Time Tracking Overview provides a foundation for understanding the mechanisms involved with managing individual time entries. In this article, we will describe the higher-level concept of timesheets. Timesheets in Ruddr enable organizations to manage time entries on a weekly basis. With timesheets, instead of members submitting time for one or more arbitrary days, members submit their weekly timesheets.
Enabling Timesheets in Ruddr
The timesheets feature in Ruddr can be enabled or disabled within the Features section (Figure 1) of workspace Settings. As some organizations may not need or desire to use timesheets, Ruddr allows this feature set to be turned off. To enable or disable timesheets, simply click the Timesheets toggle (Figure 2) on the Features section.
Figure 1 - Access the Timesheets Feature via the Features section of Ruddr Workspace Settings
Figure 2 - Toggle the Timesheets Feature On or Off Based on your Organizational Requirements
When timesheets are turned on, a new Timesheets navigation option will display (Figure 3) in the nav bar on the left of the screen. Accessing the Timesheets section will bring up the timesheets screen (Figure 4).
Figure 3 - Accessing Timesheets from the Nav Bar
Figure 4 - View Timesheets
Managing Time with Timesheets
The various Time-related functions in Ruddr break down as follows:
This article will cover some of the basic implications of Timesheets on these functions. Please refer to the individual articles in the Time section for more detailed, related information.
Time Entry with Timesheets
The two significant impacts of timesheets on time entry are:
- All time entries are grouped into weekly timesheets. When you view your time entries (Figure 5) via time entry screens, you will see a timesheet status bar denotes whether or not that particular timesheet has been submitted.
- If a timesheet has been submitted, then the timesheet must be unsubmitted in order to access any of the time entries in that timesheet. For more on the effect timesheets have on time submittal, see the next section below.
Figure 5 - The Week View of Time Entry Displaying the Not Submitted Timesheet Status
For more information, view the Time Tracking Overview article in Ruddr Help Center.
Time Submission with Timesheets
For workspaces with the Timesheet feature disabled, members can submit individual time entries, or choose to submit any outstanding time entries all at once. With timesheets enabled, however, members must submit time entries as part of a single timesheet. As discussed above, time entries are grouped by timesheets, therefore members do not submit individual time entries, nor do they submit groups of time entries across multiple timesheets.
To submit a timesheet, a member can click the Submit Timesheet button (Figure 6) on the time entry screen.
Figure 6 - When Timesheets are Enabled, Members can Submit the Entire Timesheet from the Day View
Note that some members may be required to enter a minimum number of hours on their timesheet in order to submit the timesheet. Ruddr provides workspace admins with the ability to specify whether a member's capacity must be met prior to submitting a timesheet. If this setting is applied to a member, and that member has not entered the minimum number of hours on their timesheet, they will receive a warning message (Figure 7), and will be unable to submit their timesheet.
Figure 7 - Some Members may be Required to Meet Capacity Requirements when Submitting a Timesheet
Once a timesheet is submitted, all time entries associated with that timesheet are locked. However, in some cases, timesheets can be unsubmitted, as we will discuss in the next section.
When a Member can Unsubmit their Timesheet
Workspace Administrators can restrict timesheet submission based on the following rules / settings (Figure 8) in Ruddr:
Figure 8 - Timesheet Unsubmission Rules
For more on these rules, please refer to the General Workspace Settings article in the Ruddr Help Center.
If all of these settings are unchecked, members can unsubmit their timesheet at any time. Note, however, that locked time entries will remain locked and members will not be able to edit those time entries unless they have the applicable Time and Expense Administrative permissions on their Security Role.
If the first setting, A time entry on the timesheet has been manually approved is checked, a member can not unsubmit their timesheet if that timesheet includes any manually-approved time entries.
If the second setting, A time entry on the timesheet is associated with an invoice, a member cannot unsubmit their timesheet if any time entry on the timesheet has been invoiced.
Workspace Admins can restrict members from unsubmitting their timesheet once the timesheet is a specified number of days old. In this case, even if other conditions would typically allow the member to unsubmit their timesheet, this time-based restriction would prevent them from doing so.
Lastly, Workspace Admins may restrict members from unsubmitting their timesheet once a certain point in the following month is reached. Like the time-based mechanism described above, this restriction would prevent the unsubmission of a timesheet even when other conditions might allow it.
Once unsubmission is restricted, timesheets can be unsubmitted only by members with member-based Time and Expense Administrative permissions.
Unsubmitting a Timesheet
Members will see an Unsubmit Timesheet button (Figure 8) on the time entry screen when this option is available.
When a timesheet is unsubmitted by a member, any time entries in that timesheet that have been manually approved will remain locked. In that case, a time and expense administrator will need to either edit the time entry on behalf of the member or will need to reject the time entry to send it back to the member for editing. Likewise, if a member has unsubmitted a timesheet that contains invoiced time entries, those time entries will remain locked.
Finally, when a timesheet is unsubmitted, any time entries that are in the middle of a multi-step approval workflow will have their approval workflow "reset" -- when the timesheet is resubmitted, the time entries will need to go back through approvals beginning with Step 1 of their respective approval workflow.
Figure 8 - This Timesheet can be Unsubmitted as the Time Entries have been Automatically Approved and are not Otherwise Locked
Time Auditing
Time Auditing in Ruddr allows members to manage their own time entries. Depending on a member's security role, they may be able to administer other members' time entries as well. With Timesheets enabled, there is no material change to the time auditing experience for members.
Time Approval
Generally speaking, there is no material change to the way that time is approved in Ruddr with the Timesheets feature enabled. Whether the workspace or projects are set for automatic or manual time approval, the user experience of approving time does not change.
What does change is the concept of receiving time approval notifications for a week's worth of time entries at once, as opposed to receiving approval notifications for however many time entries that members chose to submit at any given time. And, of course, each time entry is associated with a particular timesheet when the feature is enabled.
For more information on this topic, visit the Time Approval article in Ruddr Help Center.
Time Entry Locking
Put simply, the timesheets feature introduces the concept of locking a group of time entries associated with a specific timesheet, when that timesheet has been submitted for approval. Please note that once time entries are approved, they can be locked for a number of additional reasons and that more actions may need to be taken on those individual time entries beyond simply unsubmitting the timesheet they belong to.
For more details on the locking of time entries, set the Time Entry Locking section of Ruddr Help Center.