All posts by chris.vandersluis

timecontrol

What makes TimeControl unique?

Stand alone, TimeControl, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisWe talk about what makes TimeControl unique all the time but we’ve been doing some internal training lately and thought it might make sense to lay out what HMS considers TimeControl’s Unique Selling Propositions.  This is a common concept in sales to identify what makes a product unique or makes it stand out among it’s competitors.  So, here are what we focus on when we describe TimeControl to prospective clients:

TimeControl is a Multi-function timesheet

That’s surprisingly (at least to us) rare.  Most timesheet systems are designed with a primary purpose.  By far the most popular is a Time and Attendance timesheet organized to use with Payroll.  The next most popular perhaps the Time and Billing timesheet that is organized by client to use for invoicing.  Think they’re the same? They’re not.  Somewhere down the list of timesheet types is a Project Management update timesheet to put the Actuals into Budget vs. Actuals.  The focus there is activity based costing to compare against a plan.

TimeControl was designed since its inception to fulfill multiple roles at once and that carries through every design decision we’ve made with the product.  Using the same timesheet data, you can get auditable down-to-the minute attendance for Payroll and multiple rates for billing and updates of not just actuals but also task progress for Project Management and numerous other processes.  That leads nicely into the next aspect of what makes TimeControl unique.

TimeControl is the most flexible timesheet in the industry

As a multi-function timesheet TimeControl must, by extension, support multiple business processes.  That means, TimeControl is going to have to be flexible.  That has been a center point of the product design since 1994.  Some of the many ways we do this include:

User Defined Fields

Every TimeControl Table, the Timesheet Header and Timesheet Details and many other aspects of the product allow an unlimited number of user-defined fields.  These are used to condition data for many possible purposes.  This might be used for reporting, for grouping or filtering data and for grouping or filtering data differently for different purposes.

Changeable menu, fields and reports through User Profiles

TimeControl’s User Profiles allow you to determine who can see what data is available to each user profile.  There are an unlimited number of User Profiles that can be created so some profiles might be geography specific, some user authority specific and some department or role specific.  In each profile you can decide what menu selections are available, what data can be entered, what data can be viewed and this security extends all the way to the field level.

That’s unprecedented.

Free TimeControl Mobile App

It’s not enough to have all that power in our web application or to say that TimeControl is available both for on-premise deployment and as an in-the-cloud subscription service but we also include with every license the ability to use the free TimeControl Mobile App.  The Mobile App is also unusual in that it’s not just for timesheet entry.  You can also use the Mobile App for approvals, timesheet review, materials and equipment entries and even for mobile-specific reports.

TimeControl is the most Integrate-able timesheet in the industry

Unlike some systems where integration is a concept or something external that you pay extra for, TimeControl comes with pre-built integrations for numerous products such as Oracle’s Primavera, Microsoft Project, BrightWork, SharePoint, Contruent and more.  There is also an ability to import and export data either on demand or on pre-planned automated schedules.

For those looking to weave TimeControl into a more extensive corporate process, TimeControl includes a full bi-directional API which allows clients to establish coded integration to virtually any other system.

There is lots more of course, the extensive way we accommodate rates, our multi-lingual interface, the multiple ways to report on TimeControl data, the ability to create libraries of dashboard templates and so on and so on.

 

timecontrol

How does TimeControl handle multiple languages?

Multi-language, localization, TimeControl, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisTimeControl is in use in virtually every time-zone in the world. One of the questions we are often asked is how we will support the local display for users in different places who are all part of the same organization and same TimeControl instance.  This term is commonly referred to as localization in the software industry.

TimeControl has several answers for that.

Languages

TimeControl ships with numerous language translations including French, English, Spanish etc. But, that’s often not enough. Even in a single language, many clients ask us if they can modify some of the terms that TimeControl uses. Perhaps the term “Task” is used instead of “Charge” or “Initiative” is the standard term in that organization for “Project. For this reason, TimeControl ships with the Language module included. A client can create numerous modified languages. They can copy from an existing language and then make their own variant. The same module allows a client to literally add a language we have never translated. Usually, only a tiny fraction of TimeControl’s terms have to be translated as this is usually most significant for the individual users who the client has defined to have the least amount of menu items to select from.
The labels on a page, the menu items, even the error messages can be modified.

Since this is a user-profile oriented aspect of TimeControl, this allows one language to be used for one group (in one country for example) and a different language to be used for a different group.
It’s a powerful aspect of TimeControl.

Dates, money and more

Many of the display options for TimeControl are either defined within the application (for example the currency symbol) or are derived from the browser’s “culture”. This makes TimeControl automatically show 30/10/2024 for our Canadian users and 10/30/2024 for our American users. Internal options for display options are either in the System Preferences (where they would appear for all users) or User Profiles (where they would appear only for those users with that User Profile.

Some options (such as select a language) are also changeable within each user’s MyAccount area.

Documentation

Aside from TimeControl-supplied documentation, what about an organization’s own process guide for using TimeControl. You can replace the documentation that is supplied with the product (or hide it) and instead, display your own. This can be used to show different language format guides (we supply both English and French user guides) or just display the how-to guide on the internal process along with where to direct your questions.

It’s always improving

We work on the Languages module and display options within almost every version of TimeControl and we often use this feature ourselves when we are helping an organization deploy the product. The language module is in both the on-premise and on-line versions of TimeControl.

 

timecontrol

Agile, Waterfall or Hybrid, what does TimeControl support?

Agile or Waterfall, TimeControl, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christophe Peter VandersluisWe are often asked a series of questions in sequence about TImeControl.  It usually sounds like this:

“Does TimeControl support Agile?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Does TimeControl support Waterfall?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Ah, but we have some project management using Waterfall and some project management using Agile.  Does TimeControl support a Hybrid project management environment?

“It certainly does.”

For those who don’t follow project management terms every day, let’s just first distinguish these three approaches.  Agile Project Management has been an up and coming methodology in which mostly technology project are divided into short term “sprints” of work.  We consider this a tactical level or team level process.  Waterfall is the name given to project management that might be more classically rendered in a GANTT barchart and the name comes from how many of these barcharts look with bars shifting to the right of the calendar the further down you go and thus the impression that water would drip from one bar to the next.  In our experience we’ve found that almost no company is completely Waterfall or completely Agile despite their best efforts and what used to be thought of as an interim position: Hybrid, has lately become a target process.

TimeControl thinks of each project distinctly.  Each project can be managed internally in TimeControl or have its plan integrated with an external system in products like Microsoft Project Online or Oracle Primavera or Atlassian’s JIRA. This gives us tremendous flexibility in serving up the simplest of questions to the end user: “Just tell me what you did with your time this week.”

On a Friday afternoon when their timesheet is the only barrier between a long work week and starting their weekend, the end user doesn’t care much about whether the task they worked on was displayed on an Agile board or a GANTT chart at the beginning of the week.  They don’t care if it was originally defined in a sprint or the HR department or a project schedule.  They just want to report their time and file their timesheet and be done.

In TimeControl, that’s exactly what they get.  One of the benefits of TimeControl is how it links to so many disparate project and corporate systems simultaneously.  Perhaps there are multiple versions of Microsoft Project being used. Perhaps some work is being tracked in an Agile tool.  Perhaps some was created right in TimeControl.  All these tasks can appear on the same timesheet in the same interface and that’s where TimeControl makes a huge difference.  Without a multi-purpose timesheet like TimeControl that can support multiple tools and multiple methodologies, organizations are left with multiple timesheets.  The Agile tool has one, the Waterfall tool another, the administrator something else, the HR people yet another.  TimeControl’s design was to bring all that together into a single place.

So, Waterfall, Agile, Hybrid?  You decide.  TimeControl’s ready.

You can find out more about different use-case scenarios on the TimeControl Solutions Page.

timecontrol

HMS and TimeControl welcome Idexia to our Partner Network

Idexia, TimeControl Partner, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisWe are delighted to add Idexia to our list of Partners this month.  Idexia is a Quebec-based consulting firm specialized in the Microsoft productivity, collaboration and development ecosystem. They have experience in project management systems such as Microsoft Project and BrightWork both of which are included as integrations in TimeControl.  We have worked with members of the Idexia team for many years so we are very excited that they are now part of our Alliance Partner Program.  This aspect of the TimeControl Partner system allows Idexia to recommend TimeControl when it’s the most appropriate and effective solution for their client but does not restrict them from recommending other time and project systems.

This relationship allows HMS to share additional TimeControl resources and access to TimeControl to better server our mutual clients.

You’ll find Idexia now listed on the HMS Software site on the Partner Page and on the TimeControl site on the Dealer Page.  You can find out more about Idexia and their services on their website at: idexia.com.

timecontrol

Best in Class or All in One

TimeControl Best In Category, Best in Breed, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisWe’ve been asked to talk about this topic numerous times since the mid 1990s when the first ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) packages were expanding at a rapid rate.

“Is it better”, we were asked, “to select the best of each category of software or instead, to select one package that can do everything at once?”

The conversation would become known as All-in-One vs. Best-in-Class.

The answer from us is always the same.  We see the desire for both Technical management and Finance management to get one system that will do everything.  The advantages on paper are easy to display: The all-in-one product is *already* integrated.  It is only one package to maintain, not multiple.  So, it must be the best choice… Right?

Except it’s often not.

Our answer to people who ask about this is always the same.  It’s the best choice to go with an all-in-one solution so long as it does what you need.  If it doesn’t then very quickly you will end up where you started, with multiple timesheet systems.

And that is incredibly costly.

Over the years, it has happened from time to time that a client informs us that they won’t be using TimeControl anymore.  Their Finance Department has changed or a new CFO has arrived with experience of different tools at previous organizations.  The company will “change directions” we’re told and TimeControl, while working fine, will be retired.

Our response to this is always positive.  “If your new solution does everything you need, then we wish you good fortune,’ we say.

In situation after situation, we get a call 3, 6, 9 months later  “Um, we were a little hasty in moving off of TimeControl,” we’re told.  It turned out that the alternate solution doesn’t actually do everything we were already used to and the person who is noticing the gaps the most turns out to be our CFO.”

“No worries,” we explain.  “We’ll work at getting your system back up and running with whatever updates you might need.”

It’s not that people can’t figure this out in advance.  The problem with a timesheet system is that it’s often taken for granted.  After all, employees use their timesheet for 5 to 10 minutes a week.  It is in the background of their experience.  But TimeControl is an enterprise timesheet which often has many links with other tools and multiple processes in the organization.  The administrators appreciate the complexities of the overall system and, if they’re still involved, so do the people who deployed it.  But it’s an easy part of a corporate system to not pay much attention to as you’re making a sweeping systems change.

It’s not always the same thing with each client.  Often it’s the multiple layers of the approvals process that a new tool doesn’t support. Sometimes it’s a simultaneous link with Payroll on one side and a project management tool like Primavera on another.  Other times it’s the degree to which the flexibility of TimeControl has been employed to meet multiple internal needs at the same time.

And TimeControl can flex.

So we don’t stress too much when a client says they’re looking at alternates other that to be certain that it’s not because there is something in TimeControl the client isn’t happy with.  That we respond to in a very different way.

After all, happy clients are what has made HMS and TimeControl so successful for decades.

To find out more about TimeControl and how it links with ERP systems like SAP and Oracle, see the TimeControl.com/use-cases/links-to-erp page.

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Business Talk Magazine Interviews President of HMS Software

We are delighted to share an article written about our President, Chris Vandersluis.  He was recently interviewed by Business Talk Magazine about his 40 years leading HMS Software, and making it into a leading publisher of project management and project timekeeping systems.  Mr. Vandersluis describes the evolution of TimeControl over 30 years from version 1.0 in 1994 to the soon-to-be released version 8.6.

You can read the article in its entirety at:  businesstalkmagazine.com/interviews/chris-vandersluis-helping-companies-in-raising-the-bar-for-project-management.

TimeControl 30th Anniversary

TimeControl is turning 30!

TimeControl 8, TimeControl BI, TimeControl Business Intelligence, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter Vandersluis, Christoper P VandersluisHere at HMS we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of TimeControl. When we first released the TimeControl Timesheet back in 1994 we expected this to be the first of many applications we’d write but TimeControl took over our lives and now, 30 years later, those of us who have been with HMS Software for all of that time are somewhat amazed.

The product was envisaged to be a timesheet that could simultaneously server both Project Management and Finance and that was not only unusual for the time, it continues to be an exception today. TimeControl serves multiple corporate processes depending on an organization’s needs including project management, payroll, billing, human resources, job costing, R&D tax credits, DCAA compliance, contractor management and more.

Over the years TimeControl has evolved many times. Our current version, 8.5 is the 52nd major version of the product we’ve released, each one with numerous new or enhanced features. TimeControl now comes in multiple editions including TimeControl on-premise, TimeControl Industrial on-premise, TimeControl Online, our Software as a Service edition, TimeControl Industrial Online and TimeControl Project.

We launched the Software as a Service subscription edition of TimeControl in 2011 where it has delivered a better than 99.9% up-time ever since. We launched the TimeControl Mobile interface that same year in 2011 and the free TimeControl Mobile App for Apple and Android devices in 2015.

Through all of that, we’ve deployed TimeControl into some incredible organizations around the world in both the private and public sectors.  You would recognize many of their names.

It’s been an incredible run, longer than many software companies even survive and we’re nowhere near done. TimeControl 8.6 will ship before the end of this year with loads of new and updated features and we’re already designing a major release for 2025.
So, thanks to all the incredible clients who have used TimeControl for so long (some clients have had continuous use of TimeControl for over 26 years!) and to all the staff, partners and vendors who help make TimeControl so remarkable!

If you’d like to read the press release on TimeControl’s 30th Anniversary, you’ll find it at: TimeControl.com/resources/newsroom/press-releases/2024-09-18.

If you’re interested in seeing TimeControl’s evolution through the ages, take a look at: TimeControl turns 30, the evolution of TimeControl 1.0 for DOS to TimeControl 8!

timecontrol

Line Item Approvals

TimeControl Line Item Approvals, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisIt’s almost never enough to just approve a timesheet based on the total hours in it. If you are in any kind of project or activity-based scenario, you will still need to approve the total time for the timesheet, but you will also want to do approvals for the projects.

We encountered this problem way back in 1983 as we wrote our first timesheet. There were two groups sponsoring the initiative. One was Finance. They needed total hours to be able to properly pay people and both Finance and HR needed to know when people were not working and why, again to determine the payroll properly as well as determine what entitlements like vacation and sick-leave have been taken by each employee. But that was what only the one group needed. Also sitting at the table was the Project Management department. They had a burning need to track not just how much time was being spent each week. They needed to know exactly what it was being spent on. They already had project plans, what they didn’t have was project actuals. They were being asked by management to describe budget vs. actual progress on each project and they simply didn’t have the data.

Easy, right?

It wasn’t actually. It took numerous design sessions where one side of the table or the other was unhappy before we finally realized the crux of the challenge was that we would need both approvals for the whole timesheet totals and separate approvals line by line.
TimeControl Matrix Approvals, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter Vandersluis

Ten years later we carried that philosophy into the first commercial release of TimeControl with both organizational approvals and project manager approvals. We also created a whole process to support those functions and called it the Matrix Approval Process for Labor Actuals™. Which is still a core element of TimeControl today. In that process, supervisors approve the whole timesheet and look at attendance and things like personal time off and sick leave. Project Managers get to approve or reject each project task when that task came from a project management system such as Microsoft Project or Primavera.

It was a big success.

As TimeControl matured we were faced with several new challenges. It wasn’t enough to do approvals of each line just for the project managers. Plus, not everyone was using a commercial project management system around which we’d designed the first pass of the Project Manager Validation function. Now we were asked could we also make independent line approvals for billable items, for contractor time vs. salary staff, for time to be exported into HR with approvals of entitlements.

That resulted in the Line Item Approval function. It works just like the Project Manager Validations but is based on an export interface. Let’s say your TimeControl environment has an export for Contractors. The idea is that individual contractors can review and approve the time their people spent on the project on a line-by-line basis. Then, once they get around to invoicing their client, both sides have already approved the time. Think that might not be a big deal? We’ve watched several clients do this and reduce the approval time of contractor invoices from between 90 and 120 days all the way down to 3-5 days. The impact on both the contractor and the client can be profound.

Line Item Approval basically lets us create an unlimited number of task-by-task approval processes all from the same timesheet line. We don’t delete that line (we never do in TimeControl anyway to ensure auditability) but the timesheet can get auditable adjustments if needed or the lines that are deemed unacceptable for that process can simply be put aside during the actual transfer of data for that purpose. Let’s say you’ve created a Line Item Approval for billing and a Billing Manager reviews all the lines that are about to get transferred into the billing system and made into a summary and then an invoice. By rejecting certain lines, perhaps for unbillable work, the Billing Manager effectively removes those hours from the billing transfer and thus the client’s invoice. The hours don’t evaporate from TimeControl, but they won’t ever be transferred to the invoicing system.

We can’t really make a graphic of this process because it’s three-dimensional. But, imagine the matrix grid and then imagine it has a third dimension with as many layers as you need approval processes. Often it’s just another one or two or three. But the effects on the company can be massive.

Think we’re done? Think again.

In the next version of TimeControl we’ll be introducing enhancements to the Line Item Approval (internally we call it LIA) Process and have even gone back to the original Project Manager Validation function to align the functionality of both features. Line Item Approval is already one of the most popular aspects of TimeControl and its flexibility ensures it can adapt to almost every approval requirement.

Auditability, Accountability and Flexibility. It’s a powerful combination.

Find out more about Approvals on the TimeControl.com website at: TimeControl.com/use-cases/matrix-approvals.

hms software, support

We’ve upgraded our internal communications to Voice Over IP phones

VOIP Phone, Voice over IP Phone, TimeControl, HMS Software, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisYou may have noticed that our caller-ID is suddenly appearing where it hasn’t been obvious for quite some time.  As we continue to embrace hybrid work schedules for almost all the staff, we have decided to migrate our communications platforms from old copper wire to Voice Over IP (VOIP) in a way that is tied into our Internet network and allows staff to respond from their telephone handset on their desk, from their PC or laptop or even from their own phones via Mobile App.  It has been a great move forward for all the HMS staff!

Our headquarters phone number hasn’t changed it is still +1 514-695-8122.

While our Voice Over IP phones are working just great for us at the moment, calling in to get answers for sales questions or technical support when we’re not expecting you may not be your best bet to reach us.  Even if you know (or find out by calling HMS and consulting the automatic directory) what a particular employee’s extension is, you will have no way to know if they have been allocated to take your category of call at that time.  If the call is unexpected, you might find the response time is unnaturally long. That employee might be away or away from communications due to something urgent that they have been assigned to focus on.  The result might be getting a call back a day later or even two instead of within minutes or a couple of hours.  So, here are some recommendations on how to reach us in the most effective way.

If you are calling for Sales, then reaching us via email at info@hms.ca or at TimeControl.com/contact is by far the most effective method.  This allows communications to be sent to the most appropriate salesperson and, if needed, to multiple people in the sales department at once.  Of course, if you are responding to a direct email from one of the HMS staff, then that will go directly to them.  If you’re not sure if a staff person is away or you receive an out of office email and you’re not sure where to direct your questions, then info@hms.ca is your best play.

If you are trying to reach HMS for technical assistance, then by far, the best method is to either fill in a support request at: TimeControl.com/contact/tech-support or send an email to support@hms.ca.  Both of these methods trigger internal triage mechanisms for technical support and have the issue allocated to the most appropriate person to respond including creating an automatic ticket with your contact information and the description of the problem.  Those tickets are then automatically assigned by HMS to the most appropriate and most available technical expert.  Of course calls from the tech staff might be via our VOIP phones or through Microsoft Teams or Zoom depending on the client’s needs and requests.

All of these techniques have served to make us even more available than in the past for both prospective and current clients.