TimeControl 8 Online Learning Center
Welcome to the TimeControl online training area. We've created several mini lessons to help you learn some of the basic functionality of TimeControl. If you're new to TimeControl or want to see how some of the basic functionality works, then you'll be able to find what you need here.
If you're trying out the TimeControl Trial site or have been allocated one of the TimeControl hosted sites for evaluation, then you'll find that the data we use in these mini lessons is the same as the data in those sites. Some of the basic functions that you'll need to know to get started will include adding a user, adding projects and charge codes, entering time in the timesheet and basic approvals.
Additional information is available in the TimeControl online help, the TimeControl User and Reference Guides and from the TimeControl blog.
TimeControl 8 Basic Lessons
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Transitioning from TimeControl 7 to TimeControl 8
If you are used to TimeControl 7, then this short primer will give you an overview of how TimeControl 8 may seem a bit different for certain functions. You'll find that most of TimeControl is right where you always expect it but there are a few small changes in how to find things. This 10 minute lesson should give you a running start as you transition into this exciting new version of TimeControl.
Duration: 10 minutes
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Lesson 1: Timesheet entry
TimeControl 8's timesheet entry screen is mostly self-explanatory but this lesson covers some of the options that users might encounter based on how their TimeControl is configured.
Duration: 5 minutes
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Lesson 2: TimeControl Mobile App
The TimeControl Mobile App lets you connect to your TimeControl from your Android or iOS device. This lesson shows how to add or view a timesheet in the Mobile App.
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The Timesheet List
For Supervisors and Administrators, the Timesheet List is one of the most powerful functions in TimeControl. It allows an administrator to see many timesheets for many users in a single view and to highlight draft, released, rejected, posted, archived and even missing timesheets. The administrator can filter the list in limitless ways to identify only those timesheets that are of concern and can scroll back as far as they wish. This lesson shows an overview of the Timesheet List function.
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Lesson 3: TimeControl Tables Overview
Behind the scenes TimeControl has a number of tables that can be managed by an Administrator that can help categorize data in a wide variety of ways. Not every table needs to be filled out but the User, Employee and Charge tables are essential along with at least one entry in the Rates table. This lesson shows the basic table structure and shows how Administrators can maintain some of the more important tables in the system.
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Add a new project
The Project Table allows TimeControl not only to group charges by project but also to link those charges to external project scheduling tools like Microsoft Project, Project Server, Project Online, Primavera, BrightWork, ARES PRISM and others. The Project table's structure allows projects to be categorized for billing, filtering or other purposes.
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The TimeControl Charge Table
A significant table in TimeControl is the Charge Table. This table allows hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of possible charge codes to be entered so that time can be charged against them. The structure of this table allows us to make charges hierarchical so that end users aren't confronted with a terribly long drop-down list on the web. Also, an unlimited number of user defined fields can be added for each charge record allowing Administrators to categorize future hours and labor costs for R&D tax credits, capitalization, billing, or other purposes.
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Timesheet Approvals - Organizational
Approving timesheets by supervisors is very easy. This lesson shows the organizational approvals, what happens when an Automated Validation Rule is invoked and how supervisors can approve or reject timesheets. For more information about more complex Matrix Approvals, visit the Matrix Approval Process page.
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Onboarding New Users
One of the key functions of an Administrator is to add a new employee into TimeControl as a user when they enter the company. This lesson goes through the New User Wizard in TimeControl and shows you how to complete all the steps for a new addition to TimeControl in an easy-to-follow series of screens.
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Getting Started
We often talk about how much you can do with TimeControl but what about how little? This online lesson shows the minimum elements required to get TimeControl 8 started and walks through examples of each of the absolute requirements to get to a point where you can enter timesheets. This session is designed for those who are working on configuring their own TimeControl and is a companion to the Getting Started with TimeControl document found in the White Papers area.
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Request Vacation Approval with TimeRequest
TimeControl allows you to enter a request to approve time in the future such as vacation time. TimeRequest can also be used for any category of timesheet entry however. The key is that the time is for approval in the future and, once approved, it will appear in the appropriate timesheet when it's created as a pre-load item. This short lesson shows the entry of a request for vacation and how it is approved.
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Manage Holidays with the TimeRequest Wizard
TimeControl allows an admistrator to enter multiple pre-approved TimeRequests for multiple employees at the same time using the TimeRequest Wizard. This allows bank holidays to be pre-created in an employee's timesheet. This lesson shows the creation of new holidays for some employees then how to edit that TimeRequest to add additional people or even change the future dates of the TimeRequests. In this way, TimeControl supports adding different holidays for people in different countries or different circumstances and updating the TimeRequests for onboarding and off-boarding.
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The TimeControl Report Interface
TimeControl has extensive reporting capabilities right inside the system. There are numerous reports and reporting options immediately out of the box. This lesson gives a brief reporting overview and shows how to run the existing reports in the system.
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The Drill Down Analyzer
One of the most powerful tools for TimeControl Administrators is TimeControl's Drill Down Analyzer. This tool allows Administrators to group incredible volumes of TimeControl data very, very quickly by a virtually unlimited number of criteria. It's a perfect tool for answering ad-hoc questions that might otherwise require hours of design of a report or having to export and analyze the data in other tools. The Drill Down Analyzer allows you to simply drag colums of data into a hierarchical view and then see the result instantly.
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Adding to your Menu
TimeControl lets an Administrator actually add items to your menu. In this case we'll try adding an external source, this video lessons page to our documentation area. Once added, the menu item will behave like all other menu items. It can be restricted by User Profile security so it is made available to only the correct users.
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Adding Expenses, Attachments and Notes to your timesheet
TimeControl lets users add more than just hours. This lesson shows how to add an expense item to a timesheet line and then to add a receipt as an attachment. We'll also cover adding a line item note to the timesheet and see where to add estimate to complete or a complete flag.
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Line Item Approvals
TimeControl has extensive functionality you can use to create your own approval process including HMS's famous Matrix Approval Process. This presentation goes through a live overview of the TimeControl approval functionality so you can see it in action and think about how approvals might be designed in your own situation.
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TimeControl Timesheet Start and Stop times
TimeControl allows you to add the start and stop time of when you work each day right on the timesheet. You can add one start/stop or multiple start/stops per day. This short lesson shows where to add those times. This feature must be enabled by your TimeControl Administrator.
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TimeControl Managing Holidays
TimeControl's TimeRequest function can also be used to push statutory holiday data to each TimeControl user. This short lesson shows how Administrators can populate user's future timesheets with holiday information.
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TimeControl Visual Reader Support
TimeControl supports visual readers like NVDA. This demonstration will let you listen as the mouse hovers over different elemtents of TimeControl and a voice describes what is being focused on. The NVDA reader is only one of many such readers.
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TimeControl Tips and Tricks
There are a number of ways users have found to get their timesheet done faster. We've assembled a few of our favorite tips and tricks to getting the most out of TimeControl in this easy lesson. Find out how to make a TimeControl icon on your desktop, how to hide columns in your timesheet to avoid horizontal scrolling and how to use the tab/shift-tab key to save a few seconds on each line of your timesheet. It'll take a few short minutes to see this lesson and it will pay back in hours of cumulative saved time in the future as you use TimeControl.
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Adding a User Defined Field
TimeControl's incredible flexibility allows administrators to add fields to any table in the TimeControl system. If you have the Modify Structure privilege in User Profiles Table Security, you will be able to add a field. Here we add a new field in the Employee Table.
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Internal TimeControl Report Writing Course
This course was done internally for the TimeControl technical staff using TimeControl version 7 but the report writing functionality works exactly the same in version 8 so we think it is still quite valuable. The course is 2 hours long and covers all the basics of creating and modifying TimeControl reports using our Report Designer.
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