How do I create and manage timesheet exports?

Question

How do I create and manage timesheet exports?

Answer

Data Integration includes important timesheet data exports, expense sheet data exports, other asset entry exports, auto-import settings, object data exports, REST and other web services. One of the most popular methods of exporting hours data to ERP systems is using a .csv flat file export.

Timesheet Data Exports

To modify timesheet data exports:

1. Navigate to System>Data Integration>Edit Timesheet Export.
2. To edit an export, click on the export name.
3. Modify the export name.
4. Enable the export by clicking the enable checkbox.
5. Add and remove Exported Fields.
6. To remove an Exported Field, click on the field to highlight it and then click the Minus (-) button.
7. To add an Exported Field, click on the Plus (+) button, scroll through the pick list of available Exported Fields, and select the items you want to add. After selection, these items will move into the exposed list of Exported Fields.
8. On the Exported Fields list, remember that top to bottom is left to right in the output file.
9. To modify the order of an item in the Exported Fields list, highlight that item and click the up/down arrows to move the item into the correct position.
10. You can highlight and move multiple items by clicking and dragging your mouse on a group of items, and then clicking the up/down arrows.
11. If you do not enable the Custom Header, the Exported Fields will output into your file using the system's database names as headers for each Exported Field column.
12. You can enable the Custom Header widget and enter customized header names, each separated by a comma. 
13. You can also use the Custom Header widget to no header row by enabled it but not entering any customized header names.

You can set the Paycode Rollup feature to one of three settings: 

1. None. This settings will output a unique row for each time entry.
2. Rollup time entries by pay code. This setting will have the system summarize or total all time entries by pay code. If other object data such as Project or Cost Center are setup as Exported Fields, time entry rollups will have secondary subtotals by project or cost enter. 
3. Split time entries by pay code. This setting will ensure that where time entries are recorded in the system in a pay code bucket format (e.g. Crew Timesheet data), each time entry row will be split out so that each pay code has its own unique row.

There are two major import template formats used by payroll and ERP systems: the Pay Code Name import template, and the Pay Code Bucket import template. These import templates are structured quite differently:

Pay Code Name Import Template

This import template has only two columns time entry data:

Employee Name (ID) | Pay Code Name (or ID)  |  Hours  |

The Exported Fields data format will look something like this:

John Smith       (1234) |Regular Time        (REG)  |    72.0  |

John Smith       (1234) |Vacation                (VAC)  |       8.0  |

 Pay Code Bucket Import Template

This import template distributes hours entries across columns for each pay code :

Employee Name (ID) | RT    |  OT   | VAC  | SICK  |

The Exported Fields data format will look something like this:

John Smith       (1234) |    72 |         8 |           |            |

The system can also do advanced data transformation of time entries and other timesheet data. For example, the system can be configured to output On Call hours as OT hours, or summarize all Pay Code amounts into an Amounts column.