Tag Archives: TimeControl Online

Write your own timesheet or subscribe to one?

Subscribe Online or Write it yourself.  Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisYou need to update your timesheet or your project management system.  A host of potential developers are pitching for your business often with low-cost overseas developers.  It might sound tempting.  You could commission exactly the features you’re looking for and, after all, it’s a timesheet. How hard could it be?

Here at HMS we hear this quandary on a regular basis.  Sometimes we hear that the prospective client has, indeed gone off to create their own customized development of a timesheet or combined timesheet and project system.  We often hear back from them 2 or 3 years later as they look at TimeControl again.

Here are a few things to think about if you’re considering writing your own system.

Writing it yourself

Here are some of the things you’ll need to think about as you embark on your writing a timesheet project.

Internal Design

Internal design isn’t a given.  Do you have personnel with the expertise to design such a system?  Even with our deployments of TimeControl, we sometimes find it difficult to get all elements of the client to agree on exactly what the functionality and process should be.  Are you able to consider everyone who is involved in the project?  How difficult will it be to get sign-off on your design.  What will be your process for accepting changes to the design after the project is underway or even after it’s delivered?

Creating it

Ok, you’ve fought through the design and you’re ready for those programmers to get busy.  Now you’ve got to create it.  You’ll need to make sure that the outcome matches the design and then testing, testing, testing to make sure what you’ve created matches your process.  Are there regulatory requirements?  What about financial requirements? Have you got a dedicated programming team or might some of the team change over time.  Did you think to make test case data for testing?

Effort

It can be surprising how much time it takes to create a timesheet system and even more a project system to the commercial standards you see online.  The interface that you see on screen is the least of the work.  What happens once that data is saved is the hard part.  So total effort can be deceptive.  Think in terms of several person-years of work to get the job done.

Congratulations! You’re now a timesheet publisher!

You might not have thought about it, but now you have become a timesheet publisher, maximum clientele: 1

With a commercial system like TimeControl, we get to amortize all the effort we’ve put in over the last 30 years across hundreds or thousands of clients.  That won’t be the case for an in-house written system.  Plus, in becoming a timesheet publisher, there may be some sideeffects you might not have counted on.

  • Your people will be distracted from your core business. These might be some of your best core people.
  • You’re not just responsible for writing it, but also adapting it to changing technology. Whenever an operating system or a database or a browser or malware protection or any integrated technology changes, you’ll need to check to see if upgrades are required.  It’s continuous work.
  • You’re responsible to secure it, monitor it, and upgrade it. Plus, are you developing for in house, in the cloud, in a private cloud, in a hybrid cloud?
  • What about requested changes? As soon as your system is delivered, it’s a guarantee that someone will ask for something additional.

Delays until the investment in writing it pays returns

You’ve created it, tested it and deployed it and how long did that take?  Every day you spent on the project is a day you weren’t receiving the benefits of having delivered it.  With a system that you buy or subscribe to, those delays don’t occur.

Subscribe to TimeControl Online in the Cloud

If you are comparing the challenges of writing your own timesheet or project management system, here are some of the considerations for our TimeControl Online Software as a Service in the Cloud.

HMS manages the entire environment

First of all, HMS is responsible for:

  • The infrastructure including the servers, databases, database servers, operating systems, configuration of those servers, malware protection and more.
  • The installation of the software itself along with any updates, upgrades, hotfixes or anything else the application requires.
  • Security including physical security and the safeguarding of the infrastructure, the application and the data.
  • Data backups
  • 24×7 monitoring.
  • We do all of this in cooperation with our partner Amazon and Amazon Web Services where the services are extensive.
  • ROI is almost instant. The system is there right now.  The only time between subscribing and going into production is any configuration you elect to do

The return on investment is almost instant

All the functionality is there already and with a system like TimeControl, there is so much flexibility to have it adapt to your needs that writing something on your own with similar levels of functionality should be somewhat daunting.

And, there’s so much more.

  • The free TimeControl Mobile App
  • Pre-existing links with numerous project management tools like Primavera, Microsoft Project and Project Online, BrightWork, JIRA and more.
  • Crew timesheets Material/Equipment usage collection in TimeControl Industrial
  • TimeControl Project
  • TimeControl BI
  • Vacation Approvals with TimeRequest™
  • Expense reporting
  • Extensive reporting
  • A complete bi-directional API

If you’d like to see more, trying reading the white paper Buy it, Write it or Subscribe to It? which you’ll find in the White Papers area of the TimeControl Website. You might also want to look at the white paper TimeControl Online Security Architecture on the same page.

Or, feel free to contact one of our TimeControl experts at: TimeControl.com/contact and we can talk about the differences in writing it yourself or subscribing to it online.

Is it getting harder to support an on-premise enterprise system?

TimeControl Online, Timesheeet Software as a Service Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisOnly a few years ago we wouldn’t have even had this conversation.  Even with Software as a Service becoming more popular over 10 years ago, the conventional wisdom at the time was that significant enterprise systems would always be housed in-house.

That conventional wisdom has changed.

Big IT vendors like Microsoft, Oracle and Amazon have pushed hard for organizations to shift to an online subscription model.  At one time the thinking was that this would be most attractive to small and medium sized businesses but that thinking has evolved too.

Here at HMS, we have had TimeControl on-premise available since 1994.  TimeControl Online, our Software as a subscription Service option came out in 2011.  We continue to support both on-premise and online clients and are committed to do so for the foreseeable future.  There are some clients who have very specific and very important reasons to keep their TimeControl systems in-house on their own data platform.  Often these are government or defense sector clients.

But let’s not think about the exceptions for a moment.  Let’s think about everyone else.

Imagine an organization that has heard the evangelism from Oracle and Microsoft and has decided to move some of its data systems to a subscription model.  Both Oracle and Microsoft are making it more and more awkward to choose and install an on-premise system so the incentive to shift might be high.

The savings to the organization is that they no longer need to have quite as much expertise in the IT department.  After all, at the subscription service center, security, monitoring, upgrades, system performance, database servers, operating system updates, network configuration, security patches and, of course, monitoring, updating the hardware servers themselves is handled as part of the subscription.

Now, with one or more systems successfully migrated, the need to handle these requirements internally evaporates as does the need to have that same level of IT expertise available in house.  Many of the IT personnel can be repurposed and there are the remaining in house systems to support but the numbers start to dwindle.

Who leaves first?

In many cases, there is natural attrition and the company is happy with that.  It’s better overall for morale if people are leaving of their own free will.  Older employees who are at retirement age or who can be given an incentive package to retire early take the plunge.  They are probably still young enough to continue in the IT industry if they wish working in other capacities.  But, those people who are leaving through retirement won’t be replaced or wont’ be replaced in the same numbers.

In some cases, some employees see the future coming and decide to seek other opportunities elsewhere.  In most cases, this will be the most experienced and capable employees.

For these two categories, the impact on the organization cannot be measured by just the number of employees.  A great deal of corporate memory, experience and skill go with these seasoned veterans.

We have had contacts at some of our clients announce to us they were retiring, then announce that they couldn’t leave quite yet.  Then announce they were retiring again.  Then announce that yes, they’d actually retired by had been retained by their old employer as a contractor so we’d be continuing to interact with them.  It’s not a unique story.

For the organization, the ability to continue to support the enterprise systems that remain becomes harder and harder and so it’s perhaps no surprise that in the last 2 years, we have had more on-premise TimeControl clients shift to the TimeControl Online subscription service than ever before.  We’ve made that easier in many respects by having an Evolve Program to help defray the costs of going online but the incentive is clearly coming from within.  And, this shift isn’t restricted to our small and medium clients.  It includes some of our largest clients as well.

We expect this migration to continue.

Our own commitment isn’t likely to change however until there are literally no clients left who wish to purchase or support TimeControl on-premise.  Until then we plan to support our clients both on premise and in the Cloud.

For more information on TimeControl Online, go to: Timecontrol.com/features/timecontrol-online.

To see more about choosing Online vs. On-premises, go to: TimeControl.com/how-to-buy.

To find out more about the Evolve program go to: The TimeControl Evolve Program. or contact one of our TimeControl experts at: Timecontrol.com/contact.

Data Sovereignty matters more and more

When we started with TimeControl, the location of the client’s data had nothing to do with us.  We published the software with an on-premise license and the client decided where to install the product and where to locate the data.  The location, security and access to that data was completely decided by the client.  With the release of TimeControl Online a dozen years ago, that all changed.  TimeControl Online’s data was originally stored only in the US but as Software as a Service (SaaS) became more popular in medium to large corporate environments, the location suddenly became more an issue.

As it has with so many changes to the technical world, TimeControl adapted.  The TimeControl Data Location option, allows a client for a fee to decide from a wide range of countries where to locate their data.  The option is well established in our own technical department and has been taken advantage of over the years by clients requesting their data be stored and secured in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.  There are other countries and regions that can be supported as well including Brazil, South Africa, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, India, Australia, Japan and others.

The TimeControl Data Location option goes beyond just storing the data.  At HMS we understand data sovereignty.  So, when this option is used, we don’t backup or transport data to any other location outside the country or region where it is located.  We also don’t ever read client data directly from our Canadian offices in Montreal without a client’s direct request.  And, when the Data Location option is involved, we work with the client on how to access the data through their own systems to achieve whatever might be required to help with support or features.

HMS does manage these remote servers of course. We monitor all our Data Location servers just the way we do with the US-based servers on a 24×7 basis. We also handle all the upgrades and updates directly but that is an application-based update, the TimeControl application then handles upgrading the data locally in each location on its own.

Storing the data and self-restricting our access to the data is only part of the data sovereignty conversation.  It is then up to the client themselves to determine which users can access TimeControl and from where.  For global companies, that can take some thinking to make sure that both data sovereignty and user privacy are respected.

The Data Location option is available to TimeControl Online and TimeControl Industrial Online clients at any time.  If this is of interest to you, contact your TimeControl Account Executive at: TimeControl.com/contact

TimeControl 8.3 now available for download

We are delighted to announce the launch of TimeControl 8.3.

This version has numerous new features and some exciting enhancements that we think will be welcomed by both new and existing customers.

TimeControl and TimeControl Industrial for on-premise deployments are available for download immediately for existing clients with a current Support Agreement at TimeControl.com/support/updates.  TimeControl Online, TimeControl Industrial Online and TimeControl Project subscriptions will all be upgraded automatically in the Cloud in the next few weeks.  We will give existing subscription holders a one week notice before the upgrade.

This version has significant and enhanced features for both Online and On-premise TimeControl clients.

Here are some details on what’s new:

TimeRequest Wizard Update

We’ve done a major overhaul of the TimeRequest Wizard that will allow new employees to be onboarded and automatically adopt previous TimeRequest Wizard entires for them.overcome a challenge some administrators have had in the past.  In previous versions, having new hires be onboarded would not automatically add TimeRequest Wizard holidays to appear.  The result was a more cumbersome manual process for anyone new to make sure that their civic holidays were entered.  Now the TimeRequest Wizard will be able to do this automatically.

Visual Reader support

We have added support for Visual Readers for the Visually impaired into this version of TimeControl.  Following products listed in the American Foundation for the Blind (afb.org) we picked the open source application NVDA as our test bed.  Now users of TimeControl can log-in, access the menu, their personal preferences and enter and submit their timesheets or TimeRequests with greater ease.  We have focused on support for individual profiles in this version rather than all tables and other administrative functions.

SAML IdP-Initiated authentication

TimeControl has had support for SAML authentication for some time.  In previous versions however, we have asked that a Service Provider (the client or service used by the client for SAML) do the authentication (SP-Initiated).  In this version we have provided Identity Provider-Initiated (IdP) SAML support which means that TimeControl can now act as the Service Provider to initiate the SAML authentication request.

Default Table Templates

An Administrator can now create a template for table entries and use that default for new entries.  This can save a bunch of time when new table entries often have the same data in certain fields.  Default templates will pre-enter the data for those fields automatically when a new entry is made or can apply the template on an existing record.

TimeControl Project Copy Tasks to Charge Codes and vice versa

In TimeControl Project we’ve created new functionality to copy Charge record based Views and their associated records to Task Views and records and Task-based Views and records to Charge-records and the associated Viws.

And… there’s so much more.

Improvements in performance and capacity, interface changes to improve the user experience, TimeControl Industrial Extended Rates Options, Crew Onboarding, Enhanced Logging and Event Viewer Changes, brute force login prevention, automatic password recovery and, enhancements to the TimeControl / InEight Estimate Integration

For a more complete list of new and enhanced features in this version, please visit, TimeControl.com/features/latest.

If you are a TimeControl or TimeControl Industrial on premise client with a current support and maintenance agreement, you can download the new version at no additional charge at: TimeControl.com/support/updates. We will notify TimeControl Online subscribers about their update and their access to the new TimeControl Project in the coming weeks. TimeControl Online will be updated automatically.

TimeControl Project Launches!

We’re very excited to announce the release of TimeControl Project.  TimeControl Project is a premium version of TimeControl Online and TimeControl Industrial Online that delivers a unique set of Views, Analysis and Data to enable Project Management and Project Execution.

Now the power and flexibility that TimeControl is known around the world for extends its functionality from project actuals to project planning and execution.  We have taken a unique approach to providing project management functionality within TimeControl.  Instead of thinking of project management as a big bucket of tasks that automatically roll up from level to level from the most detailed task in the organization to the portfolio selection at the executive, we have created data, analysis and displays that are appropriate to each level.  Data can be integrated or it can be distinct depending on what you need.  It doesn’t seem to make sense that every task that changes at the most tactical level will be instantly displayed in summary charts and projections.

Sometimes it’s better to look integrated than be integrated.

TimeControl includes tools at the Strategic Level for executives that might include Sheets Spreadsheet Views and summary GANTT barcharts.  At the Operational Level, project managers and resource managers might prefer GANTT Views and decision making Board Views.  At the Tactical Level, team leaders, team members and, scrum masters might prefer Board Views for an Agile approach.  TimeControl Project keeps these distinct when needed and integrated when that makes more sense.

TimeControl Project is available only as a premium edition of TimeControl Online and TimeControl Industrial Online subscriptions in the Cloud.

For more information about TimeControl Project, visit project.timecontrol.com or contact your HMS account manager.

The TimeControl Evolve program

The TimeControl Evolve program enables TimeControl on-premise clients to easily migrate to TimeControl Online

The TimeControl Evolve is designed to enable TimeControl on-premise clients to migrate to TimeControl Online, the TimeControl Software as a Service subscription in the Cloud.  The evolve program is an inexpensive and effective way to move your TimeControl system into the cloud.

TimeControl on-premise has been marketed since 1994 (yes, that’s right, 28 years!) so there are a lot of on-premise clients out there.  Even though more sales these days are for our subscription Cloud service, TimeControl on-premise is still sold and supported and will be for the foreseeable future.

But that leaves a lot of on-premise clients who are interested in migrating from an on-premise timesheet system to the SaaS equivalent.

There are many advantages to migrating to a TimeControl Online subscription:

  1. First, all maintenance of TimeControl is handled by HMS. We do all the server, database, malware prevention and application upgrades for you.
  2. TimeControl Online is upgraded automatically by HMS. You will no longer have to be concerned about upgrades.  HMS takes care of all updates, upgrades and new version installation centrally on the TimeControl Online servers.
  3. Continuous monitoring is handled for you. TimeControl Online is monitored 24x7x365.  We are looking at the system continuously and are proud of our 99.9%+ uptime since the service was first launched in 2011.
  4. TimeControl Online and TimeControl on-premise are the same code. That means that all functionality that you know and love in TimeControl on-premise is already in TimeControl Online.
  5. Data backups and disaster recovery is already included. TimeControl Online is backed up daily and you can even download your own database backup in case you want to be sure to have control over it.  Disaster recovery is layered to handle issues of different scales and types.
  6. TimeControl Online is highly secure. We follow the OWASP standards for testing and our data is housed by Amazon Web Services in highly secure facilities.

The TimeControl Evolve program will let you migrate your TimeControl on-premise licenses to the cloud and we won’t charge the subscription until your current support contract expires.  Yes, that’s correct.  No subscription cost for the entire remainder of your already active support contract.  If you just updated your technical support today, then that’s a whole year of TimeControl Online for free.

Free.

When you sign up for the Evolve program we will assist you in migrating your data to TimeControl Online.  If you haven’t upgraded your TimeControl on-premise to the most current version, then you can optionally have us help do the upgrades to ensure that the data you have will immediately migrate to the online version.  We can also advise you on maintaining or enhancing your links to external systems such as project management tools, ERPs and more.

Everyone’s situation is different.  If you’d like to talk to one of our Account specialists about whether the TimeControl Evolve program is right for you, contact us at: https://www.timecontrol.com/contact or email us at info@hms.ca.

 

TimeControl Online turns 10 years old!

We are very proud to announce the 10th anniversary of our TimeControl Online Software as a Service.  TimeControl Online is the subscription based version of TimeControl in the Cloud.  We first launched TimeControl Online in August 2011.

For those of you who’ve worked with TimeControl throughout that time, you’ll know that the new Online service coincided with the release of the TimeControl API and the free TimeControl Mobile App.  Both of these aspects of TimeControl were critical to our ability to launch TimeControl as an  online subscription service without losing any capabilities that on-premise clients enjoy.

TimeControl Online has enjoyed a better than 99.9% up-time since it’s release 10 years ago.  The architecture is built around the Amazon AWS EC2 environment which helps with stability and the ability to scale.

Since the first release of TimeControl Online we’ve also introduced Data Location options for clients with data location compliance obligations with data centers now in the US, France, Canada and the UK.

TimeControl Online and TimeControl on-premise both have identical software source code to ensure that whether clients choose to go on premise or in the cloud, the functionality is the same.

For more information on the 10th Anniversary of TimeControl Online, see our press release at: TimeControl.com/resources/newsroom/press-releases/2021-08-16.

The Migration to SaaS timesheets continues

Nerd gets lost in cyberspace

Here at HMS we’ve seen a steady stream of new and existing customers migrating their timesheet process from on-premise deployments to our TimeControl Online timesheet subscription service in the Cloud.  With remote workers now becoming a much more long-term fact of business life, we anticipate this migration to continue.

There will, of course, always be a desire for on-premise or private cloud deployments of a product like TimeControl but this is now more likely to be associated to those working in high security environments such as Defense, Aerospace and ultra high-tech innovation where the desire to keep all data inside the building’s walls is a high priority.  These industries however, are seeing a much lower incidence of remote workers.

At HMS we are committed to support both our on-premise TimeControl and our TimeControl Online subscription service in the cloud indefinitely.

For organizations that are trying to come to terms with a movement of data and applications out of the office and into cloud services, there are some decided benefits to a TimeControl Online.

We started TimeControl Online back in 2011 with the intent that it be accessible by users anywhere in the world.  TimeControl had already been browser based for years and, by 2011, TimeControl was a well-established enterprise timesheet system with 17 years of experience in the market.  Moving to TimeControl Online provides no disadvantages for existing users.  All the functionality of TimeControl is identical in TimeControl Online.  In fact, we maintain a common code base for both systems.

With the Online Service in the cloud, HMS takes on some of the responsibilities that may be becoming harder and harder for remote workers to provide.

With TimeControl Online, HMS takes over all the technical responsibilities of managing the system including:

  • Maintaining and updating the servers and their operating systems
  • Maintaining and updating the databases servers
  • Managing disk space, logs and performance of the servers
  • All hot fixes for TimeControl are installed automatically
  • All upgrades to new versions of TimeControl are included and performed automatically
  • Security including malware production
  • Backups
  • Continuous 24×7 monitoring

All that’s left for the client is to actually use the system.

For existing clients who are considering migrating from TimeControl on-premise to TimeControl Online, ask one of our staff about the cross-over program that can give credit from any on-premise TimeControl licenses with a current support agreement towards a TimeControl Online subscription.  They can be reached at info@hms.ca.

Integrating corporate systems in a mixed IT Environment

Many clients ask us how TimeControl can adapt to their changing IT environments.  It wasn’t so long ago that every mid to large-sized firm would have its corporate systems located on servers on-premise, inside their facility with databases, applications and networking all handled internally.  Advances in the stability, performance and security of Infrastructure in the cloud services from major vendors like Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft have shifted the computing load of many organizations to cloud providers.

One of the key advantages of having all your corporate systems on-premise is that integration between them can happen in the background at a database level.  Even if the ties between tools are done as an import/export of transaction files, having everything on the same servers makes that a little bit easier.

With the move of systems to the cloud, internal IT personnel are confronted with the question of, “How will our systems integrate?”  The most common environment is one where there are still some organizational systems working internally on premise, some systems which are subscribed to as a service and some systems which are hosted on external cloud servers in what is commonly known as a “private cloud”.  We think of these mixed environments as “hybrid”.  And, if that’s not enough, corporate environments are changing at a faster and faster pace.  The impact of the pandemic has had many IT departments reaching out to see how they can leverage cloud computing to better server their workers who are no longer co-located.

At HMS we are asked how to support these kinds of shifting environments all the time.  The short answer to the question, “Can we integrate our hybrid systems with TimeControl is, “Yes”.  But given that’s not too useful, here are some basic points to understand about why we say so:

Both on-premise and in-the-cloud

TimeControl started as a on-premise solution back in 1994.  There were no cloud computing offerings then.  In 2011, we released the TimeControl Online subscription service in the cloud.  That service has continued and expanded since that time.  To this day, TimeControl is still offered for on-premise and in-the-cloud use and our understanding of both environments makes us particularly well suited to help integration in a mixed hybrid environment.

One Code-base

One decision we made early on was that we would maintain a single code base for both TimeControl Online and TimeControl on-premise.  This would ensure that any features or improvements we made for one environment would work for the other.  That kept a sharp focus on being able to support not just TimeControl but anything linked to it no matter what environment it was in.

Many ways to integrate

As part of creating the TimeControl Online service, we had to look at how we would continue to empower the integration abilities of TimeControl.  One method we’d used sometimes in the past to integrate two systems was database-to-database.  That was clearly not going to be available in the online service.  So we worked on expanding one existing method and adding another.

Scheduled Imports and Exports

We extended existing functionality in TimeControl for importing and exporting transaction files in several ways.

First, we made the imports and exports scheduleable so they could happen automatically in the background.  With corporate systems like ERP environments, there was an overwhelming desire to not push data programmatically into the Finance system but rather to deliver a properly formatted set of data to be imported by the ERP tools.  That left CFOs more confident that their ERP tool had validated the data with whatever rules had been established for the organization.

Second, we made it possible for imports and exports of those transaction files to support FTP connections, so the resulting files didn’t have to be on a network server that TimeControl had access to but could rather work through encrypted FTP protocols to move data to and from servers that were under the control of the client whether they were on-premise or private cloud.

Application Programming Interface (API)

The ultimate tool in integrating seamlessly in the background of TimeControl is our RESTful API.  This bi-directional programming interface allows data to be pulled from TimeControl for use by other tools and allows data to be pushed from corporate systems like HR, Payroll, Finance, Cost control to populate the data that TimeControl needs for users to function.  The API is extensive and can interface with other tools whether they are database-based or API’s themselves or middleware environments that are used to tie multiple systems together.

If you’d like to find out more about TimeControl’s flexible architecture and support for your own IT environment, visit: TimeControl.com/features/flexibility or contact HMS to talk to a product specialist at info@hms.ca.

 

TimeControl Online enjoys its 9th anniversary!

With quite a busy August here at HMS we completely forgot an important anniversary.  TimeControl Online, our Timesheet Software as a Service in the cloud was launched in August of 2011.  It became an instant hit and is now used by organizations around the world.  Tens of thousands of users are on the TimeControl Online platform.  Subscriptions of the online service now eclipses on-premise sales and that has only accelerated this year. We’ve been fortunate to enjoy a 99.9% uptime performance over the 9 years of TimeControl Online’s life and we continue to focus new efforts on features, performance and capabilities of the online system.

We’ll make a much bigger celebration for the 10th anniversary next year but for now we thank all our TimeControl Online clients, some of whom have been subscribers since the first release!

For more information on TimeControl Online, visit TimeControl.com/features/timecontrol-online.