Time Sheet approval process

[Anon Anon]

I hope someone can help.   We have a situation where resources assigned to projects have timesheets approved by their manager not the PM.   The PM is responsible for tracking hours against their projects but cannot see the timesheets until the resource has submitted it(generally late) and the manager has approved (generally late).   When the PM finally reviews the posted time and finds hours that were not posted correctly we have to go back to finance to have an adjustment processed.   I realize this is an internal process problem but the organizaiton is not going to change.   Is there a way in Clarity to set up a two stage time sheet approval process where the PM would approve hours for their project then the manager would approve second?  

[ca.portal.admin]

Instead of a two stage approval process the project managers could see the Pending Actuals for each assignment in their project using a view in Open Workbench.The actuals start appearing as soon as they are entered, that is before submitting.  Martti K.

[Anon Anon]

I know of at least 1 organisation doing something similar to this.   They have the PM of all Projects on a Timesheet Approve (or Reject) the Timesheet, but they only get  4 days after submission to do so. After 4 days, if the PMs haven't Approved/Rejected the Timesheets, they are auto-approved. I'm sure CA can provide some assistance in setting this up,   with the additional step of having the Line Manager Approved the Timesheet once the PM has.   This won't necessarily solve your timing problem.  On the other side, I suspect you need to get some Timesheet Police established, to nag/coerce/force/cajole your people into submitting their Timesheets on time.

[ca.portal.admin]

Hi - we are new to Clarity and would like to explore issues with auto-approving time cards.   I noticed that you mention auto-approval in your post.   Is this specific to your workplace?   If so, did you have any trouble getting the process implemented and was there any backloash from PM's or RM's?   Thanks very much!

[Anon Anon]

Just thought I would chime in..  Depending on your current release, two options  1. V12- the timesheet potlets can allow the PMs to view the time before approval (assuming you have a specific time when they are approved) our PMs do that..  2. There was  a bug starting in v 8 that the PM approval process (out of the box) was accdientally omittted, but is supposedly reinstated in V12.1 or one of the service packs (not sure).. however you can get the xML file from support to XOg into your system   [note: if you are an upgrade client from 7.5 it should be there]  the process itself is fairly simple.. utilizes action items for PMs and RMs to approve time, but I would recommend testing it naturally as when I used it in my prior life,   I had to adjust the group when time was rejected.  Actually ,   I found that I still have the XML from support..and I have attached it   this is one of a few support links that describes the process.. Naturally, you have to ensure your organization would adapt its workflow to accomdate using the processhttps://comm.support.ca.com/?legacyid=TEC439855Lynn

Attachment(s)

proj_man_appr.zip   42 KB 1 version

[Anon Anon]

Is there any update on the possibility of multiple stage time sheet approvals?While the immediate managers will do the approval, the VP needs  final approval rights. So she could reject something, even if approved by the manager.Anyone know of a way to do this?Thanks!

[Anon Anon]

You can have this now in a "process" based approval system.  You'd have to create a Clarity process based on the timesheet which sends action items to the relevant individual project managers (and your VP), only when the PM has completed the action item (not a direct approval of the timesheet) would the process approve the timesheet itself.   You could get the process to time-out as well and auto-approve (or auto-reject as you like).  and you can "Override" the "process approval" at any stage by giving the VP the explicit time approval right, (but the PM's can only complete the action items, they can not approve thetimesheet itself).  It's all down to how creative you can be be with your process-design!  You'd probably also want some creative reporting on this all to see where you approvals are sitting across your business and help you chase up approvals where neccessary?  --  But personally I don't like this very much, I prefer the idea of getting the time posted onto project plans as quickly as possible (rather than hanging around in "pending actuals").   If there is a problem then just adjust the timesheet - clearly it all depends on your business processes though.    David MortonCapgemini  

[Deactivated User]

Any update on this  Dave_3.0 ?

Unsupported job to run a gel script  to update the prstatus of submitted timeshees or

Supported(?)  XOGing in timesheets to approved?

[David Morton]

Not sure that you would want to do anything "unsupported" if you can do everything in a clever-process (like was suggested above).

 

Understanding the business-process that you need to (or that you think that you need to) implement is the bigger challenge - yet to hear any really convincing argument why you need any sort of manual approval of Clarity-timesheets (other than to preserve some job-creation/micro-management in the management level of an organisation) . 

[Deactivated User]

Thanks.