Happy Holidays!

New TimeControl dealer in mainland China!

HMS Software is delighted to welcome Beijing EastWise Science and Technology Co. Ltd., our first TimeControl dealer in China. EastWise is based in Beijing and has over 10 years of expertise in Cost Engineering, Scheduling and Planning Engineering and Earned Value Engineering. We are looking forward to great things from them in representing TimeControl to their clients in China.

TimeControl is distributed worldwide through an extensive list of distributors and dealers located in several countries including: Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Finland, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, the UK and the USA.

For more information on Eastwise and our other TimeControl dealers, please visit: www.timecontrol.com/partners/dealers.

New white paper on Time & Billing

We have a brand new white paper to add to our collection entitled, Using TimeControl 6 for Time-and-Billing.  This 25-page document is just loaded with useful information whether you have purchased TimeControl or are still in the evaluation process. 

This white paper describes how to configure TimeControl for Time and Billing. While there may be many possible configurations for Time and Billing that TimeControl would support, this simple design covers all the basics including project-based per-employee rates, projects grouped by client, summary and detailed reporting and exports for Finance and Billing.

For more information on using TimeControl for time and billing, visit the Time & Billing Solution Page on the timecontrol.com website or click here to go directly to the white paper.

Grouping Projects for Selection

Many TimeControl clients group their projects by various categories such as; by client, project  type, billable / non-billable and other criteria.  When an employee needs to select a project from the pick list for inclusion on their timesheet, the common practice is to select the category first then drill down to the projects included under that category. A common example of this is to select by client first then select the project associated with that particular client.

This type of grouping is most typically identified as a user defined field on the Project Table and may be named however required. This field can be used to create a tree-like display on the project select list when inserting a new line item on a timesheet. An example of this would be a company who has a lot of projects that are associated to a specific client. Being able to choose the client first and then the project makes it easier for an employee to select the appropriate project, when completing their timesheet.

The setup of the tree field for the project table is completed on the Administration / System Preferences tab. For the Project tree structure, select the filed you wish to use for grouping by using the dialog box. If you wish, you can choose multiple fields and have a multi-level display.

Once this has been setup the project pick list on the time entry screen will show in a cascade fashion following the user fields.

It is important to note that these are global settings and will affect all users.

The Rorschach timesheet

We can't resist when we see things like this.  It came across our desks here at HMS from someone who discovered it on the Internet and we wanted to share it with you
(Author unknown)

Managing Holidays with TimeControl

The holidays are upon us and here at HMS when we think of Holidays, we think of what Payroll and Human Resources people need to do to properly account for them in the TimeControl timesheet. TimeControl includes functionality that is perfect for managing holidays that will be taken by many staff people and assisting those personnel with entering the appropriate line item in their timesheet.

TimeRequest Wizard
The TimeRequest Wizard is a great function which is typically made available only to Administrators. It to add entries into future timesheets and approve those entries in advance. The function is extremely simple to use. Administrators select a date in the future and then enter the description, number of hours and the charge and rate code that are appropriate for the upcoming holiday. Then the Administrator selects which users should get this timesheet entry. Once the Administrator confirms the entry, TimeControl creates a pre-approved TimeRequest which will automatically create an entry for each of those users in the future timesheet with the properly entered number of hours and charge code already done.

TimeControl Administrators often enter the entire year's holidays in advance for the entire staff early in the year. Using the TimeRequest Wizard means fewer errors in entry during holidays for those who are entitled to the time off.

Some of the challenges which the TimeRequest Wizard's functionally overcomes include:

How to manage different holidays for different groups?
The TimeRequest Wizard can create future entries for any filtered or selected group of employees. Perhaps you have US Thanksgiving for the American staff and Canadian Thanksgiving for those in Canada. No problem. The Administrator simply selects different filters for different groups.

What if someone unexpectedly works on the holiday?
No problem. The TimeRequest has been pre-approved and will pre-load into the employee's timesheet but the employee can overwrite or delete that line should they wish. The TimeRequest entry simply provides them an entry that is pre-made for them, not something that they can't undo when the time to do their timesheet comes along.

Other functionality that is important for HR and Payroll managers at this time of year includes:

Managing vacation and Personal-time-off (PTO) banks
Around the holidays it's quite common for some staff people to want to take additional time off from their vacation or Personal-time-off banks. TimeControl supports up to 9 separate banks of time by default. In an employee wants to put additional time on their timesheet for vacation or personal time, they can make a TimeRequest to get approval and then TimeControl's Validation Rules can check to make sure the employee still has enough time in their time-off bank.

Links to external systems
TimeControl has been designed to link to external systems such as HR and Payroll systems or services so your Holiday and time-off data can get to the right place without having to retype.

Powerful reporting and dashboarding
TimeControl’s reporting and dashboarding options lets us show summary and detailed reports for holidays booked, holidays taken as well as any additional time taken.

TimeControl Human Resources Solution Portal
To find out more about TimeControl and how it can help with your Human Resources (HR) requirements as well as other business challenges, visit the TimeControl HR Solution Portal at www.timecontrol.com/solutions/hr. You'll find a webcast, and screen shots and you can even see a webcast of the TimeRequest Wizard in action.

Another happy customer

It’s a great feeling when clients tell us how much they love TimeControl and how it makes their life easier but when people actually take the time to write us a letter it’s even better!

I’d like to share with you an excerpt from a letter we received from Laura Nadeau of AeroInfo Systems (a Boeing Canada company):

“… My name is Laura Nadeau, I am the TimeControl administrator for Boeing Canada.  When I started with this company three years ago, I had to release every single employee individually. Now, all it takes is a simple reminder notice to employees and their managers to release their hours and the system does all the hard work for me. Thank you so much for this, as I no longer dread Monday mornings …”

Thank you Laura, you made my day.

If you are interested in reading more TimeControl testimonials, please visit: http://www.hmssoftware.ca/clients/testimonials/ If you or someone you know is interested in writing a testimonial, please contact our marketing department at: (514) 695-8122.