Time Approval

Ruddr offers four time and expense approval types: Automatic, Manual, Client, and Bulk. Automatic approval instantly approves time entries upon creation. Manual approval requires Project Admin review, with optional Multi-Step Approval workflows. Client approval sends batches to clients for validation. Bulk approval allows approvers to act on entries individually or in bulk. As discussed in General Workspace Settings, default time and expense approval settings can be set for the workspace. However, each project in Ruddr can be set up for either manual or automatic time approval, depending on the requirements of the project. Here are the four types of approvals for time and expense in Ruddr:

• Automatic
• Manual
• Client
• Bulk

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Automatic Time Approval

If a project uses automatic time approval, time entries will be immediately approved by Ruddr when they are created. Whether members create time entries in the Month, Week, or Day view, those entries will instantly enter an approved status. When timesheets are disabled, members can continue to edit and delete individual time entries until they enter a locked state. Timesheets In workspaces that leverage the Timesheets feature, multiple time entries are submitted as part of individual timesheets. 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 3) on the day view or on the week view of the time entry screen. Once submitted, all time entries associated with that timesheet are locked. For more information on unsubmitting a timesheet, please refer to the Timesheet Overview article in Ruddr Help Center. With regards to Automatic approval where the Timesheets feature is enabled, time entries associated with that timesheet are automatically approved if the project uses automatic time approval.

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Manual Time Approval

If the project uses manual time approval and the Multi-Step Approval Workflow feature is disabled in the workspace, the Project Admin will be notified to review and approve submitted time entries. Project approval configuration is set within the Approval Options section (Figure 1) of the project’s Settings tab. Multi-Step Approval Workflow If your workspace has the Multi-Step Approval Workflow feature enabled and your approval options are set to Manual, then you will be able to specify whether you want to leverage the workspace’s default approval workflow or if you want to specify a custom workflow for this project. For more information, view the Managing Multi-Step Approval Workflows article in the Ruddr Help Center.

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Submitting Time for Approval

In workspaces where Timesheets are disabled, Time can be submitted for approval from the day, week, or month view of the time screen (Figure 2). At the bottom of each view, there is a Submit for Approval button that will show the number of time entries that will be submitted via the current view. Clicking this button will submit all time entries on the view that are not currently in the Approved or Pending Approval state. Note that if a timer is running for a view that is being submitted for approval, that time entry will not be submitted for approval. The running timer must be stopped before it can be submitted for approval. Timesheets In workspaces that leverage the Timesheets feature, multiple time entries are submitted as part of individual timesheets. 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 3) on the day view or on the week view of the time entry screen. Once submitted, all time entries associated with that timesheet are locked. For more information on submitting and / or unsubmitting a timesheet, please refer to the Timesheet Overview article in Ruddr Help Center.

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Pending Approval Notification

When time on a project has been submitted for approval, the Project Admin of the project will be notified. The Project Admin will receive an email message such as the one shown below (Figure 4). From this email the Project Admin can click the Time Entry Approvals button and immediately take action. If your workspace has enabled Multi-Step Approval Workflow, each approver would receive this email notification as the workflow advances through the steps configured for the project. If multiple approvers are specified for a single step, all approvers will receive this notification. Additionally, if the workspace has the Slack integration configured, the Project Admin will also receive a direct message (Figure 5) from the Ruddr bot in Slack. Finally, any time a workspace member has time entries that are awaiting approval, the member will see a red dot next to the Time nav bar item (Figure 6). When the Time submenu is shown, the number of items pending approval will be shown in a red circle next to the Approvals menu option. Note that a workspace member will not see the approvals menu option if the member does not have permission to approve project time or time off.

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Approving Time

When a time entry that requires manual approval is submitted, any workspace member who has the appropriate permissions can approve or reject the time entry. The Project Admin on the project will be the person notified about the pending approval, but any member with permission can take action. On Behalf of Another Approver Those members with member-level time and expense administrative permissions can approve time on behalf of another approver. There may be times, such as when an approver is on vacation, when an administrator may need to access another approver’s queue and approve time in that queue. To do that, simply select the approver from the Approver dropdown to access their queue and to approve time as outline below. For more on this topic, please refer to this FAQ article on approving time and expense on behalf of another member. The approver can click on any row in the approvals list (Figure 7) to see the full detail of the time entry (Figure 8). Edits can easily be made to the time entry before the entry is approved or rejected. To approve or reject a time entry, the approver can use the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” buttons (Figure 9) on the right side of each row on the approval list (Figure 7). When an entry has been approved, it will be shown with a green “thumbs up” circle as shown below (Figure 10). When an entry has been rejected, it will be shown with a red “thumbs down” circle (Figure 11). When an approver rejects a time entry, a reason for the rejection must be provided. A window will be shown (Figure 12) that will allow the approver to type in the rejection reason. This reason will be recorded in the history of the time entry.

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Multiple-entry Approval Actions

If an approver has a large number of time entries to review and take action on, it is possible to approve or reject multiple entries in their queue. To do this, simply select the rows to approve or reject (as shown in Figure 12) and then click on the action button at the bottom of the screen (Figure 13). The action button defaults to “Approve” but can be switched to “Reject”.

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Client Approval of Time Entries

On certain projects, your company may be required to get client approval of time and expenses before those time and expenses can be invoiced to the client. For these situations, Ruddr provides a separate client approvals feature. When client approvals are enabled for a project, a batch of time and expenses can be sent to the client for approval. For more information, see the client approvals article.

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Bulk Time Approval and Rejection

Bulk time approval is limited to Workspace Admins only. When a Workspace Admin needs to approve large quantities of time entries, they can do so via the Approvals screen (Figure 7). To do this, the Workspace Admin would clear the Approver dropdown filter (Figure 14). The ability to clear this field is only available to Workspace Admins. Once the filter has been cleared and the screen is showing Pending Approval time entries for all Approvers (Figure 15), the Workspace Admin can select time entries for any / all members that are listed. Note that the Approval / Rejection buttons on each row are disabled. This is because all bulk approval actions must be initiated via the Set to Approved action button that appears at the bottom of the screens when time entries are selected for bulk action. Once a Workspace Admin has specified which time entries to approve, clicking the Set to Approved button will bring up a confirmation modal (Figure 16). Clicking the Set time entries to Approved button on this modal will bypass any approval workflows and immediately set the Approval Status on all time entries to Approved. Note that the activity history (Figure 17) of the time entries will reflect administrative bulk approval has been taken. Bulk Time Rejection Bulk time entry rejection follows the same process, however the Workspace Admin will need to choose “Set to Rejected” from the action button (Figure 18) at the bottom of the screen. Choosing to bulk reject time will require the Workspace Admin to provide a reason for the rejection of the entries.