Time tracking - Time log submission & approval

Availability

Overview

Actors involved

The table below summarizes actors involved in the time log approval process.  

Time log statuses

Approval workflow

Step 1 - Time entry created (Draft)

When a Time Tracker logs time on any task, the system creates an entry in Draft status. The user can freely edit or delete it at this stage.

Step 2 — Submission

When ready, the Time Tracker clicks Submit. As a result:

• All Draft and Rejected entries are assigned the Submitted status.
• Submitted time entries are locked for editing by the Time tracker.
• Approvers are assigned: project-level approver (from the project's custom field, see below) and the reporting manager (from the user's profile).
• The first approver is notified by email (sequential approval) or all approvers (initial or parallel).

Step 3 — Manager's review

The manager opens the Time Logs History page and selects the necessary filters, for example:

• Status: Submitted
• Approver: Current user

Step 3a — Approval 

Step 3b - Rejection

When the manager clicks Reject, the system:

• Prompts the manager for a mandatory rejection note.
• Moves entries to Rejected status and stores the reason (message, manager name, timestamp).
• Unlocks entries for the Time Tracker.
• Notifies the Time Tracker via blue dot (top-right corner).

Step 4 — Correction and Re-submission

The Time Tracker reviews the rejection reason, edits the entry, and clicks Submit again. The approval cycle restarts from the beginning for that entry.

Step 5 — Edit Request for Approved Entry

The step includes the following stages:

• Manager changes the requested entry's status to Submitted
• Time Tracker changes the entry from Submitted to Draft
• Time Tracker edits the entry and re-submits.

Status workflow

As the time tracker or approver takes action time logs involved acquire new a status with a certain effect. E.g. when all approvers have clicked "Mark as approved" the time log get marked accordingly, its status changes to Approved and it is no longer available for editing. The table below summarizes status workflow and effects of action involved.       

Approver Assignment Rules

The table below presents that approver assignment patterns available for approval workflow.

Time Log Approval Setup Sequence

1. Enabling

The approval workflow is turned on/off by a system-wide toggle in Company Settings.

To enable time log approval:

1. Click through Company settings > Account settings > Advanced settings > Time tracking policy
2. Select approval mode: Initial, Parallel, or Sequential.
3. Select the approvers: 
   1. Reporting manager. See Company settings - Users (II) 
   2. User selected in a designated project dropdown custom field, see below.
4. In case of sequential approval mode, the order of the approvers can be modified using drag-n-drop. Use the handle () for drag-n-drop.  

2. Create the project-level approver custom field

Birdview supports two types of approvers. 

• Reporting Manger - an officer who supervises the work of the time tracker and specified in the TT's user profile
• Project-level Approver - a senior member of a project for which the TT  logs time.

While Reporting Manager is a native field in the user's profile, the project-level approver requires a custom field of the project level and of the dropdown type. 

To create a global custom field, please refer to Company settings - Custom fields. For space custom fields, please see Spaces - Settings.

Once created, the field will appear in the project details and an approver can be selected for each project. In the example below the field is called Senior Project Manager. Erica Henderson will be the project-level approver for this project (for all project members), the other being reporting manager (their own for each project member). 

3. Assign the project-level approver

To ensure approval works for every project, respective project managers (or an officer with access) assign a project-level approver, using the following steps:

1. Open the project details.
2. Locate the custom field to be used for selecting project-level approver. See the previous subsection.
3. Click the field and pick a project member to act as approver. 

4. Assign Reporting Manager to each user

As the next step, a Birdview administrator assigns a reporting manager for each users whos time logs require approval. 

To assign a reporting manager:

1. Click through Company settings > Users.
2. Select a user profile.
3. Click the Reporting manager field and pick a user to act as one.
4. Click elsewhere. All changes are saved automatically. 

Submission procedure

With time approval enabled, to submit draft time logs, the time tracker takes the following steps:

1. Open Weekly Time Logs.
2. Add a timesheet as described here.
3. Click Submit.

Approval procedure

Depending on the type of approval selected―Initial, Parallel and Sequential―the approver takes the following steps:

1. Upon receiving time approval notification, open Time Logs HIstory.
2. Locate the filter Approvers. Enable it if not available.
3. Select yourself on the filter to quickly filter out time logs to be approved.
4. Use other filter as appropriate.
5. Click to enable selection mode.
6. Select the logs you wish to approve.
7. On the batch operation panel above, click Mark as Approved > Mark as Approved.

Rejection procedure

Depending on the type of approval selected―Initial, Parallel and Sequential―the approver takes the following steps:

1. Upon receiving time approval notification, open Time Logs HIstory.
2. Locate the filter Approvers. Enable it if not available.
3. Select yourself on the filter to quickly filter out time logs to be approved.
4. Use other filter as appropriate.
5. Click to enable selection mode.
6. Select the logs you wish to approve.
7. On the batch operation panel above, click Mark as Approved > Reject with message.
8. Type in a reason for rejection.
9. Click Reject.

Unapproval procedure

An approved or rejected time log can be reverted back to submitted by an approver at the submitter's request or some other reason.

To unapprove a time log:

1. Click to enable selection mode.
2. Select the logs you wish to unapprove.
3. On the batch operation panel above, click Mark as Approved > Mark as Unapproved.

Notifications

Notifications is a key element of time log approval. For one, when sequential approval is on, it is important that the approvers be notified in the same order they are listed in the approval settings, e.g. Reporting Manager first then the project-level approver. If the order is broken, approval will not go as expected as Birdview will not allow the last to approve before the first.

One-per-event notification & delayed delivery

Time approval-related notification is delivered as one-per-event notification. Birdview will give you about 5 minutes before a notification message is delivered. During this time, your actions can be cancelled thus resulting in aborting notification.   

Notification works differently depending on the type of approval selected. The main use cases are discussed below.

Initial Approval ()

Initial approval requires a single approver. This means that as soon as either reporting manager or project-level approver marks as approved, the time log's status will convert from Submitted to Approved, without the other's approval.

For this kind of approval, notification has the following steps:

Submission:

1. Time tracker submits,
2. Both approvers¹ are notified by email.

Approval:

1. Either approver approves.
2. No notification is sent.

Rejection:

1. Either approver rejects².
2. Time tracker is notified.

Parallel Approval ()

In this type of approval, both approvers are required but no matter in which order. Consequently, notification rules are identical to that of initial approval above.

Sequential Approval ()

This type of approval requires that the designated approvers approve submitted time logs in a set order, as determined in the settings (Company settings > Account settings > Advanced > Time tracking policy). The order can be seen in the arrangement of icons attached to a time log to be approved:

In the example above, the first icon signifies type of approval (Sequential), second icon—approver No 1, and the last icon—approver No 2.

Consequently, the time log must be approved in this order: ES approves first putting the time log in partially approved state, then EH approves to finalize approval.  

The following points are of note:

1. Unapproval of an approved time log is performed in the reverse order: EH unapproves first, then ES.
2. If a time log is partially rejected, i.e. by the last approver, the time tracker gets notified. In other words, rejection is a notification event for each approver separately. 

For sequential approval, notification has the following steps:

Submission:

1. Time tracker submits,
2. Approver 1  is notified by email.

Approval:

1. Approver 1 approves.
2. Notification is sent to Approver 2.
3. Approver 2 approves.
4. No notification is sent to time tracker.

Rejection:

1. Approver 2 rejects.
2. Time tracker is notified.

¹ Or either if the other is unavailable.

² This includes rejection of already approved time logs, i.e. status change: Approved > Rejected.

³ Notified when time tracker submits.

⁴ Notified when Approver 1 approves.