Resource Plan Approval Process Overview

After one or more portfolio resource plan scenarios have been created by the portfolio manager, the manager typically sends one or more unapproved plan scenarios out for review to stakeholders, sends proposed role allocations to project managers for negotiations, and then sends the final plan scenario out for approval.

Before the process begins, you should assign users to the various approval process roles.

Scenarios can be sent for review and approval by the portfolio manager from the Resource Planning page. There are four options for reviewing or approving a scenario. Send for Review, Propose, and Send for Approval are optional steps.

• Send for Review: The scenario is sent to users assigned the Reviewer role at the portfolio level. These users are typically a committee of people from different departments in the organization that review proposed scenarios before approval, referred to as stakeholders. The reviewers receive notifications about one or more scenarios that include a link to the Scenario Comparison page. On the Scenario Comparison page, reviewers can analyze the data, compare scenarios, and give feedback to the portfolio manager per scenario using the Discussions panel for each scenario.
• Propose: The scenario is sent to users assigned the Owner role (typically project managers) for each project listed in the resource plan. This action is typically done when the portfolio manager has completed the what-if and scenario planning, has had a stakeholder review that resulted in narrowing down to one scenario to be proposed, and is ready to negotiate with the project owner the project dates and proposed role allocation. The project owners receive notifications about the scenario that include a link to the Resource Demand page. On the Resource Demand page, the project owners can review the dates and proposed role allocations from the portfolio manager and have the option to accept the allocations or request changes.
• Send for Approval: The scenario is sent to users assigned the Approver role at the portfolio level. The approvers receive notification about the scenario that includes a link to the scenario on the Resource Planning page. On the Resource Planning page, the approver can review the data in the scenario and provide any final comments and notify the portfolio manager of approval of the scenario by entering comments in the Discussion panel for the scenario.
• Approve: After final comments have been received from the reviewers, the portfolio manager can mark this plan as approved. If the scenario does not require an approval process, the portfolio manager can select to approve the scenario without having it routed to anyone.

When a resource plan scenario is approved, the proposed role allocations become the approved role allocation values for each project, and the approved scenario becomes the resource plan for the planning period.