All posts by chris.vandersluis

FAQ

Frequently asked questions and the different places to get answers

Frequently Asked Questions, FAQ, TimeControl, Timesheets, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisWith an enterprise system like TimeControl, questions are common.  TimeControl can be used in so many different ways and each deployment is unique.  So, as a client or even a prospective client, where can you get answers?

TimeControl’s extensive documentation.

There are documentation guides which are part of every TimeControl.  Your Administrator may not have given you access to all documentation files.  They include: User Guide, Reference Guide, Report Designer Guide, TimeControl Project Guide, BI Guide and API Guide.  You should be able to access these guides from within TimeControl at the top right of the screen under the “?” icon.

FAQs

Let’s start with the TimeControl Frequently Asked Questions section.  These are some of the most common questions we’re asked by prospective and new clients.  We’ve put those questions here and added our own most common answers.

Find out more at: https://www.timecontrol.com/support/faq.

TimeControl Blog

The TimeControl Blog is where we tend to write longer answers to questions.  Here is where we might talk about the specific way a certain feature can be implemented or to highlight a feature that some clients overlook because it wasn’t at the top of their priority list when they first deployed TimeControl.  We always list the latest features of new versions here but it’s also where we discuss or demonstrate different deployment tactics such as how to deploy TimeControl with entries in percentages instead of hours? Or how to handle multiple languages? Then your answer is probably in the blog.  Rather than scrolling through the hundreds of entries, just use the search bar to locate items of interest. There’s no cost or restriction to use the blog.

Access the TimeControl Blog at: blog.timecontrol.com.

Online Training Videos

We record a lot of training videos.  Many are short 5 minute demonstrations of how to use a particular TimeControl feature.  Some are longer webcasts. But a scroll of the TimeControl Online Learning Center can often reveal results you weren’t expecting.

Find out more at: https://www.timecontrol.com/resources/online-training/timecontrol-8.

YouTube

While we post our videos internally on the TimeControl website, we also post them on YouTube where you can use YouTube’s functionality to create sub-titles in the languages of your choosing.  Our YouTube channel is at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-I21bjwfIq9JEioRUV8kLQ.

The TimeControl website

The resources on TimeControl.com are extensive including slide shows, white papers, factsheets and more.  Just use the Search feature to look for information of interest.

The website is at: https://www.timecontrol.com/.

timecontrol

Branding TimeControl with your logo

Many organizations taken advantage of TimeControl’s flexibility to make it a little more like their own.  One way to do this is to put your own logo on the login screen and at the top of every TimeControl page.  These logos are added on the Administrator/System Preferences page.  Let’s see how to do this…

System Preferences

In the Company Information area of TimeControl, there is a place to add a graphics file for the top of screen logo and another for the login screen logo. Let’s add files right here.  We’ll use logos from our friends at EPM Guidance.

The Top Bar logo should be 300×45 pixels in size.  The login logo should be 300×100 pixels.  The files can be .png, .jpg or .gif.

TimeControl Branding System Preferences, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter Vandersluis

Here are the results

Login Screen Logo

TimeControl Branding, Login logo, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter Vandersluis

Top Bar Logo

TimeControl Branding, Top Bar, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter Vandersluis

 

timecontrol

Chris Vandersluis now included in the Marquis Who’s Who in America Directory

Marquis Whos Who, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisWith so much going on at HMS Software we don’t always pause to recognize one of our own.  Following the 40th anniversary of HMS Software’s founding and the 30th anniversary of the launch of TimeControl, HMS was approached by the Marquis Who’s Who in America.  This is an exclusive invitation-only directory of recognizable people in the USA.

Marquis Who’s Who invited Mr. Vandersluis to be in their directory and in May confirmed the placement. We are very proud of Mr. Vandersluis and his accomplishments.

You can read the Who’s Who press release here: https://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/522518/marquis-whos-who-honors-chris-vandersluis-for-expertise-in-software-technology.

Holidays

Upcoming holiday dates

TimeControl Calendar, HMS Office Holidays, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisIt’s a busy time of year at HMS as we juggle holidays of different types.

We have some statutory holidays coming up.  Regardless of which holidays are happening, our 24×7 monitoring of TimeControl Online continues no matter what.  If the office is closed, we will be slower to respond to technical support or sales calls.

Fete Nationale

On Tuesday June 24th HMS will be closed for the Quebec Fete Nationale (previously known as St-Jean Baptiste Day.  Given that our headquarters are in Montreal, this is a statutory holiday for all the HMS staff.  We will be open on Monday the 23rd and back at our desks on Wednesday the 25th.

Canada Day

It’s Canada’s birthday on Tuesday, July 1st.  Canada will celebrate it’s 158th anniversary on that day.  It’s a statutory holiday and all the HMS staff will be off.  We will be working on Monday June 30th and back at our posts on Wednesday, July 2nd to respond to any requests.

Independence Day

On Friday, July 4th our American friends will celebrate Independence Day.  While almost all of the USA will be closed that day, HMS will be open for business and our clients outside of the US will be able to reach us.

The next big statutory holiday after this for us will be Labour Day (That’s Labor Day in the US!) on Monday, September 1st.

We will post updates on our social media each of these days to remind you of the office status that day.

workflow

Beyond Approvals: Modernizing Multi‑Purpose Timesheet Workflows

TimeControl Workflow and Approvals, TimeControl Best Practices, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisWhen organizations think of timesheets, they often picture a simple approval process—an employee submits their hours, a manager signs off, and payroll processes the data. But in reality, collecting timesheets has evolved into a powerful multi-functional process. When companies use TimeControl, the timesheet system can simultaneously serve multiple masters: payroll, project management, finance, HR, and government compliance.

This post explores how you can modernize your workflow by leveraging TimeControl’s matrix approval model and multi‑purpose timesheet design. We’ll also provide practical tips to streamline and future‑proof your processes.

From Single Approval to Matrix Approvals

Traditional timesheet systems typically follow a linear approval path—supervisor reviews, then it’s sent onward. TimeControl takes a different approach: matrix approvals, which allow timesheet data to be reviewed and approved by multiple roles for different purposes at the same time.

Why is this a game changer:

  • Project Managers can approve project-specific hours regardless of department.
  • Department Managers can validate work allocation for personnel.
  • Finance can verify cost codes and chargebacks before posting to the ERP.
  • HR/Payroll can finalize time-off, overtime, or special pay categories.

Multi-Purpose by Design: Use Cases in Action

✅ Project Costing & Capitalization

Use rate-based rules to tag internal vs. capitalizable time and route for separate approvals. TimeControl can even export capital hours directly to financial systems like SAP or Oracle for asset tracking.

✅ Government Compliance (DCAA, SOX, etc.)

Enforce audit trails, justification fields, and retroactive change tracking to ensure compliance with federal or industry regulations.

✅ Time-Off Planning

Integrate TimeControl with your HR system to let employees submit vacation requests, which are reviewed and reflected in scheduling—while still feeding into HR and payroll.

✅ Billing Support

Consulting firms can set up client-specific billing codes and rules so billable hours flow directly into invoicing pipelines.

Modern Workflow Best Practices

Here are some best practices we’ve compiled from our experience of working with hundreds of organizations in both the private and public sectors.

🛠 Standardize Where Possible

Start with core timesheet fields and gradually add complexity. Avoid overwhelming users with too many entry types at first.

🛠 Automate Routing Logic

Use rule-based approval paths: if an entry is billable and over X hours, auto-route to finance for a second review. TimeControl supports this logic without the need for coding.

🛠 Keep Auditability Front and Center

Enable real-time audit logs and change tracking. Matrix approvals don’t just distribute accountability—they document it.

🛠 Visualize What Matters

Use dashboards or automated exports to deliver the right data to the right team—no need for everyone to wade through the full timesheet.

Wrapping Up

Multi-purpose timesheets are no longer a “nice to have”—they’re essential for agile organizations that need a single source of truth across departments. With TimeControl’s matrix approval engine and flexible workflow tools, you can move beyond “who signed off” and toward “who got what they need.”

If your organization is still relying on siloed timesheet workflows, now is the time to modernize. Let TimeControl help you turn your timesheets into a strategic asset.

👉 Ready to optimize your workflow?

Find out more about TimeControl’s Workflow and Approvals or Contact the TimeControl Team to learn how TimeControl can be configured to meet your exact business needs—or request a personalized demo today.

timecontrol

It’s back to ABC’s – We mean Activity Based Costing!

Activity Based Costing, ABC, Enterprise Project Management, TimeControl, TimeControl White Paper, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisIt’s Activity Based Costing week here at HMS and we’ve got a bunch to talk about.

Activity Based Costing is hardly new.  It has been a part of project management for as long as there has been project management.  If you want to change a part of your new building, you need to know what the change will cost for that particular activity.  You can’t make an informed decision about project changes without knowing what the estimate of that feature cost you in the first place.

TimeControl was designed since its inception as an activity based system and with the powerful rates functionality built into TimeControl, the associated costing features are extensive.

We’ve just produced a new White Paper called Activity Based Costing Using TimeControl which looks at how you can use those extensive costing features to deploy Activity Based Costing from numerous perspectives.

At the same time, there is an article on Chris Vandersluis’s EPM Guidance Blog site on the ABC’s of Activity Based Costing.

timecontrol

TimeControl webinar in french – en francais!

Webinar, TimeControl, Idexia, timesheet, feuilles de temps, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisHMS is a bilingual company and, from time to time we get the opportunity to do a webinar or other public presentation in french.  Working our partners Idexia, we have organized a TimeControl webinar for July 18th in french.  The invitation is below.  We’ve sent invitations to our Quebec-based contacts but if you are a french speaking person or know a french speaking person who would like to attend, please give them this invitation.

Réservez votre place pour le webinaire TimeControl, une solution de Logiciel HMS!

Optimisez la productivité de votre entreprise avec TimeControl, une solution puissante et flexible pour la gestion des feuilles de temps.

Conçue ici même au Québec par Logiciel HMS pour s’adapter aux environnements complexes, TimeControl vous permet de suivre le temps de vos ressources, de gérer les coûts et de renforcer le contrôle de vos projets – le tout en un seul endroit.

Si vous cherchez une alternative aux feuilles de temps de Project Server ou Project Online, ce webinaire est pour vous.

Fonctionnalités clés :

✅ Saisie du temps multi-projets
✅ Intégration avec les principaux ERP, systèmes de paie et logiciels de gestion de projets
✅ Validation automatique des feuilles de temps
✅ Suivi des coûts et des ressources en temps réel
✅ Conformité aux exigences des crédits d’impôt pour la recherche et le développement

Venez assister à notre webinaire gratuit afin de découvrir TimeControl, une solution de feuilles de temps qui s’intègre à une multitude de solutions de gestion de projets, notamment Project Server, Project Online et BrightWork ainsi qu’aux principaux systèmes financiers, incluant SAP et Oracle.

Déjà implantée à travers le monde et au Québec dans différents secteurs d’activités, incluant des organismes gouvernementaux, TimeControl est une solution multilingue hautement configurable afin de s’adapter à vos processus internes.

Lors du webinaire, vous verrez la puissance et la flexibilité de la solution TimeControl.

Ce webinaire est réalisé par Logiciel HMS, éditeur de TimeControl et leur partenaire intégrateur, Idexia.

Au plaisir de vous y voir!

Réservez votre place dès maintenant :

📅 Mercredi 18 juin 2025
🕚 De 11h00 à 12h00
🤩 Gratuit
💻 En ligne

JE M’INSCRIS

Pour en savoir plus : www.idexia.com | 1 877 880-8771 | info@idexia.com

www.timecontrol.com | 514-695-8122 | info@hms.ca

timecontrol

The TimeControl Deployment Process

Deployment meetings and TimeControl QuikStart, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisWith an enterprise product as flexible as TimeControl, how to deploy the system is as important as the functionality it contains.  HMS has been deploying enterprise project management and timesheet systems for over 40 years and TimeControl itself for over 30, so we bring some experience to the process.

There is no need to have HMS help with a TimeControl deployment.  The system will be fully functional on the first day the client gets access whether that is for TimeControl Online or TimeControl on-premise but leveraging our experience can make the implementation go quite a bit faster and avoid the risks of forgetting an important step.

If we are commissioned to assist, one of the first things we’ll do is set up one or more design sessions.  The number of sessions and the length of those sessions is completely dependent on the client.  We usually start with the list of requirements that were given to us during the sales process.  That starts the groundwork of what TimeControl will have to deliver.  Our design sessions start with a product overview given by one of our experienced deployment personnel.  They will go over the major points of functionality then delve deeper into the requirements themselves.  This keeps the focus on what the client is trying to solve but also ensures that we don’t miss talking about what other functionality in TimeControl might be useful either in the first phase of deployment or later.

We use our QuikStart program to condition the conversations.  There is a brochure for the QuikStart and slides to help during design sessions, but that is really guidance, not a single formula.

We have lots of questions for the client and usually this means after a first session, the client will need a break of a few hours or a few days to do homework.  Some questions might seem obvious but then need thought and discussion before the system can be configured.  “How long should a timesheet be?” is a common one.  “Is that for everyone or will some people have different lengths of timesheets?”  “Who will approve timesheets?”  “Will you track costs and if so is that just for one requirement or multiple?” “Are there auditability requirements for the DCAA or Research Tax Credits?” “What about line-item approvals?” “What reports does the system need to produce and do you have examples already?” “Will you be tracking start/stop times?” “Will you be tracking expenses?” “What external systems will TimeControl be linked to?” “Are the people representing those systems here on the design call?” “Who will be the TimeControl Administrator(s)?”

And so on…

When the answers are all in, we have to work backwards from outputs to inputs just like you learned in Systems Analysis 101.  If, for example, a report will be needed by location, then we have to make sure the location of work is represented in the user defined fields per task.  If there is a need to do a report of costs spent by department, then we know that employees will have to have a department field defined and a list of departments to choose from. We’ll also need to have rates set for costing at either internal cost, external billing rates or both.

When the exercise is complete, we assemble a design document and the client gets a chance for a final read-through before signing off.

Then it’s time for the client to go find some data.  Given the different requests, we assemble a template spreadsheet for Projects, Charge Codes, Rates, Users, and Employees as well as approval paths.  The spreadsheets will have in them the fields that were defined as needed for the different requirements of the system.

Once received, HMS pumps that data into the client’s TimeControl and turns it over for testing to the client prior to going live.  Sometimes there are changes.  It’s possible that something looks different when the client sees it live from how they imagined it in the design meetings. Those changes are usually very quick to make.

Then it’s a wrap.  Usually the client will roll out to a select group of users first and if they already have a timesheet system have that group work with both systems in parallel before making the “go live” decision for all users.

The length of time for the entire process varies greatly depending on the number of users, the number of external systems which will be integrated with TimeControl but most of all by the level of clarity by the client of what they need TimeControl to do.  It can last 2-3 days or several months.  It wouldn’t be surprising for a client with several thousand licenses to engage HMS for 3-4 weeks of work to be delivered for a 12-16 week period.

There can be further phases once the deployment is complete but usually for the existing functionality, there’s nothing more to configure for the foreseeable future.  We keep track of the documentation we create for the system and the client is responsible for creating their own process documentation and maintaining it internally.

If you would like more details on how TimeControl is deployed, you can go to https://www.timecontrol.com/resources/services/consulting or contact HMS at https://www.timecontrol.com/contact.

timecontrol

Graduating your timesheet from Excel to TimeControl

Excel is almost certainly still the most popular timesheet in the world.  There are, after all, free templates to make a timesheet right in Excel.  For smaller companies getting started or for people in Finance who grew up with Excel, it might seem an obvious choice.

But, while it may seem an obvious choice, the drawbacks are numerous and, the larger and more complex an organization becomes, the worse those drawbacks become.

Any need for auditability of a timesheet will be a struggle with an open ended system like Excel.  It’s designed for analysis, not for accountability.  If you need to harmonize your coding or just need to find missing timesheets, Excel becomes a labor intensive nightmare.  Most Excel-based timesheet deployments means sending templates for the timesheet to each employee then gathering those documents, merging the data, dealing with discrepancies and then filing a combined report.  That’s one thing if it’s 10 employees and a very different thing if it’s 500!

For those thinking it might be time to graduate up from an Excel timesheet to a full application designed for the purpose, it’s worth nothing that TimeControl was designed to have Excel Integration from its very first version back in 1994.

We didn’t stop there.

The points at which TimeControl and Excel can intertwine can be multi-faceted.  It is able to import Excel worksheets for lists of projects, charges or employees, rates or almost else. So moving your Excel system into TimeControl is a natural progression and that’s just the start.  Here are a few points of contact between the systems.

Importing and Exporting data between TimeControl and Excel

TimeControl includes complete support for transferring data to and from Excel files.  If you maintain some data now in Excel, then moving that into TimeControl is a matter of moments.  If you use Excel for analysis of data, then sending TimeControl’s centralized and auditable data back to Excel is very simple.  You can even schedule exports to Excel or imports from Excel to happen automatically on a schedule you define.

Importing legacy timesheets from Excel to TimeControl is already included

TimeControl includes import functionality for timesheets themselves so if you have an existing timesheet system in Excel you can transfer that data into TimeControl.  Our Excel Solutions Portal even has a template for you to download and use so you don’t have to create it yourself.

Integrating Excel Services dashboards into TimeControl

Some people like using Excel’s server-based charting capabilities to create analysis of timesheet or project management data.  TimeControl supports displaying Excel views in the dashboard.  Need an Excel pivot report in your TimeControl dashboard?  No problem. Need an Excel traffic light on the TimeControl dashboard?  No problem.

Displaying TimeControl Reports in Excel

Every TimeControl report including those created in our TimeControl Report Designer or with the TimeControl Drill Down Analyzer can be saved as Excel files so you can do more extensive analysis and reporting in the tools you are familiar with.

Migrating from Excel to TimeControl or TimeControl Online is so simple

TimeControl and TimeControl Online are almost always configured from Excel files.  Our technical staff give templates to new clients so they can configure the data they want into TimeControl with the features they want to enable.  If you’re using Excel already you’re all set to go.  And, if you’re subscribing to TimeControlOnline, there’s nothing to install, no servers or databases to configure.  Once your subscription is activated, you are ready to start moving your data into the system and activating your users.  Most small to medium sized organizations are able to enter timesheets a few days after subscribing.  You could be looking at your own TimeControl system only a few hours from now.

You can find out more about how TimeControl and Excel can work together to help your organization become more efficient on our TimeControl/Excel Use-Case portal at: Timecontrol.com/use-cases/excel-to-timecontrol.  On the portal you’ll find webcasts, factsheets and slide presentations explaining some of your options and potential benefits.