Using Time Reporting view

Table of Contents

• Set up

  • Custom setup

• Basic usage

  • Adding rows
  • Entering times
  • Adding notes
  • Deleting rows

• Constraining level 1 - 4 values

• Automatically copy values from reference boards to the main board

• Using board permissions to control access

• Configuring holidays

• Implementing time approval process

Set up

The recommended method of setting Time Reporting up is to use Workspace Template, as described in Installation chapter. This creates all the necessary boards, columns and views to start tracking time.

Workspace Template creates set of boards connected as below:

• Level 1 board (e.g. Clients) - has Allowed People and Allowed Level 2 columns which limit selection of Level 1 items per Person, and Level 2 items per Level 1 item. This is useful if, for example, you want to limit which Clients can be selected per Person, and which Level 2 items (e.g. Projects) can be selected per Client.

• Level 2 board (e.g. Projects) - has Allowed Level 3 column which limit selection of Level 3 items per Level 2 item. This is useful if, for example, you want to limit which Level 3 items (e.g. Activities) can be selected per Project.

• Level 3 board (e.g. Activities)

• Time Reporting board with several columns necessary to manage time data. It also contains a preconfigured Time Reporting view and an Integration which can be used if board has permissions set to "Edit content only in items assigned in the Person column(s)"

• Holiday boards - configured in Time Reporting view Holiday Settings.

Custom setup

It is also possible to set it up from scratch without the Workspace Template. To do that, you'll need at least 2 boards:

• reference items board (e.g. clients, projects or tasks). You can have up to 4 of them, plus additional board for information about People.
• main board for storing all the items containing time entries

There are 2 ways to configure reference items boards:

• using Text columns on the main board (recommended)
• using Connect boards columns on the main board (not recommended for large numbers of time entries)

Depending on which method you choose, see dedicated guides on how to proceed with set up:

• Using Text columns
• Using Connect boards

Basic usage

Adding rows

Before adding any time, create a row. Row has to contain a Person and at least 1 level of reference.

Note, that selections for level 1- level 4 may be constrained based on the setup of respective boards.

• Level 1 values can be constrained by Allowed People column in Level 1 board and show only items allowed for selected person
• Level 2 values can be constrained by Allowed Level 2 column in Level 1 board
• Level 3 values can be constrained by Allowed Level 3 column in Level 2 board
• Level 4 values can be constrained by Allowed Level 4 column in Level 3 board

Selection of columns with constraints is controlled by column name prefix, which can be set in View Settings of Time Reporting view. By default first columns of matching types are taken as constraints.

Entering times

Entering times is intuitive and similar to using spreadsheet. You can usee keyboard navigation too and move to the next cell using Tab or Enter (Shift + Tab/Enter to move to previous cell).

Adding notes

You can add a note on the time by clicking "dog ear" in the upper right corner of the cell (it appears when you hover over the cell).

Notes are visible as black "doe ears" in cells. Hover to see the note as a tooltip.

Deleting rows

To delete a row, use dropdown menu to the left of every row.

Constraining level 1 - 4 values

Automatically copy values from reference boards to the main board

TRS allows you to capture values from the reference boards and copy them to the main Time Reporting or Planning board as new values are added.

For example, board Clients has a column with cost per hour for each client, and you want to copy this value to the main board when a new row is created (e.g. to calculate total cost of time spent on a task).

To do this, you can set up Time Reporting or Planning view to Copy column values from the reference board to the main board.

You can copy as many values as you want. Columns used for configuration of the Time Reporting or Planning view cannot be used as target columns.

Assuming the setup from image above, where source column is Cost from the board Clients and target column is Numbers on the main board, the row on the main board after inserting a time entry could look like this:

The value 10 was copied from the Cost column in the Clients board to the Numbers column in the main board.

This functionality is available for both Connect board and Text reference columns, with the exception of free text reference columns.

Using board permissions to control access

By default (i.e. Board edit permissions set to Edit everything) everyone can view and edit everyone else's time. To edit everyone's times, add yourself to Manager's list in View Settings of Time Reporting view.

In case this is not desirable and you want to limit edit permissions so that everyone, except boards owners, can only edit their own times, change Board edit permissions to "Edit content only in items assigned to them in the Person column(s)".

This alone would prevent non-board owners from entering new times or deleting them as this entails creation/deletion of items on the board. To address this, install Integration which comes with Time Reporting app.

From now on, users who are not board owners, won't be able to edit others' times. This applies even if they're on the Managers list in View Settings.

Configuring holidays

Holidays can be marked on the board, but we won't prevent you from adding or editing times on these days.

There are 2 types of holidays:

• Corporate - apply to everyone
• Personal - apply to selected persons

An example of a simple personal holiday board using Date From/To columns:

Note, that it's possible to use Timeline column instead of Date From/To columns. A corporate holiday board can be created in a similar way, but Person column in that case wouldn't be required.

Once you've created holiday boards, navigate to "..." menu in the Time Reporting view and select Holiday Settings.

You can then add as many boards for Corporate or Personal holidays as necessary. Holidays from each board can be marked with selected colors.

Implementing time approval process

• Add new status column to Time Reporting Board, name it for example Approval
• Restrict editing of that column to selected people with approval rights
• Edit available statuses according to your process, e.g. New item, Ready for review, Approved, Declined
• Duplicate Time Reporting view and name it for example Time Approval
• Set up Time Approval's view settings to point Status Column to newly created status column Approval
• Set up automation: When Status changes to Submitted, change Approval to Ready for review

From now on approvers can use Time Approvals view to quickly review and approve/decline entered times.