Creating Effective OpenAir Skill Profiles

NetSuite OpenAir has many powerful features to support your Resource Management strategy.  This article focuses on creating OpenAir skill profiles. Skill profiles are a useful method for planning and staffing projects quickly and effectively giving the ability to:

• Identify skill sets of existing employees and contractors needed for your various projects
• Assist in resource performance management and career path planning
• Support global utilization and resource-sharing models

While skill profiles typically involve specific skills offered by each employee, the data isn’t limited to skills alone. You can also use the profiles to further narrow your field of prospective resources by using information like passport and Visa expiration, certifications, and travel preferences. Factors that will help you identify the best employees for a specific task are the ones to keep in mind as you are building your skill profiles in OpenAir.

How to Create Effective Skill Profiles

A skill profile is comparable to a spreadsheet you might use to track other data. You can choose the tracking variables tailored to the specific needs of your company. Customization allows for maximum efficiency as you are assembling teams for your different projects.  The first step is identifying and focusing on how you will use your skills profiles.  

What to include in your Skill Profiles

Some of the most valuable items to include in your skill profiles include:

•  Product Experience: If necessary, break down experience into subcategories of products for easier retrieval of relevant data.
• Industry Experience: This information determines familiarity with subject matter expertise and terminology. For example, healthcare projects and financial projects use different terms and require separate areas of expertise.
• Languages: This information is particularly relevant if you are a global company and require fluency in different languages for some projects. The ability to read or write in that language may be the key to winning a proposal.
• Location: Think in terms of the office an employee reports to daily. If you are global, you can break down categories into regions. If you are national, you might prefer a state-by-state breakdown.
• Technological Skills: Knowing your employees’ programming languages, databases, and operating systems will help you narrow the field for projects quickly and accurately.

Watch out for the pitfalls

The biggest trap when creating your skill profiles is including more data than you need to staff your projects effectively. This does little more than creating ‘data noise’, making it more challenging to use the profiles as efficiently as you can. Some examples of things to omit from your skills profiles might include:

• Tracking Product Experience by Version Number: In most cases, knowing which version number an employee has mastered will not make that much difference in the ability to participate in a project using that product. There are exceptions, where significant changes occur between product versions. In those cases, tracking by version number might be appropriate.
• Tracking More Items than are Necessary for Your Business: Comprehensive skills lists are not beneficial if they include individual skills that would never be needed, searched, or otherwise used by your business. Simplify the list to include only skills that are critical or in need.  
• Tracking Skills Needed for Everyday Professional Tasks: These types of skills are quite often referred to as ‘soft skills’.  An excellent example of this is giving presentations. Not everyone may provide the same level of quality in presentations, but everyone in your company is most likely expected to be able to do them. Look at skills your company is highly dependent on or known for, and include those tasks – not basic skills you expect the majority of your employees to have.

Keeping your skill profiles up to date  

Skill profiles are only truly useful if they are updated regularly. Keeping them updated can also be the most challenging component of using skill profiles efficiently. OpenAir does not provide or support automated reminders or alerts regarding updating profile information. However, there are ways  to help you keep skills up to date:

• Create a Script: A simple OpenAir script can be created to serve as a reminder when profile information hasn’t been updated in a certain period.
• Use the Resource Profile Configuration: As part of the Resource Profile configuration, there is an option per skill category/element to alert users when a new entry has been added (column checkbox).  Using this option allows you to create your own “reminder” by adding a new value to a required profile. The notification will only go out to those who have a specific category in their profile, and only active users are notified.
• Choose a Time to Update: You can use annual or quarterly reviews as a time to review and update profiles. You can also choose to track profile categories with a set of current and expired attributes. Keep in mind this approach requires regular reviews of data to ensure the status is correct.  

Resource Management is more of a process than a tool, and skill profiles are just one component of the process.  When setting up your skill profiles, set them up based on your business needs; and keep it simple with key critical information to support those needs efficiently and effectively. 

Want to learn more about Skill Profiles and Scheduling Techniques in OpenAir?  Listen to our recorded webinar or contact a member of our team.