Find Time
Here you will learn how to find time cards in Projector. Think of a time card as a physical card. It marks how long a particular resource worked on a particular task on a particular day. Once time cards are found, there is a wealth of additional options for you. You can group time cards together for batch administration, configure your view to show relevant detail columns, save searches for later, share searches, and even edit cards.
Additional Resources
Projector Fundamentals: Time and Cost Management webinar is a great resource to learn about Time Approval Workflows and Permissions in Projector.
Permissions and Settings
To find time in Projector you must be one of the following:
- A user with the cost center permission to Administer Time Workflow
- A user with the cost center permission to View Resource Time
- A user with the cost center permission to View Project Time
- A user with the cost center permission Management Approval of Invoices to view time cards already on an invoice
- A user with the cost center permission Create and Approve Invoices to view time cards already on an invoice
- Be a time approver in some way. For example, you are a PM on a project set to PM Approval.
- When viewing the project info tab, you are in the permissions list (you do not need "Can Act as PM" ticked or "Include on Email List" ticked)
- When viewing a resource's profile, you are set as the Manager for time
If the user searching for time has the general permission Limit Access to projects in Projector Web enabled on their profile, then the number of search fields available is greatly reduced. This is to prevent them from accessing data outside their purview. For instance, all the locations you do business.
Client users can also approve time. Useful when clients must okay all work before it can be invoiced. See Client Time Approval Tutorial to learn how to set this up.
Saved Searches
One awesome thing about save searches which may not be immediately obvious is that more than just your criteria is saved. Your result columns, column order, and column widths are also saved. Customize your searches to meet your individual business needs. If you want, you can also publish those saved searches to the rest of your organization. Turning your productivity boosting searches into organization wide productivity boosters.
Saved searches are accessible from the dropdown in the upper left.
Once you choose a saved search from the list, the criteria is immediately loaded. You'll then need to click Run Search to execute the query.
Save New Search
Follow these steps:
- Click New Search or load one of your existing saved searches
- Set your search criteria
- Run your search
- Adjust the displayed columns and column order
- Adjust your column widths
- Click Save if this started as a new search. Click Update | Save As if it is based on an existing search.
Modify Saved Search
Follow these steps:
- Load an existing saved search
- Set your search criteria
- Run your search
- Adjust columns and column order
- Adjust column widths
- Click Save Changes
Remove Saved Search
Follow these steps:
- Load an existing saved search
- Click Update | Delete
Favorites
Favorites not only appear under your saved search dropdown list, but also underneath the Favorites menu in your navigation bar. Favorites are denoted by a yellow star icon,
.
To mark a favorite, load a favorited search. Then pick Update | Make Favorite.
To remove a favorite, load a favorited search. Then pick Update | Remove from favorites.
Share Search
When you save a search or update an existing search, you have the ability to share it. The following share options are available:
- Do not share
- Privately share - to individuals
- Publicly share - to individual users or to groups of people in your organization based on your installation's user types and cost centers
Search Builder
The flex search builder is designed to quickly design a search that finds exactly what you need.
Search Criteria
The following fields are searchable. Results are shown as of the current state of the system. For example, if a resource changes location, time card's are returned based on their location as of today, not the date of the time card. User Defined Fields (UDFs) are automatically populated in for clients, engagements, projects, roles, resources, and time cards.
| Criteria Group | Criteria | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Client | Client | Search by client name or number |
| Client | Client UDFs | UDFs are dynamically added to the list and prepended with "Primary" |
| Contract Line Item | Contract Line Item | |
| Contract Line Item | Time Contract Terms | Limit results based on the engagement's time contract terms (Fixed Price, Not to Exceed, or Time and Materials). |
| Engagement | Engagement | |
| Engagement | Engagement Code | |
| Engagement | Engagement Cost Center | Limit results based on the engagement's cost center. Engagement cost center is set on the Engagement Info Tab. |
| Engagement | Engagement Company | |
| Engagement | Engagement Currency | |
| Engagement | Engagement Manager | |
| Engagement | Engagement Stage | Limit results based on the engagement stage. Engagement stages are set on the Engagement Info Tab. |
| Engagement | Engagement Type | Limit results based on the engagement type. Engagement types are set on the Engagement Info Tab. |
| Engagement | Engagement Type Billable (Yes/No) | |
| Engagement | Engagement Type Productive (Yes/No) | |
| Engagement | Time Billing Type | Hourly / Daily |
| Engagement | Billing Cycle | Determined by your Billing Cycles |
| Engagement | Engagement UDFs | |
| Financial | Contract Revenue | |
| Financial | Adjusted Revenue | |
| Financial | Recognized Revenue | |
| Financial | Write-Up Amount | |
| Financial | Revenue Recognition Adjustment | |
| Financial | Contract Hourly Rate | |
| Financial | Billing Adjusted Hourly Rate | |
| Financial | Contract Revenue (Reporting Currency) | |
| Financial | Adjusted Revenue (Reporting Currency) | |
| Financial | Write-Up Amount (Reporting Currency) | |
| Financial | Rev Rec Adjustment (Reporting Currency) | |
| Financial | Contract Hourly Rate (Reporting Currency) | |
| Financial | Billing Adjusted Hourly Rate (Reporting Currency) | |
| Financial | Day Fraction | |
| Financial | Revalue Needed (Yes/No) | |
| Project | Project | |
| Project | Project Code | |
| Project | Project Location | Limit results based on the project's location. Project location is set on the Project Info Tab. |
| Project | Project Manager | |
| Project | Project Stage | Limit results based on the project stage. Project stages are set on the Project Info Tab. |
| Project | Project Management Team Includes Me | |
| Project | Project Revenue and Hours Mapping | |
| Project | Project UDFs | |
| Resource | Resource | |
| Resource | Resource Cost Center | Limit results based on resource cost center. As resources may move between cost centers, this filter applies their cost center as of today. |
| Resource | Resource Company | |
| Resource | Resource Location | Limit results based on resource location. As resources may move between locations, this filter applies their location as of today. |
| Resource | Resource Department | Limit results based on resource department. As resources may move between departments , this filter applies their department as of today. |
| Resource | Resource Title | |
| Resource | Resource Type | Limit results based on resource type. As resources may move between types , this filter applies their type as of today. |
| Role | Role | |
| Role | Role UDFs | |
| Time Card | Work Date | You can pick from a list of pre-defined search periods, or specify your own period by clicking on the start or end dates. |
| Time Card | Accounting Period | |
| Time Card | Hours | |
| Time Card | Project Rate Type | |
| Time Card | Standard Rate Type | |
| Time Card | Task Name | |
| Time Card | Task WBS Code | |
| Time Card | Project Task Type | |
| Time Card | Standard Task Type | |
| Time Card | Billing Title | |
| Time Card | Time Card Description | |
| Time Card | Time Card Location | |
| Time Card | Time Off Reason | |
| Time Card | Invoice | |
| Time Card | Limit to Time Off | |
| Time Card | Chargeable (Yes/No) | |
| Time Card | Credit Time Card (Yes/No) | |
| Time Card | For Reporting Only (Yes/No) | |
| Time Card | Time Card UDFs | |
| Workflow | Approval Workflow Status | This multi-select field lets you find time cards in the following status'. Draft, Submitted, Approved, Rejected, Invoiced (Issued), Invoiced (Draft), Missing |
| Workflow | Limit to Cards Awaiting My Approval | |
| Workflow | Created By | |
| Workflow | Created Timestamp | |
| Workflow | Last Updated By | |
| Workflow | Last Updated Timestamp | |
| Workflow | Submitted By | |
| Workflow | Submitted Timestamp | |
| Workflow | Approved By | |
| Workflow | Approved Timestamp | |
| Workflow | Billed Timestamp | |
| Workflow | Rejected By | |
| Workflow | Rejected Timestamp | |
| Workflow | Rejected Reason |
Search Results
The results grid isn't your every day results grid. It functions very similarly to a pivot table and allows you to group and subgroup time cards. You can then select time cards individually, or by group. Once cards are selected, there are a wide range of actions you can take. From approval to adjusting the financials.
In the screenshot below you can see a time card search grouped by resource. The darker rows show rolled up information. The lightest rows show individual time cards. If a column can't be rolled up into a single value, we display multiple as a placeholder.
Result Columns and Result Grouping
When you get your search results, you can customize your columns. Resize or reorder by dragging them. Or, click
to add/remove columns, set order, and apply grouping. You can save your columns settings as part of your saved search.
To group a column, tick the checkbox next to it.
Summary Search Results
For most users, you won't need to leverage summary results. The pivoting capabilities of the normal results grid is sufficient. However, power users and those executing searches on very large numbers of time cards will want to use summary results.
To enable summary results, click Options | Show summary grid. To cutomize the grid, click Options | Customize results grids | Grid Display Options | Summary Grid with Details.
With your summary grid activated, you'll see two results section. The upper results are a straight grouping of time cards. Clicking on one of the rows in the upper section displays its details in the lower section. The two results areas are independently controlled. Each having its own columns, column order, column width, and groupings.
Client Time Approval
Projector allows your clients to approve time. To limit access to potentially sensitive information, only certain fields can be searched on or results returned on. See Configure Clients to Approve Time to learn how to set this up.