes, client requirements or project plans might change, demanding dynamic schedules. With ResourceGuru, you can move around the tasks among team members and switch dates using its drag-and-drop feature.

This flexible resource scheduling tool allows you to add a resource to the waiting list when there is a clash between availability and booking requests, helping you retain employees.

Bookings marked with diagonal lines indicate waiting lists. You can resolve these by moving them to a different date or assigning them to a different person.

If not “waiting list”, you can opt for “Add with overtime”. This will extend your team member’s availability and flag the extra hours with red. So, everything in red in the availability bar is overtime. Having a clear view like this helps you address overwork and burnout in your team effectively.

I was able to easily toggle between billable and non-billable options while booking a resource. This will accurately record all the payable hours and those that are non-billable.

Resource Management

ResourceGuru is a centralized hub for all your team details, so you can easily onboard new employees and introduce the team to them seamlessly.

Need to quickly find the best resource for your job? You can categorize resources based on where they stay, what they know, and their job title, making it easy to pick the right resource.

The platform is developed with contractors and freelancers in mind. You can archive people when you don’t need them and unarchive them when they’re back. This way, you can hide resources without permanently losing their details.

During the test, I was able to archive people in just two steps. Go to the “Resources” tab, choose a profile, and click “Archive”. That’s it, the resource will move to the archived list and won’t be visible unless it is unarchived.

Approval Workflow

The Approval workflow is the most popular feature to come in a recent update. With it, you can assign an approver for anyone on your team. So, whenever you book a person’s time, a request is sent to the approver, and it reflects on the schedule once the approver accepts it. The approver can also choose to decline or add it to the pending list.

This is an enterprise-level feature that comes with the tool’s master plan subscription.

You can set a default approver to whom everyone’s booking request is sent or go granular by setting up specific approvers for different team members.

For example, you can set a content manager as the approver for all the content writers’ and editors’ time, while a senior data engineer can manage approvals for the entire data team.

To enable this feature, open settings, select “Approval Workflow” from the left pane, and click “Enable Approval Workflow”. You can choose a name from the “Resources” tab > Click the “Edit” button and set “Booking Approvers”.

The main highlight is that all this takes no time with the ResourceGuru app. Approvers get instant notifications via email, and the requests are immediately visible on the dashboard and schedule. You can even send reminders to follow up with the approvers if a decision hasn’t been made yet.

Leave Management

ResourceGuru’s leave tracker shows clear visibility into the team’s time off and holiday calendar. You can easily record when and why an employee is off and get full visibility into these details with the tool’s powerful reports.

You can even Sync your Google or Microsoft personal calendars with this feature bringing all the personal time off and holiday planner events into the tool. Furthermore, Zapier integration makes the tool even more powerful, with support for over 1500 integrations.

Reports

In our hands-on exploration of ResourceGuru, we delved into the reports tab on the homepage. The tool generates individual reports for each of the following categories:

The utilization bar in the Resources report shows what percentage of your resources are currently being used. You can also see numbers for overtime, vacation, waiting list, billable, and unscheduled hours. Clicking on a resource name in this tab opens up an individual report of that person.

Click on the “Projects” tab to open a project report. A combined report of all the projects appears first. Below is a list of individual project names. Simply click a project name to open a report on that particular project.

Capacity Planning

Say goodbye to the traditional method of manually inputting team availability details into spreadsheets. With ResourceGuru, you can set up automations that generate these details for you.

Once the entire schedule is prepared, just look at the calendar. The bigger the green bar, the more time the resource is available for.

In the reports tab, sort the resources by waiting list or overtime to identify lacking areas. With the tool’s waiting list, you can forecast how many more freelancers or staff you might need.

Also, filter resources by skill, department, and location to decide on hiring requirements to fulfill current and upcoming projects.

ResourceGuru Interface – How Easy Is It to Use

After our tests, we confidently shout out that ResourceGuru’s interface is easy to navigate, even for first-timers. Since the tool is a cloud-based platform, it’s built for the web and looks native on popular web browsers.

If you ask us how the tool looks? We’re proud to say that the tool’s UI is very clean and clear, with all the primary features placed as tabs on the top menu bar.

They are: Dashboard, Schedule, Resources, Projects & Clients, and Reports.

The “Schedule” tab shows the clear calendar of all the resources, using color bars to represent overbooked, available, and time-off slots.

In the “Resources” section, you’ll find your resource names on cards. Clicking on each card opens up all the details like job title, skills, availability, and more about that particular team member. You can easily add or remove resources here.

Simply click on the “Reports” tab on the main page to access comprehensive reports on projects, resources, and clients.

Sadly, ResourceGuru doesn’t have native iOS or Android versions. All you can do to use it on mobile is to add its shortcut to the home screen. This way, you can easily access the tool on the mobile web whenever you want to.

ResourceGuru on Mobile

Here is a quick guide on how to add the shortcut to your mobile’s home screen:

• Open a web browser on your mobile.
• Log in to your ResourceGuru account.
• Click on the ‘share’ icon.

• Scroll down and tap ‘Add to Home Screen’.

• Tap ‘Add’.

Though it lacks a mobile app, ResourceGuru’s web version doesn’t leave out anything for you.

Getting started with the tool on your computer is a breeze. Open the website, click on the ‘Free trial’ button in the top right area of the screen, and fill in the signup form to access its 30-day free trial with no boundaries.

As it is a cloud tool, there aren’t many hardware expectations from your PC. A decent OS version with a modern web browser does the job.

If you feel a little bit of training is required to leverage some features, google them, and many tutorials, blogs, and videos pop up. Moreover, the tool’s official help center has detailed articles from experts. You can use its built-in search engine to quickly find the articles you need.

ResourceGuru Pricing

ResourceGuru’s pricing plans come in 3 distinct tiers, facilitating both monthly and annual billing cycles.

The lack of a free plan is a major drawback of the tool. Many of its direct competitors, such as Monday.com and ClickUp, provide a free plan with certain limitations. Still, you can test out the tool with its generous free trial, where you’ll get unrestricted access to all of its features for 30 days.

Looking at just numbers, ResourceGuru is cheaper than Monday.com, ClickUp, and Smartsheet. However, its features are solely for resource management, while others offer a more comprehensive blend of task management and some resource management features.

So, we wouldn’t say ResourceGuru is cheap or pricey; the tool provides competitive pricing aligned with its features.

Grasshopper Plan

This is the best choice for project managers with a small team. At just $4.16 per user per month, you’ll get most of the scheduling and customization features of the tool.

Scheduling features include the ability to book multiple resources, toggle between billable and non billable hours, overtime bookings, and an advanced clash management system.

You can add unlimited projects, resources, and clients to the tool. Its project view and calendar sync capabilities keep you up-to-date about all the upcoming events and plans of your team members.

Moreover, this plan records your activity log for the last 7 days.

Blackbelt Plan

There isn’t much in this plan that differs from the previous one. At $6.65 per user per month, you’ll get everything mentioned in the above plan, plus detailed reports on resources, projects, and clients.

Here, you’ll unlock customizable reports displaying resource utilization percentage, overtime, waiting list, time-off, billable, and non-billable hours. Get these reports at both the broader level for all resources and the granular, single-resource level.

Topping the base plan, this plan extends the activity log tracking to 90 days.

Approval workflow and phone support are the two notable features this plan is missing out on.

Master Plan

This top-level subscription plan includes 5 noteworthy features that you won’t find in both the Grasshopper and Blackbelt plans:

This Master plan comes with better security, permissions, and support options compared to the previous plans.

With its Approval Workflow feature, you can assign approvers to each resource so that a booking can be confirmed only upon the approver’s acceptance. This way, you can make sure that the in-demand hours of your skilled resources will be used on high-priority tasks first.

This version offers a quick SSO login feature without needing a login ID and other credentials to enter your ResourceGuru account.

Often, the top-tier or enterprise-level subscription plan will have varied prices based on the features you need. But with ResourceGuru, the Master Plan comes at $10 per user per month with these fixed services.

The pricing for all the above plans is based on the number of people and non-human resources you add to your account. You are free to add or remove resources whenever you want. Also, you can change your mind anytime and cancel the subscription. Either way, interim billing will be applied.

Can You Scale and Integrate ResourceGuru with Other Apps?

During our test, we found some really cool scalable and integration options within the tool, especially in its enterprise edition. It has 3 pricing tiers, starting from a simple plan for individual freelancers to scaling up with the Master plan as your team grows.

Let’s explore the different integration options the tool supports.

Calendar

Connect your Google or Outlook calendars with the tool’s schedule to sync all of your events and stay on track. Better still, you can add Google or Outlook push notifications to the tool and receive reminders of Google Calendar events directly within ResourceGuru.

Moreover, you can integrate Apple Calendar, Calendly, Fantastical, or many other calendars into the tool via 1-way sync. The main difference between the Google or Outlook integration from other calendars is how they sync – whether it’s one-way or two-way.

Google and Outlook calendars support two-way sync. That is, the schedule is sent and received between the tool and Calendars. But in the case of one-way calendar integrations, ResourceGuru only receives the schedule and doesn’t support passing its data to external calendars.

Zapier Integration

This Zapier integration lets you connect and automate workflows between ResourceGuru and other apps. For example, the ResourceGuru schedule automatically updates when you edit a task in a connected application.

It’s possible to link your ResourceGuru account with Slack, Gmail, Teams, Salesforce, Zoom, and other 1500+ apps through Zapier integration.

APIs and Webhooks

APIs and Webhooks are a great way to scale the tool. You can register and fetch the ResourceGuru API into your own custom apps.

For instant updates, ResourceGuru software supports Webhooks. Use them to exchange the info between the tool and other apps in real time.

ResourceGuru vs Leading Resource Management Services

If you’re wondering how ResourceGuru fares against other leading tools in the industry, here’s a quick table comparing the top 5 resource management solutions, including ResourceGuru:

While there are many competitors in the market, ResourceGuru stands out for its exclusive resource management offerings presented in a simple and easy user interface.

We believe that Monday.com and ClickUp have extensive project management features, but ResourceGuru software is perfect at what it does. As it’s primarily designed for resource scheduling, this is what ResourceGuru shines at the most.

ResourceGuru vs Monday – Side-by-Side Comparison

Monday.com, has many unique project management features, including resource management capabilities. But ResourceGuru differs a bit from Monday.com’s approach. Its main idea is to help you maximize resource utilization, but lacks project management features.

Here is the quick comparison of both the tools:

What Do ResourceGuru Reviews Say?

Besides our hands-on testing for this ResourceGuru review, we’ve scrolled through the comments and experiences of some real users on sites like G2 and Capterra.

283 actual users shared their opinions and reviews about the tool on G2, and the average rating is a solid 4.7 out of 5. Pretty impressive! With a higher customer satisfaction rate, 231 out of 238 users rated the tool a perfect 5 out of 5.

We experienced the same intuitive user interface, which is highly adaptable even for beginners. Users here exclusively highlighted how effective the tool’s filters are in gaining visibility into resources, projects, and reports.

Just like we do, some users appreciate how seamlessly the tool integrates with Outlook and Google calendars. This helps them start their day with an up-to-date look at projects assigned to them straight in the tool.

Large enterprise users liked:

Despite ease of use and competitive pricing, some customers might not like the idea of a sole resource management tool without many project management features.

Sadly, there is no one talking about ResourceGuru on Reddit and TrustPilot, which would have been more realistic if it were present.

Overall, major ratings praise the tool’s simple-to-use interface, human resource scheduling features, and visibility.

Good ResourceGuru Alternatives for Project Management

Besides ResourceGuru, there are many competitors and even leading platforms in the market. These excellent tools may come with more advanced features and diverse paid plans; some even offer lifetime free versions.

After testing various tools, we listed down some of the best alternatives to the ResourceGuru below for you:

Why You Can Trust Our Review of ResourceGuru

Whenever we write a review for software or a tool, we’re happy to test all of its core features ourselves to provide you with real insights into the tool’s functionalities.

No doubt, this review is based on our thorough hands-on testing of the tool, but we aren’t the only final judges here. We’ve also considered other users’ opinions and ratings on authentic places like G2, TrustPilot, and Capterra.

We didn’t just stop there. We’ve compared the tool’s features, pricing, and customer satisfaction rates with other popular PM tools in the market. If you’re wondering how we were able to do this, we’ve already tested and reviewed Monday.com, Smartsheet, and Clickup.

How to Use ResourceGuru: Step-By-Step Guide

You can try the tool’s fully featured 30-day free trial before making any decision. For this ResourceGuru project management review, we’ve signed up for the tool and tested all its core capabilities.

Below, we’ll show how we set up the tool and access its features.

1. Sign Up and Login to the Tool

Open the ResourceGuru website and Click on “Try it free for 30 days”. Fill in your name, email, and password. Remember these credentials to log in next time. Now, click “Start My 30-day Trial”.

Select your preferred time zone from the drop-down menu and click “Get Started”.

A video with the full overview of the tool appears on the screen. Play that to get an idea about the tool. However, you can skip it if you already know.

2. Access your team’s Schedule

Once you log in to the tool, click on the “Schedule” tab on the top menu bar.

You can dig into the details of each resource from the left side pane. Just click on a resource name, and you’ll see all the details about that person right there.

The focus area of this screen is occupied by the schedule of each resource. A green bar means the resource has the bandwidth to take up tasks. The red bar indicates the resource is booked overtime. Just hovering over any bar shows the inner details of that booking.

3. Add/Remove Resources

Click on the “Resources” tab on the home screen.

Select a card with some person’s name on this page to view its permissions, assigned projects, department, skills, availability, and more info. You can use the “Edit” option there to modify or update any info about that resource.

You can click the “New Resource” button on the top right area to add a new resource to the tool.

4. Analyze Reports

Go to the “Reports” tab on the home screen.

You can analyze reports specific to Resources, Projects, or Clients by selecting respective tabs.

Scroll down the page and click on a resource name, project title, or a client name to generate an individual report on it. Same way, you can generate individual reports for each project or client under the “Projects & Clients” tabs.

5. Dashboard

The very first tab on the home screen – “Dashboard” displays all your day-wise activities on the screen. You can scroll down to see your activity and events for the coming days while scrolling up shows what’s been done in the past.

On the right panel, you can access approvals, waiting lists, and tentative bookings. Click the “Add Time Off” button to add your vacation dates to ResourceGuru’s calendar.

Should You Use ResourceGuru?

We find that ResourceGuru is a simple and easy-to-use software for scheduling all your resources. With all the facts revealed, a fine balance between the tool’s ease of use, comprehensive features, and affordability leaves us genuinely impressed.

Its scrollable dashboards, insightful reports, granular filters, and native integrations make it a suitable choice for a wide range of use cases, from human resources to equipment management.

Overall, ResourceGuru is a strong rival in the resource management world, especially for small to mid-sized businesses.

So, should you use ResourceGuru? We believe ResourceGuru offers enough features for the value you pay. It’s definitely worth trying. With its 30-day fully featured free trial, explore everything it’s got, and then decide if you want to level up.

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