Time Manager 2010.2.819 Release

An interim release of Time Manager is now available: Version 2010.2.819.

The main emphasis on this release is to fix a number of minor glitches which were missed in the previous release. 

The main fix is where you want to calculate costs and/or charges.  The new routine allows you more flexibility in whether you want to recost all or just part of the data, as well as speeding the calculation up significantly.  We have fixed an issue where selecting a date range caused an error if staff had not recorded any time for the period selected.  This issue is now corrected.

For a full list of the fixes and enhancements click here to view the PDF.

Time Manager 2010.2.819 is available for download on our ftp site and will be uploaded to the hosted server on Sunday 22nd August. 

With this interim release work is now starting in full on the Quarter 3 release still planned for the end of September 2010.  The initial effort will be concentrated on the Alert and Reporting engine, which will run in the background and produce and deliver reports to you on a schedule.  In addition, alerts such as emailing individuals a list of late Timesheets will also be available.

Assigning Security functions to a User in Time Manager

Part of the new security module in Profess Time Manager allows you greater flexibility in what the users see and what they have access to.

You are now able to set up Security groups that can only have access to the projects menu under setup and no other option.

Two security groups are defined automatically:

Administrator – this has access to all menu options (with a quirk)

Default – this has access only to core functionality required to enter time, expenses etc.

You can add additional user groups, and define alternative menu options by using the Setup, Staff, Security Groups menu.  Then check on or off the options you want that security group to have.  Finally, assign the new security group to those staff you would like to make use of it.

On occasions new menu options are added to Time Manager to provide additional functionality.  By default these new menu options are not available to existing security groups.  When we do add menu options, you will always be informed of this.  To make these options available you just follow a simple process:

Open each security group inn turn.  As the page is displayed, all new options will be automatically ticked on so just scroll down, click on Save and the new features are made available to the group.

Of course, you might also want to consider whether you wish to make any new feature available.  If you do not open and save a Security group the new feature are not available.

Using Security groups means you can configure the entire access structure of Time Manager, simplify menu options just to those required by groups of staff, disable entire menu trees such as Administration or Setup, and make the user experience more tailorered to individual groups of users.

Managing what Staff are working on

 Once the number of employees in a professional office rises above half a dozen, one of the issues that arises is managing what people are working on, and how they may allocate work to others without management knowing about it.

In order to manage this process you can start by ensuring you assign work to individuals and make it clear that they cannot re-assign it without approval.  This may work, but when things get busy and there is a lot to do discipline can break down and work begins to be handed off again.

You can try to control this up front by specifying what work can be done by what staff, but this then places the emphasis on management or supervisors allocating the work and maintaining it.  Another simpler method will be to monitor the work each member of Staff is doing and then just point out to them when they are working on tasks they should not be.  All that is required here is to run a report at the end of each week, selecting the previous week or weeks, and scanning down the work information for each member of Staff.  You will find that the anomalies will jump out at you, and you can then have a word with the individuals and correct the situation.  Over time, this method will lead to everyone working to the jobs that are assigned to them.

If you want to be more prescriptive about the work you assign to staff you can use the Project Staff features in Time Manager.  This is very quick and simple to carry out and has a number of additional advantages:

• Staff are more focussed if they know the work they are meant to do
• Staff are only presented with their work, not a whole list of stuff to pick from
• It is simple to add an additional member of staff to cover if another is on leave or off sick
• It concentrates your mind as a manager to think about who you want to do a piece of work

If you haven’t already tried the Project Staff allocation features in Time Manager give them a go – they may make your life, and your staff’s work life, more pleasant and productive.

Quicker Picklists

New in the next release of Time Manager.

A number of performance improvements have been made in this release. Where possible, drop down lists for Projects and Activities are now cached so that they do not need retrieving from the database each time they are requested. This caching occurs only when you request the full list and not when you are filtering it by typing a search value in.