Project Management in Timesheet

See how project management is carried out in a timesheet. This is where much of the intel is gathered. Project managers will like this.

When you are selecting a timesheet software product, you might consider how your organization wishes to track project time. Do you simply track hours directly to a client? Or, do you drop down a layer and track time to multiple projects under a client? You may even go down a level deeper and track time to project tasks under a project, which is also under a client.

The Standard Time® timesheet supports these modes of time tracking.

In the video, you see project tasks displayed in the timesheet. They are organized under their prospective projects and sub-projects. Each employee only sees the projects, subsystems, and tasks they are assigned to. You do not see projects that other people work on. This reduces the timesheet clutter and makes it more context sensitive to the user. Simpler!

Employees enter hours against the tasks they see in the timesheet. When they do, they are contributing to the "Actual work" field in those tasks. (If you click the Project Tasks tab, you will see the tasks and the actual work entered so far.) You can collapse and expend timesheet projects to show or hide the detail. You can also filter the timesheet so it only shows the projects or tasks you wish to see. Again, that further reduces the clutter so you only see the detail that's relevant to you.

As you fill out the timesheet, you see daily and weekly totals at the bottom of the page. You may also see totals for overtime and the pay period. But keep in mind that all your timesheet hours are silently going toward the project management aspects of the "Project Tasks" tab. When you click that tab, you are in a different world -- a world of project management where employee hours are rolled up to the sub-project and project level for digestion at a higher level. That level is normally the domain of project managers, administrators, and company executives. They need this information to determine how their projects are progressing.

Each project task (in the Project Tasks tab) collects data for estimated durations, estimated costs, material costs, actual work, remaining work, percent complete, percent status. You will see many of these fields change as hours are entered into the timesheet. Administrators can assign tasks to employees, adjust start and finish dates, adjust durations, and monitor % complete. All this task information then allows them to check employee availability and resource allocation.

So you see, the project management features tie directly to the timesheet for a comprehensive project tracking solution.

Also see: Video: Relationship between Timesheet and Time Log, Video: Project Costing, Video: Project Wizard for Time Tracking, Video: Ten Tools For The PMO Office, Video: Tracking Time to Categories, Video: Milestone Tracking

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