A standalone product that also integrates with Maconomy, a project accounting application, People Planner is far more suited for resource planning than Excel or Microsoft Project, says product marketing manager Drew West. For example, “Excel is a great way to hide resources,” he quipped noting that a manager who utilizes Microsoft’s ubiquitous spreadsheet product may not want to share resources, while Project is too granular and can’t display resources across all projects and across the organization. People Planner can also show much more than the availability of staff. It can display expertise, experience with different types of clients and any special skills such as the ability to speak another language. There have been some onboarding rounds for the Deltek channel, and I also get the feeling the VARs want to get their hands on Maconomy itself.