Availability
Overview
Time log approval is a feature that employs a structured workflow for submitting, reviewing and approving time entries logged by project members.
The workflow includes consequently changing statuses of a submitted time log, selection of approvers, rejection handling and in-app notification indicators, all this to ensure that no time entry reaches payroll or integration systems without proper sign-off.
The approval process involves three basic actors: time tracker/submitter, reporting manager (approver 1), project-level approver (approver 2).
In this article
Actors involved
The table below summarizes actors involved in the time log approval process.
| Actor | Definition | Available actions |
|---|---|---|
| Time tracker* | Any user assigned to project tasks with time-logging permissions. | Log time, submit timesheet, correct and re-submit after rejection. |
| Project-level approver** | User selected in a project custom field, dropdown type (to be created in advance if not available, see a section below). | Review, approve, or reject project time. Un-approve on request. |
| Reporting manager*** | Assigned in the Reporting Manager field in the user's profile. | Review full timesheet, approve or reject, un-approve if needed |
|
*)
A project member who enters and submits time.
**)
Project member authorized to approve time on behalf of
project management.
***)
As assigned to a time tracker in their user profile.
|
||
Time log statuses
| Status | Description | Who can edit |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Initial state. Entry created but not yet submitted for approval. | Time tracker/Manager on behalf of Time tracker |
| Submitted | Awaiting approval or rejection. Time Tracker can no longer edit. | Manager (Approve / Reject only) |
| Approved | All required approvers have signed off. Entry is fully locked. | Locked (Manager can unlock on request, see Unapproval procedure) |
| Rejected | One of the approvers has rejected the entry. Reason must be indicated. Entry is editable again. | Time tracker/Manager on behalf of Time tracker |
Note
A time log is considered rejected as soon as it is marked as such by one of the approvers.
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
| Scenario | How the system behaves |
|---|---|
| Initial or last approval (parallel or sequential) |
|
| First of two approvers |
|
| Other approver already rejected |
|
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).
Important
Rejection cannot be completed without a comment by the approver stating the reason for rejection.
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.
| From | To | Action | Actor | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Draft | Submitted | TT submits time log | Time Tracker | Time log is locked for TT. Approvers are notified. |
| Submitted | Approved | Both approvers approve time log | Approver | Time log is fully locked. |
| Submitted | Rejected | Time log is rejected | Approver | Time log is editable. TT is notified. |
| Rejected | Submitted | TT edits and re-submits time log | Time Tracker | Approval cycle is restarted |
| Approved | Draft | Approver grants edit permission at TT's request | Approver | Time log is unlocked. Approval cycle is restarted. |
Approver Assignment Rules
The table below presents that approver assignment patterns available for approval workflow.
| Assignment pattern | Result |
|---|---|
| PA and RM are specified as two different persons. |
Sequential approval: the order is specified in the settings Parallel approval: in any order |
| PA and RM are the same person | Single step approval |
| Neither PA nor RM is specified | Time log is marked as approved automatically |
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:
- Click through Company settings > Account settings > Advanced settings > Time tracking policy
- Select approval mode: Initial, Parallel, or Sequential.
- Select the approvers:
- Reporting manager. See Company settings - Users (II)
- User selected in a designated project dropdown custom field, see below.
- 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.
Note
When the toggle is off, time entries do not go through any approval process and the Draft / Submitted / Approved / Rejected statuses are not applied.
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).
Note
Birdview will read the value of this field for each project to determine who is to receive notifications and act as project-level approver for time logs belonging to the project.
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:
- Open the project details.
- Locate the custom field to be used for selecting project-level approver. See the previous subsection.
- Click the field and pick a project member to act as approver.
Important
If a project has no value set in this field, the system will treat the project as having no project-level approver and will only require Reporting Manager approval (or auto-approve if RM is also unavailable).
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:
- Click through Company settings > Users.
- Select a user profile.
- Click the Reporting manager field and pick a user to act as one.
- Click elsewhere. All changes are saved automatically.
Note
Reporting Manager is a nominal position with no special access level attached to it. To be able to approve time logs, a user acting as reporting manager needs appropriate permissions.
Submission procedure
With time approval enabled, to submit draft time logs, the time tracker takes the following steps:
- Open Weekly Time Logs.
- Add a timesheet as described here.
- Click Submit.
Note
Only draft time logs for the current week are submitted. To submit time logs of a particular week, navigate to that week using the week selector.
Approval procedure
Depending on the type of approval selected―Initial, Parallel and Sequential―the approver takes the following steps:
- Upon receiving time approval notification, open Time Logs HIstory.
- Locate the filter Approvers. Enable it if not available.
- Select yourself on the filter to quickly filter out time logs to be approved.
- Use other filter as appropriate.
- Click
to enable selection mode.
- Select the logs you wish to approve.
- 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:
- Upon receiving time approval notification, open Time Logs HIstory.
- Locate the filter Approvers. Enable it if not available.
- Select yourself on the filter to quickly filter out time logs to be approved.
- Use other filter as appropriate.
- Click
to enable selection mode.
- Select the logs you wish to approve.
- On the batch operation panel above, click Mark as Approved > Reject with message.
- Type in a reason for rejection.
- 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:
- Click
to enable selection mode.
- Select the logs you wish to unapprove.
- 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:
- Time tracker submits,
- Both approvers1 are notified by email.
Approval:
- Either approver approves.
- No notification is sent.
Rejection:
- Either approver rejects2.
- Time tracker is notified.
| Who gets notified at status change: | Draft to Submitted | Submitted to Approved | Submitted to Rejected2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time Tracker | ● | ||
| Reporting Manager | ● | ||
| Project-level Approver | ● |
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:
- Unapproval of an approved time log is performed in the reverse order: EH unapproves first, then ES.
- 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.
Important
Unapproving an approved time log so that the time tracker can edit and re-submit it requires that both approvers do the action in the reverse order to that in which they have approved.
For sequential approval, notification has the following steps:
Submission:
- Time tracker submits,
- Approver 1 is notified by email.
Approval:
- Approver 1 approves.
- Notification is sent to Approver 2.
- Approver 2 approves.
- No notification is sent to time tracker.
Rejection:
- Approver 2 rejects.
- Time tracker is notified.
Important
When sequential approval is on, rejection can only be effected by Approver 2.
| Who gets notified at status change: | Draft to Submitted | Submitted to Approved | Submitted to Rejected2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time Tracker | ● | ||
| Approver 13 | ● | ||
| Approver 24 | ● |
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.