Approving by project

A timesheet group can be approved by project instead of as a whole week. Each project's managers approve the hours logged on their project, and the week counts as approved once every project on it is. It suits teams where people work across several projects and the person who knows whether the hours are right is the one running the project, not a line manager.

An Admin turns it on per group: in the group's sheet, set Who approves to Project managers. See Timesheet groups.

Who approves what

When someone submits a week, it is split into one share per project, plus one for any time with no project. Each share goes to:

1. The project's Managers. Anyone with the Manager role on the project's team, and any Client manager on the project's client. Leads and Members do not approve. See Project team.
2. Otherwise, the group's approvers (shown as Approvers for everything else in the group's sheet). That covers time with no project, projects without a Manager, and a Manager's own hours when nobody else manages the project.
3. Otherwise, Admins. A share nobody else can approve shows Waiting on an admin.

Any one of the people who can approve a share can sign it off, so a second Manager on a project works as a backup approver.

Deactivated people never count as approvers, so a manager who has left never holds up a week.

Approving your own time

By default a project manager cannot approve their own hours. Their share goes to another Manager on the project, or to the group's approvers. To allow it, an Admin ticks Managers can approve their own time under Administration → Workspace Settings → Timesheet. Admins can always approve their own time.

The By project view

In a workspace with a group approved by project, Time Tracking → Timesheets opens on By project. Each row is one project's hours on one person's week: the Person, the Project, the Hours, its Status, and who it is waiting on (Approvers) or who actioned it (By).

• Filter by Awaiting approval (the default), Approved or Sent back. The week stepper and Search people... work as on the other views.
• You see the shares you can approve. Admins see every share.
• Select several and Approve N selected to approve them together.

The row menu offers Review, and Approve and Send back on shares you can act on.

Reviewing a project's hours

Review opens that person's week showing only the project you are approving. You never see their hours on other projects. It shows:

• The project and client, the hours, and how much of it is non-billable.
• Its status: Waiting on the approvers, or who approved it or sent it back, with their reason.
• A day strip with the hours on each day. Click a day to list only that day's entries; Show the whole week clears it.
• The hours by task, and every entry grouped by day with its task and notes (or No notes).

Then either:

• Approve. The share is approved. Once every project on the week is approved, the week is approved and stays locked.
• Send back. Asks What should they change on the project, for example Tuesday should be 2 hours. A reason is required.

When hours are sent back

Sending one project back returns the whole week to its owner to fix. The week shows Sent back with the project and reason, its entries unlock, and the owner gets an email linking to that week in their timer.

When they resubmit, a project that was already approved stays approved if none of its entries changed. Anything that did change, and anything not yet approved, goes back for review. Changing an entry's hours, task, start time, billable flag or notes counts as a change.

Emails

On submit, everyone who can approve a share on the week gets one email, with a link to the Timesheets page. On resubmit, only the approvers of shares still waiting are emailed.

Weeks with no time

A week submitted with nothing logged (a week of leave, say) goes to the group's approvers as a single share.

Changing a group's approval mode

Switching a group between The group's approvers and Project managers applies to weeks submitted from then on. Weeks already submitted or approved finish the way they started.

Admins

Admins can approve or send back any share, including their own. The week-level Approve and Send back on the other views also work on a week approved by project, for Admins only: approving it there approves every project on the week at once.