Create resource requests with clear timing, allocation, and skill requirements, and track their status from your budgets and deals.
As a project manager, resource requests let you ask for the right people without creating bookings yourself.
Instead of booking people for services in the budgets and deals you manage directly, you define what you need, such as skills, period, and allocation, and submit a request that a resource manager can review, discuss, and resolve.
This keeps planning transparent and avoids manual coordination outside Productive.
📌 Your ability to create, edit, or track resource requests depends on your permissions in Productive. Learn more about resource request permissions.
Where Project Managers Create Resource Requests
Resource requests are created in budgets or deals.
Navigate to the relevant budget or deal
Open the Resource Requests tab (this is where you'll see all existing requests for that budget or a deal)
Click + Request in the upper right to start drafting your new request
Creating a Resource Request
When you create a resource request, a sidebar opens with the following sections.
1) Basic details
Request title
Add a request title so you and the resource manager can quickly understand what is being requested.Service
Preselected based on the budget or deal. This helps connect the request to planned work.
2) Period and allocation
Define when and how much capacity you need.
Date range – select start and end dates
Allocation – choose one of:
Total hours
Hours per day
Percentage of the user's capacity (based on their cost rate)
3) Adding Requirements and a Note
Click + Requirement to add criteria that describe the person you need.
Search and select from the available fields, grouped by category, such as Employee Details (job title, subsidiary, teams, tags, preferred max cost per hour) and General Information (date joined, department, and more).
📌 Available fields depend on the employee details and employee fields set up for your team.
Add Preferred max cost per hour as a requirement to set a maximum hourly rate. Productive calculates the total cost automatically once you set a rate.
Total cost is calculated as: working days (date range) × max hourly cost.
Click + Note to add free-text context, such as must-have versus nice-to-have skills or flexibility on requirements.
Saving and Tracking the Request
Once saved:
The request status is set to Pending.
A feed is created where you can add comments, respond to questions, and track updates.
You can always return to the Resource Requests tab on the budget or deal to check status, who created the request, and when it was created.
Editing or Canceling a Request
As the requester, you can:
Edit your request if details change and update it
Cancel the request if it’s no longer needed
Delete it entirely if it was created by mistake
Tip: Copy an existing request instead of creating one from scratch. That's especially useful when you only need to change a few details.
What’s Next
After creating a resource request, you might wonder what happens next.
1) Notifications
Resource managers with the right permissions receive an email and in-app notification when a new request is created. As the requester, you'll also get updates when comments are added or the request status changes.
👉 Learn more about resource request permissions, notifications, and subscribers.
2) Resource Manager Review
Resource managers evaluate your request, suggest the best-fitting people, and can resolve, reject, or discuss it.
👉 Learn more about resolving resource requests.
3) Result if Approved
If the request is approved, the best-matching users are assigned and bookings are created.
Communication between the project manager and resource manager can continue in the request's feed if clarification is needed.
📌 Approved requests create bookings, but assigned users may not automatically be included in the budget/deal.
Make sure all booked users are added to the relevant budget or deal, so their time can be tracked against the correct services. Productive currently allows bookings for users who aren't explicitly included in the budget or deal, which can cause time tracking issues.
You can add a user either directly from the booking or via the sharing options on the budget or a deal.
