How do I setup crew timesheets?

Question

How do I setup crew timesheets?

Answer

Overview

Crew timesheets allow you to entry of time, expense, assets, production and logs for crews each day. You can access crew timesheets on the Crew Timesheets tab. The Crew Timesheet can contain various tabs such as the "Time" tab to record resource time entries, Equipment, Materials, Production, and logs such as Foreman Logs, Safety Checks, Incident Logs or other logs.

Crew Timesheet Setup

The crew timesheet can be setup to match any paper or Excel timesheet format.

Best practice has the following major formats:

1. Type I: Row Fields Only 
   • All data fields are setup to display in a row. Fields setup to display in rows are called "Row Fields."
   • Sample Use Case #1: Employee Name, Employee ID, Job Name, Phase code Name, Craft, Operated Equipment
   • Sample Use Case #2: Employee Name, Job Name, Craft 
2. Type II: Row Fields and Column Fields 
   • Data fields are setup using a combination of row fields and column fields. Normally, data fields that employee properties are row fields such as Employee Name, Employee ID and Craft. Jobs and phase codes are usually setup as column fields that can apply to multiple employees. 
   • Sample Use Case #1: Row Fields: Employee Name, Employee ID, Craft. Column Fields: Job Name, Phase Code Name.
   • Sample Use Case #2: Row Fields: Employee Name, Employee ID, Craft. Operated Equipment. Column Fields: Job Name, Phase Code Name.
   • Sample Use Case #3: Row Fields: Employee Name, Employee ID, Craft, Phase Code. Column Fields: Job Name. 
3. Type III
   • Row Fields: Employee, Equipment, Craft
   • Column Fields: Job Name 
   • Day Fields: Phase Code Name

Setting Up the Time Tab

On the Time tab, there are three major areas:

• Day Fields
  Day fields are in the horizontal box that runs across the very top of the crew timesheet. By default, Date and Crew Name will always be day fields. Job can also be a day field, meaning that all data below on the crew timesheet will be coded by the Job in that field.
  
  
• Column Fields
  Column fields appear below the Day Fields section, and to the right of Employees and Equipment fields columns. Each column contains an hours entry field, or a group of work pay code entry buckets like RT, OT, and if needed DT. They are setup with one, two or even three properties to code many columns of Hours on the crew timesheet. These are usually Phases or Cost Codes. If the crew works on more than one job per day, Job might be setup as a column field.
• Row Fields
  Row fields, also known as Employee or Equipment field properties are fields that have columns for coding Employee and Equipment hours on rows. These usually include Craft, Billing Code, Pay Class. If crew employees work on completely different Jobs from one another, you might want to have Jobs setup as a row field.  

The fields that appear on the crew timesheet (e.g. Hours, Job, Cost Code, Craft, Billing Code, etc.) come from the timesheet template of the employee that appears first in the crew. To add employees to the crew simply click the "Add Employee" link at the bottom of the list of employees, then choose the appropriate employee(s) to add. You can also add employees to the crew by going to the Employees > Groups page and configuring the list of employees for each crew (group).

If you are an administrator (that is, you can edit timesheet templates on the System > Templates page), then you will be able to alter they layout of the crew timesheet. To do this, click the "More" menu button (the triangle icon in the upper-right corner of the crew timesheet) on the Crew Timesheet page, then click the "Timesheet Options" link. You will have access to the following layout settings:

Property	Description
Day Fields	Choose which fields from the timesheet template should appear at the top of the crew timesheet. Day fields values apply to every row and column of the crew timesheet for the selected date.
Column Fields	Choose which fields from the timesheet template should appear above each column where the hours are entered. Column field values apply to every row in the column.
Row Fields	Any remaining fields that are not selected as day or column fields are considered row fields, and will show up on each row for each employee.
Show Employee ID	Check this option if you want to display the Employee ID column next to the Employee column in the layout. Note that even if not checked, the user can always view an employee's ID and other properties by clicking the employee's name in the crew timesheet.
Employee Grouping	Use this option to group certain types of employees at the top of the list of employees on the crew timesheet. For instance, you might want employees with the Permission Level of 'Foreman' to always be at the top of the list. For road crews, you might want to group employees by their titles and list these groups in descending order, e.g Foreman, Crew Leads, Operators, etc. Another example is to group employees with the employee type 'Exempt' at the top of the list, so that 'Hourly' employees sort below them, and 'Contractor' below them (note that these employee or resource types need to be setup in the product).
Tab Direction	You can choose whether the tab key will take you to the next column (horizontal) or to the next row (vertical).
Remember Last	This option will determine how many previously selected projects, tasks, etc. will be remembered for easy access.
Crew Parent Field	If you have a lot of crews you may want to organize them into different categories or types. For instance, you might create a group custom field named "Region" and specify a geographic region for each crew. Specify the "Region" field in this example for the crew parent field in order to make browsing for crews more convenient.

You can enable a crew timesheet to track other items, assets and logs. Each tracking item will have its own tab where you can enter, edit and submit entries. You can configure different entry field templates for each type of asset, item or log you track. 

Materials Tracking

In Pacific Timesheet you can track materials used on a job. You can enable a materials tab to record entries tracking quantities, unit cost, cost amount, bill rates and bill amounts of materials items. Unit and bill rates can be editable and entered by the materials tracking user, or be read-only fields that are filled in automatically from an already configured material item record.

Purchase Orders Tracking

Another way to track materials and supplies is to record an invoice or purchase order for items purchased. You can track purchase orders with a sequenced purchase order number or a number users create in the field.  

Production Tracking

Field operations that need to track a crew's production or output can setup entries to quantities of production using any unit of measure.

Morning Huddles/Safety Checks

Research shows that documented morning huddles and safety checks are a critical part of a successful safety program. Detailed mutli-value check lists, description fields, numeric, check boxes and up to twelve data types can be configured to track in detail crew morning huddles and safety checks.

Foreman Daily Logs

The Foreman Daily Log can be streamlined and automated in its own tracking module. Track details on weather conditions, contractors or visitors on site, materials delivered, reasons for delays, and a lengthy daily log entry.

Incident Logs

You can simplify accident and incident tracking with a detailed electronic records captured immediately on the site by the managers involved.  

Crew Approval Kiosk

A special Approval Kiosk of the Pacific Timesheet provides a streamlined simplified crew timesheet approval page. The page has its own separate login that can be used by client approvers that you do not want to have broader access to other crew time tracking applications.

1. Navigate to Crew Timesheet>Tools>Crew Approval Kiosk
2. Then select the Crew you want to view and approve. 
3. The Crew Approval Kiosk provides a "read-only" view of crew timesheet data.
4. In the upper right, use the Day and Week Views to see data in a weekly or daily format.
5. You can submit, approve or reject (with detailed comments) a daily crew timesheet, depending upon your permissions.
6. Or, if you want, click the Week View of the crew timesheet and submit, approve or reject an entire week of data. 
7. You can provide your client approvers with a separate link to this page to log into the Crew Approval Kiosk to review, approve or reject crew timesheets.
   
   https://someco.pacifictimesheet.com/timesheet/kiosk/crew-approval.do
   
   Where "someco" is the sub-domain of the system. If you are using an evaluation system, this URL will look like:  
   
   https://eval65.pacifictimesheet.com/timesheet/kiosk/crew-approval.do
   
   
8. A client approver will need to be setup in Pacific Timesheet with a user account so that they can log in. This account should have very limited permissions, e.g. only the ability to approve timesheets, and no timesheet template. Your application specialist can assist you with setting up such client access accounts.