Having actual data about how the team has spent their time unlocks insights and better decision-making, answering questions like:
Which clients or projects get the most attention?
Are we charging enough for our services based on the effort it takes us?
Is there an inefficient step in my plan, that always takes longer than I've estimated?
The keys to getting started with Hive' Time module, is focusing on 3 things:
Selecting where people record their time
Creating your categories or project data-points
Announcing this to the team
Let's get started!
Note: It's preferable that you're starting with your projects already created & entered in Hive, so check out one of our other Workflow guides if you haven't completed that step yet!
Start here: Decide if you'll submit timesheets or not ⏱️ ✅
Here are the two scenarios, which most closely aligns with what you need?
Option 1: No timesheets! Record time to action cards & enjoy the quickest path to seeing how time is spent
Let's say you have created tasks for each deliverable in the client project, and as your designer, Jane, works on the Website Design, they click a Start timer and record the time they spent on this task throughout the course of a week (or manually add the time to the card). The time is logged and now visible to you in Timetracking reporting. At any point on demand, you can view all the time Jane spent both in total for a certain time period, and on this project or task specifically.
In this case, just know that Jane doesn't submit the time for approval, nor do they necessarily ensure all 40 hours of their week is attributed to a project or activity.
Here's an idea of what that looks like:
If you prefer this method, then we recommend you toggle on Timetracking in Hive Apps. Now, each action card has the Time Entry section on it. You can really get started from here - skip ahead to Step 4.
Option 2: Timesheets all the way! A weekly submission & approval is a must at your company.
Great choice. In this case, you have your projects plans, people have their assigned action cards and they are completing work throughout the week. At the end of the week, Jane goes to her Hive Timesheet and enters the time she worked on each day of the week for each project. She was out on Thursday so she enters a full 8 hours to PTO. She submits once she's filled up the full 40 hours. As her manager (or the project owner), you review her timesheet and approve it. Now the time is recorded!
Here's how a timesheet entry looks to Jane:
If this is your selected option, then toggle on TImesheets in Hive Apps. Continue to Steps 2-3 to make sure your team is ready to submit their first timesheets.
Step 2: Select your Approver
Who typically approves the time - is it the manager who signs off on what their direct reports are doing, or is it the owner of the project who signs off that time spent on their project is ok?
If the Manager approves their report's time, then you'll want your projects to have that setting enabled (on the Edit Project screen).
And, you want to make sure each person has a manager set! Each person should set their manager from the My Profile > Edit Profile screen. If they haven't selected a manager, they will be prompted to upon submitting their first timesheet.
If the Project Owner should approve time, this is the default for all new projects created in the workspace, so no action would be necessary.
Step 3: Configure Admin settings: Leave Types, Categories & Locking
Here are a few other ways to gain more insight into time entries:
Open the Settings panel in the Time module
Create Leave Types, so users may book time (timesheets only) to things like Sick Time, PTO, Parental Leave, etc that are not projects.
Create time categories, and with each time entry make it an option for users to enter the time against 'No Category' or a specific category you create
Select only certain projects to appear in Timesheets
Each of these may be configured in the Time Settings:
For more information on these, configurations are covered here: Timesheets for Admins
Step 4: Review your first week of Time Reporting,
See more detail here
There is more to add to gain even further slices of data, like User & Project Data:
Role: this should be the user roles like their job titles
User Tag: create one for these more general categories like "Managers/Leaders, Ops/Reporting, or Non Managers'
Project Tags: Used for any information that is tagged to the project as a whole (not individual actions)
Time Categories: not doing
Filtering time submitted
Exporting time submitted
For calculations of the time logged:
Add a project budget to the Project Overview page (or through Timesheet Reporting). This is available here:
Add bill rates to user profiles (if needed)
Reporting Visibility
By default, timesheets are routed to Project Owners. This means Project Owners, in addition to Managers and Workspace Admins, can view the time data in Reporting. If you edit the project to route to Managers instead, this means only Managers and Workspace Admins can view the time data in reporting. (To set or adjust managers, edit the user's profile in Resourcing.)