CRAFT - Forecasting & Budgeting Tool

Description

Vodworks team developed a solution for scheduling, forecasting and budgeting of resources for EA’s global operations — Centralised Resource Actuals and Forecasting Tool (CRAFT).

Tech stack

ASP .NET
AngularJS
SQL Server
Azure

Challenge

EA had a crucial requirement for a comprehensive, multi-user platform that would centralise the management and reporting of resource allocations for all development centres worldwide. This gave birth to the Centralised Resource Actuals and Forecasting Tool (CRAFT).

Previously, the organisation relied on a single Excel sheet to maintain resource forecasts for a limited number of projects, with planning restricted to six months. However, CRAFT emerged as a transformative solution that tackled the more significant challenges of streamlining and centralising the entire resource allocation process. With its intelligent resource allocation capabilities, CRAFT effectively addressed the needs of hundreds of projects, generating projections that extended several years into the future. This marked a significant shift from the previous limited approach, empowering the organisation to plan and allocate resources strategically on a global scale.

Our solution

Our solution addressed the critical needs of EA's global operations by delivering a comprehensive platform for scheduling, forecasting, and budgeting of resources. We provided end-to-end development services, including project design, development, testing, and deployment.

CRAFT was developed to optimise resource utilisation, enhance project planning, and achieve better alignment between resource allocation and business goals. The platform's scalability and flexibility ensured that our client could adapt to future changes and continue to efficiently manage their global operations.

Pitfalls

While the client was very certain about their requirements, one of the major obstacles we faced was accommodating the diverse wishes of stakeholders for the platform. Each team, department, and division had different expectations from our software solution.

However, we successfully managed this challenge by implementing strict scope control and adopting a strategy of frequent releases. By actively engaging with these stakeholders and closely collaborating to address their unique challenges, we meticulously "crafted" CRAFT into the remarkable tool it is today.

Features

Reporting capabilities, providing stakeholders with valuable insights into resource allocations, utilisation, and project progress.
A role-based access system, allowing different user roles to access relevant information and perform authorised actions.
The ability to accurately forecast resource allocations for projects and track actual resource allocation against those forecasts.
An approval workflow within the system, ensuring that resource allocations received the necessary authorisation from leads and project owners before implementation.
Capability to revise and update resource allocations as project requirements changed to adapt to evolving needs while maintaining effective resource management.
A snapshot mechanism that allowed our client to capture and save the state of resource allocations at specific points in time.

Results

Currently over $3 billion have been budgeted using the solution.
The team at EA is happy with our services and recently gave us phase 2 of the project which is currently developing.

Review

Prasanth Dangeti

"The CRAFT tool is remarkable and I can already envision a world of greater visibility into projects, fewer manual processes, and more productive conversations and analysis."