Time tracking: timesheet, approval and reminders¶

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Hours are usually the largest cost of a job, and the hardest to collect on time. ProjectIQ makes recording them a weekly routine: every person fills in a weekly timesheet by project and task, submits the week, and the project managers approve or reject the hours from a single screen. Approved hours become actual hours and actual cost of the WBS nodes and of the project, valued at the hourly cost that was valid on the day. A daily reminder tells people who forgot to record their hours.

This manual is for everybody who records hours (part 1), for the project managers who approve them (part 2), and for administrators who configure the process (part 3).

The whole process¶

sequenceDiagram
    actor R as Resource (team member)
    participant TS as Timesheet
    participant OP as ProjectIQ
    actor PM as Project manager
    R->>TS: Types hours by project/task and day
    TS->>OP: Time entries saved as Draft
    R->>TS: Submit week
    OP->>OP: Entries → Submitted (locked)
    OP-->>PM: 🔔 "N time entries submitted on <project>"
    PM->>OP: Time Approval: Approve or Reject (with reason)
    alt approved
        OP->>OP: Entries → Approved, actual hours and cost updated
        OP-->>R: 🔔 "N of your time entries were approved"
    else rejected
        OP->>OP: Entries → Rejected (editable again)
        OP-->>R: 🔔 "...rejected. Note: <reason>"
        R->>TS: Fixes hours and submits again
    end

Statuses of a time entry¶

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Draft
    Draft --> Submitted: Submit
    Rejected --> Submitted: Submit again
    Draft --> Approved: Submit (time approval off)
    Submitted --> Approved: Approve
    Submitted --> Rejected: Reject + reason

Status	Who can change the entry	Counts in actuals
Draft	The resource (edit, delete)	No
Submitted	Nobody: locked while waiting for approval	No
Approved	Nobody: final	Yes
Rejected	The resource (edit, delete, submit again)	No

Part 1 — Recording your hours¶

Before you start¶

Your user must be linked to a Resource (Master Data → Resources → User field). If not, the timesheet shows "Your user is not linked to a resource. Ask an administrator to set User on your Resource."
You can record hours only on projects In Progress that you can see (you are a member, or the owner).

The Timesheet dashboard¶

Open Projects → Time → Timesheet. You see one week, Monday to Sunday, of your hours.

Area	What it shows
Toolbar	Previous week, This week, Next week, Refresh, Submit week
Rows	One row per project / task combination; the task (WBS node) is optional
Day columns	Hours per day; each cell shows a coloured badge with the status of its entry
Total column	Hours of the row in the week
Footer	Daily totals and the weekly total, compared with your Weekly hours

Illustration:

Project / task	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Total
PRJ-000042 Office renovation / 2.2.1 Electrical	8 ✅	6 ✅	8 📝			22
PRJ-000051 Warehouse / 1.2 Executive design		2 ✅		8 📝	4 📝	14
Total (weekly hours 40)	8	8	8	8	4	36 / 40

(✅ approved, 📝 draft: the actual badges on screen are coloured labels Draft, Submitted, Approved, Rejected.)

Adding a line¶

At the bottom of the grid choose the Project (only In Progress projects are listed).
Optionally choose the Task (a WBS node of that project). Leave it empty to record time on the project as a whole.
Click Add line. An empty row appears.

Typing hours¶

Click a day cell of the row and type the hours: 0 to 24, with comma or dot decimals. Values are rounded to the quarter of an hour (1.3 becomes 1.25).
Press Enter or move to another cell: the entry is saved as Draft immediately.
To remove hours, type 0 or clear the cell: the draft entry is deleted.

If you type something that is not a valid number, the cell shows "Enter hours between 0 and 24."

A cell can be edited only when it holds at most one entry and that entry is Draft or Rejected. Cells with submitted or approved entries are read-only. If you recorded two entries for the same project, task and day (for example from the Time Entries list), the cell shows their sum and must be edited from the list.

Submitting the week¶

When the week is complete, click Submit week. All Draft and Rejected entries of the week are submitted at once, a message confirms how many ("N entries submitted"), and the project managers are notified. Submitted entries are locked.

Submit each week, even if it is incomplete: approvers see your hours sooner and the project costs stay current. You can add more hours later and submit again; already approved entries are not touched.

When hours are rejected¶

You get a notification with the reason. Open the timesheet on that week: rejected cells are editable again. Correct them (or delete them) and click Submit week again.

Notes on an entry and other ways to record time¶

The timesheet is the fastest way, but not the only one:

Projects → Time → Time Entries lists your entries (My Time Entries) and lets you create one with + New: choose project, task, date, hours and add Notes (for example what you did).
On the project form, the Time tab lists the time entries of the project.
The quick create form (+ in the top bar → Time Entry) asks for project, task, date, hours and notes.

On the time entry form only the WBS nodes of the chosen project can be selected. The Resource is filled in with your own resource; Name (resource + date), Cost and Revenue are calculated.

The daily reminder¶

From Monday to Friday at 17:30 (Rome time) the application checks everybody's hours for the day. If you recorded fewer hours than expected, you receive the notification "Record your hours" — "You have recorded X of Y hours on ." — with an Open timesheet button.

Expected hours are your Weekly Hours divided by your working days, minus any absence of the day:

Situation	Expected hours (40 h/week, Mon–Fri)
Normal working day	8
Half day leave (single-day absence, 4 hours)	4
Whole-day vacation or sickness	0 (no reminder)
Saturday or Sunday	0 (no reminder)
Company closure	No reminders for anybody

Hours count whatever their status (draft included), so recording them is enough to stop the reminder; you do not need to submit every day.

Part 2 — Approving hours¶

Approvers are the Managers of each project (members with the Manager role, which always includes the project manager) and the administrators.

The Time Approval dashboard¶

Open Projects → Time → Approvals. It lists every submitted time entry you can see, grouped by resource and week.

Column	Content
Resource	Who worked
Week	Monday of the week
Hours	Total submitted hours of the group, with the split by project
Expand	Shows the single entries of the group (date, project, task, hours, notes)

To decide:

Select whole groups with their check box (or Select all), or expand a group and select single entries.
Click Approve: a message confirms "N entries approved."
Or click Reject: a dialog "Reject N time entries" asks for the Reason (sent to the resource), which is required. Confirm with Reject.

flowchart LR
    S[Submitted entries] --> G{Group by<br/>resource + week}
    G --> A[Approve selected]
    G --> R[Reject selected<br/>reason required]
    A --> ACT[Actual hours and cost<br/>of nodes and project]
    R --> BACK[Back to the resource]

You can decide only the entries of projects where you are a Manager. If you select others, the operation stops with "Only a manager of the project can approve or reject its time entries."

The view Time Entries to Approve (Projects → Time → Time Entries) shows the same entries as a list, and Time Entries by Project is used in the Time tab of the project.

What approval changes¶

When an entry is approved:

its hours are added to the Actual Hours of its WBS node and of the project;
its cost is added to the Actual Cost of the node and of the project, and appears in the cost summary;
the entry becomes final: it cannot be changed or deleted.

How hours are valued¶

Each time entry carries two amounts, calculated whenever it is saved:

Amount	Formula	Visible to
Cost	Hours × the resource's hourly cost valid on the entry date (from the Resource Costs history)	Only users with the OP365 Cost Visibility profile
Revenue	Hours × the Hourly Rate of the resource's user as a member of the project (0 if not set)	Users who can read the entry

Example: Marco's cost is 35.00 €/h until 30 June and 38.50 €/h from 1 July. 8 hours on 28 June cost 280.00; 8 hours on 2 July cost 308.00, even if both entries are recorded on the same day. If Marco's Hourly Rate on the project is 55.00 €/h, both entries have a revenue of 440.00.

Part 3 — Configuration (administrators)¶

Setting	Where	Effect
Time Approval Enabled	Environment variable `op365_TimeApprovalEnabled` (Administration)	Yes (default): submitted hours wait for approval. No: Submit approves the entries immediately (they count in actuals straight away)
User on Resource	Master Data → Resources	Links a person to their resource: required to use the timesheet
Weekly Hours, Working Days	Resource	Expected hours (reminder, weekly total)
Absences	Planning → Absences	Reduce expected hours; company closures suspend reminders
Hourly Rate on Project Member	Project → Team	Revenue of the member's hours
Daily time reminder flow	Power Automate, solution ProjectIQ	Sends the reminders (Mon–Fri 17:30). See Administration

Administrators can submit entries on behalf of others and approve or reject entries of any project.

Messages you may see¶

Message	Meaning and solution
"Your user is not linked to a resource. Ask an administrator to set User on your Resource."	No active resource has your user in the User field
"Hours and materials can be recorded only on projects In Progress."	The project is an offer, suspended or closed
"The WBS node belongs to another project."	The task chosen is not part of the selected project
"Submitted or approved time entries cannot be changed." / "...cannot be deleted."	Ask the project manager to reject the entry if it must be fixed
"Use Submit, Approve or Reject to change the status of time entries."	Status cannot be edited directly
"Only draft or rejected time entries can be submitted."	Some selected entries are already submitted or approved
"You can submit only your own time entries."	Only administrators can submit for others
"Select at least one time entry."	Nothing was selected
"Add a note to reject time entries."	The rejection reason is required
"Only submitted time entries can be approved or rejected."	The entry was already decided (perhaps by another manager): refresh
"Enter hours between 0 and 24."	The value typed in the timesheet is not valid