Determine resource needs
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 11 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Making Decisions and Solving Problems (4.A.2.b.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 11 occupations that perform it.
- Recommend locations for new facilities, or oversee the remodeling or renovating of current facilities.
- Evaluate the organization's technology use and needs and recommend improvements, such as hardware and software upgrades.
- Evaluate needs for procurement of funds and investment of surpluses and make appropriate recommendations.
- Determine how to allocate resources and to respond to unanticipated problems, such as insect infestation, drought, and fire.
- Determine the scope of educational program offerings and prepare drafts of program schedules and descriptions to estimate staffing and facility requirements.
- Assess staffing needs and recruit staff, using methods such as newspaper advertisements or attendance at job fairs.
- Assess security needs across locations to ensure proper deployment of loss prevention resources, such as staff and technology.
- Forecast necessary levels of staffing and stock at different times to facilitate effective scheduling and ordering.
- Review contracts or work assignments to determine service, machine, or workforce requirements for jobs.
- Compute or estimate cash, payroll, transportation, personnel, or storage requirements.
- Compute or estimate cash, payroll, transportation, or personnel requirements.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
11 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Computer and Information Systems Managers
- Education and Childcare Administrators, Preschool and Daycare
- Farmers, Ranchers, and Other Agricultural Managers
- First-Line Supervisors of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers
- First-Line Supervisors of Landscaping, Lawn Service, and Groundskeeping Workers
- First-Line Supervisors of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators
- First-Line Supervisors of Passenger Attendants
- Food Service Managers
- General and Operations Managers
- Loss Prevention Managers
- Treasurers and Controllers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Determine resource needs of projects or operations”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.