Deltek Vantagepoint: Master Resource Planning & Project Management for Project-Based Firms

Every project-based firm knows the challenge: turning visionary designs into profitable, on-schedule realities. But in an industry where margins are tight and deadlines are tighter, how do you truly optimize every project?

Are you a firm leader constantly challenged by a lack of clear visibility into your team’s capacity, leaving you guessing about who’s available for that critical new pursuit? Or perhaps you’re a project manager, buried under a mountain of disconnected spreadsheets, tirelessly trying to reconcile project schedules with team availability, only to battle project overruns and missed deadlines?

These aren’t uncommon frustrations. Relying on fragmented data and manual processes can severely hinder your ability to accurately forecast, efficiently staff, and ultimately, profitably deliver projects. The reality is, disconnected information often leads to critical inefficiencies, wasted labor costs, and missed opportunities.

It’s time to ditch the disconnected data and embrace a single source of truth for your entire project lifecycle management.

The Realities of Project Management for AE & Consulting Firms

No matter their size, architectural, engineering, and consulting firms consistently face similar challenges. According to Deltek’s 46th Annual AE Clarity Study, firms reported continued project lifecycle challenges from proposal submission to the execution and close of the project. While the study specifically focuses on AE firms, its insights into project-based challenges are widely applicable.

When deciding whether to even submit a proposal, firms prioritize factors like:

• Project Fit: Is it a good fit for the type of work we do?
• Client Relationship: Do we have an existing client relationship?
• Staff Availability: Do we have the staff to deliver the project?
• Profitability Potential: Will it be profitable?
• Probability of Winning: What is our probability of winning?

Beyond the initial pursuit, project managers frequently navigate critical operational issues, including:

• Competing Priorities: Juggling multiple demands on staff and resources.
• Staff Shortages: Difficulty finding and retaining qualified personnel.
• Inaccurate Forecasting: Challenges with Estimate-to-Complete (ETC) / Estimate-at-Completion (EAC) leading to unexpected costs.
• Fragmented Information: Struggling to manage project data dispersed across various systems.

It is critical for firms to have visibility into their staff utilization, forecasts, and project profitability. Managing data points in multiple systems or spreadsheets can lead to distrust of the data, refusal by staff to use the tools, and the risk of making uninformed business decisions based on outdated data. In addition to managing profitable projects, Project Managers are taking on more responsibilities, making the need for efficiency in managing project staffing and financials even more urgent.

Your Single Source of Truth for Resource & Project Management

Fortunately, there’s a powerful solution designed to conquer these challenges: Deltek Vantagepoint. As the best-in-class ERP designed specifically for project-based firms, Vantagepoint offers powerful resource planning and comprehensive project management capabilities that can transform how you manage projects.

Unlike generic or disparate systems, Vantagepoint seamlessly connects your critical project data, integrating Projects, Employees, Time & Expense, and Billing. This robust integration ensures you have one comprehensive, reliable source of truth across the entire project lifecycle, centralizing both your resource planning and overall project management.

answer “Will it be profitable?”

Streamline your business development efforts by planning and tracking project pursuits and proposed work. Build fee proposals using Generic Resources as placeholders with real billing rates, providing accurate project profitability forecasts before the project even begins.

Optimize Opportunity Management for Profitability

By connecting CRM and Opportunities directly with project planning, Vantagepoint ensures you pursue only the most profitable and strategically aligned projects.

Gain Actionable Insights Post-Award

Once a project is awarded, manage staffing and monitor your projects’ financial health with dynamic, actionable dashboards. Get a real-time view of utilization, forecasts, and overall project profitability, giving you complete command over your project management.

Improve Project Control

Deltek Vantagepoint’s comprehensive features allow for better tracking of project progress, expenses, and timelines, empowering project managers to maintain control and drive projects to successful completion.

Take Your Forecasting to the Next Level with Resource Planning

Deltek Vantagepoint Resource Planning gives you the tools and reports to help you manage your firm’s capacity planning, covering both active projects and your pipeline of pursuits.

Resource View is the staffing “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” for firm leadership. It synthesizes data from the Project Plan and Employees’ targets, enabling you to view staff capacity, make real-time updates, and ensure staff are fully utilized. Project Managers can use Resource View to find available staff for their projects at any stage in the lifecycle, based on Labor Categories and skills.

Elevate Your Project Scheduling with the Plan Schedule Tab

The Plan Schedule tab can be a game-changer for Project Managers who prefer to use a Gantt chart to manage their plans. Seamlessly shift project timelines, create dependencies, and manage lag/lead time.

Enhanced Functionality on the Labor Tab Increases Efficiency:

Planned and Actuals Sub-Rows On the Labor tab

Project Managers gain up-to-date visibility into time entries against their projects, empowering them to course-correct misallocated time and avoid labor transfers during billing.

Distribute Hours Functionality on the Labor tab

This feature provides flexibility in ETC spread functionality while maintaining control of how the hours are distributed. It can also be used to redistribute historical planned hours or to replace planned hours with actuals.

Accelerate Your Success with Vantagepoint Resource Planning

Ready to gain unparalleled visibility into your resource capacity and avoid project overruns with superior project management? 

Let’s discuss how Deltek Vantagepoint Resource Planning can enable you to seamlessly and efficiently manage your projects.