Category Archives: Solutions

Our Most Popular Video on our YouTube Channel: TC & SharePoint… But Why?

We took a look at our rather extensive library of YouTube videos and noticed that one in particular is significantly more popular than the rest: the video demonstrating TimeControl’s integration with SharePoint.

Not surprising, when you think about the worldwide popularity of Microsoft SharePoint. With close to 100 million business users, it’s an important and powerful part of day-to-day functioning of so many organizations as their intranet or collaboration platform.

Did you know TimeControl can be installed within your preexisting SharePoint environment? With TimeControl, there is no need to leave the SharePoint platform to fill out your timesheet. Here at HMS our long-standing relationship with Microsoft means we’ve worked alongside SharePoint since its creation. The integration of the 2 means that adding TimeControl as your company’s timesheet will be easy and avoid the headache of an interrupted user experience.

With close to 1000 views, our TimeContol & SharePoint video is worth the informative 13 minute investment of your time.

Check out our TC & SharePoint brochure
For a TC & SharePoint Power-Point PDF printout, click here:
For even more information, go to our complete solutions portal for everything TC & SharePoint
 
In other news…
Don’t forget TimeControl 6.5 is scheduled to release in October! We’re on our way to wrapping up final details as we have already begun testing the code here at HMS. Stay tuned.

Check out our Timesheet Best Practices Solution Portal

Timesheet Best Practices Solution Portal partial Over the last few weeks here at HMS, we’ve been doing some hard work assembling collateral, questions, answers, and other materials about the best ways to use a timesheet. We’re happy to finally reveal our new solutions portal for everything you need to know about timesheet best practices.

HMS Software employees are often asked for advice on the best practices for timesheet use, and many of these questions are not TimeControl-specific. This is why we’ve created a solutions portal with materials that will help you use timesheeting to its full potential.

We realize that timesheet usage is multi-faceted, so we divided up our efforts. Some timesheet usage recommendations are appropriate to the organization, and others are more focused on the individual. With this in mind, we divided the best practice information based on the end-user’s perspective and their information needs. You’ll notice that the solutions are categorized for use by the organization or the individual. This will make it easier so that you can quickly and easily find the recommended best practices you need.

One of the key new sections included in the best practices portal is the Timesheet Best Practices Q & A page. Ever wondered just how much time is too much to spend on entering your timesheet? Do you question just how much detail is productive in a timesheet? Or, perhaps you’re wondering if it makes sense to track the start and stop times of the day along with the durations for each task. We turned these types of timesheet questions we most often receive over to our technical staff. Their answers to these questions, and their timesheet expertise on these topics and more, are now available and ready to be shared with you.

There are many links, materials and collateral referenced by the Best Practices Solution Portal including white papers on how to increase resource capacity through better timesheet practices, guidance for executives on how a timesheet system can benefit the organization, videos of how to be effective with your timesheet system and even a blank timesheet process template for creating your own timesheet process.

Check out our new Timesheet Best Practices solution portal today! You’ll undoubtedly discover something some new information that can help you to get the most out of your timesheet.

To access the Timesheet Best Practices, visit timecontrol.com/solutions/bestpractices.

An all new and improved Primavera Solution Portal

We have many clients who use TimeControl with their Oracle-Primavera system.  Perhaps it’s no surprise.  TimeControl has integrated with Primavera since 1997 with P3 and we’ve maintained that link all the way up to the most recent P6r8 release even once Primavera was purchased by Oracle.  Primavera clients who need a single timesheet to update not only the task progress in Primavera but also Payroll, Billing, Finance, Job Costing or HR have looked to TimeControl to provide multi-purpose timesheet functionality that will allow a single point of timesheet entry and multiple back-end uses.
Our relationship with Primavera goes back to 1997 and our relationship with Oracle separately tc6_p6_linkalso goes back to 1997 when TimeControl was first able to store its data in either SQL Server or Oracle (We now also support MySQL which is coincidentally also owned by Oracle).  So the relationship has many facets and runs deep.
We’ve done a little work to remake our TimeControl and Primavera Solution Portal with a range of new materials that we hope you’ll find useful.  Aside from a remake of the portal itself, we’ve got new factsheets, slide presentations, white papers and an all-new on-demand webcast that shoes TimeControl 6 and Primavera’s P6 interacting back and forth.
The integration options between TimeControl and Primavera are extensive.  Not only can you bring into TimeControl Primavera tasks, resources, steps and assignments, you also have abilities on how to match employees to generic skills and Primavera codes to TimeControl user defined fields.  Updating your Primavera project data with TimeControl timesheets is incredibly flexible.  You can update hours and costs, Primavera Step progress, ETC, Financial periods and more.
The new and improved TimeControl / Primavera Solution Portal covers some of the benefits of integrating these two world-class tools including:

  • Automated Business Validation Rules
  • Extensive Rate Management
  • Management of Vacation, Sick Leave, Personal time banks
  • Management of Banked Overtime
  • Included integration with P6 and other project systems
  • TimeControl Mobile interface for tablets and smartphones
  • Missing timesheet management
  • The Matrix Approval Process for Labor Actuals™

Access to the portal and its resources is free.  Find out more at www.timecontrol.com/solutions/primavera.

Free Solution Portal: Collaborative Project Management

HMS Software has released a new solution area for those who wish to create a collaborative project management environment and who have already adopted SharePoint for their collaboration platform and Microsoft Project desktop as their scheduling tool. This portal contains numerous resources showing how to link TimeControl, Microsoft Project and SharePoint.

clip_image001The combination of SharePoint and Microsoft Project desktop already gives much of the functionality that a collaborative project environment requires. The combination of functionality allows for planning, scheduling, issue tracking, team communications, document management and more. There is, however, a gap when it comes to tracking tasks as they move forward:

Time

HMS Software’s TimeControl is already integrated with both Microsoft Project desktop and SharePoint. TimeControl’s integration with Project dates back to 1995 making it one of the longest standing relationships with Project in the world. TimeControl’s interface can also be provisioned directly into a SharePoint site. The product’s design has catered to this functionality since SharePoint 2002. TimeControl also integrates with Microsoft Project Server for those organizations which eventually graduate to Microsoft’s EPM solution.

This new solution area on the www.timecontrol.com website contains numerous resources that showcases TimeControl working with both SharePoint and Project.

Resources on the website include Webcasts, Factsheets, PowerPoint presentations, a White Paper, screen shots, and links to other online resources. There is even a link to the free TimeControl Hosted Trial site.

The new TimeControl Solution Portal is available for free at: www.timecontrol.com/solutions/projectsharepoint/.