Category Archives: TimeControl Reporting

TimeControl Reporting

TimeControl Scheduled Reporting can make a big impact on decision making

We’ve made some big report capability improvements in TimeControl with Scheduled Reports.

TimeControl has always been known for its extensive reporting capabilities.  Being able to save any report into Excel format and having a built in report writer has been part of TimeControl since its creation in 1994.  Each new edition of TimeControl has improved reporting functionality.  Now reports can be a mix of graphics, charts and text and control within reports is extensive.

With the addition of Scheduled Reports, we have taken reporting to a new level.  Users can now create a Report Schedule which includes one or many reports.  Reports can be created hourly or daily or weekly or on the schedule you determine.  You can send the reports to one or many recipients and you can impose filters on the reports to be applied at runtime to ensure that only the right data gets to the right people at the right time.

The report can be sent as an email attachment in PDF, Excel, Word, or CSV format or, if the report is expected to be too large  for an email attachment, a link can be sent instead to an optionally encrypted file on the TimeControl Server.   The recipient will see the report in their inbox and can click to open the attachment or to go to the expected file.

The impact of TimeControl Scheduled Reports can be profound.  Where managers once had to visit TimeControl, go to Reporting, select the right report and filter and then view the results, now TimeControl will take care of that for them and make sure the information they need is in their fingertips. Exception reports can be set up so they only arrive if there is an exception to deal with and the entire process holds the promise of streamlining critical decision making for key stakeholders.

You can find out more about Scheduled Reporting on the TimeControl website or See it in action in Lesson #25 in the free TimeControl Online Training area at TimeControl.com/resources/online-training/timecontrol7.

timecontrol, TimeControl Reporting

Barcharting your progress in TimeControl

MyAccount_Gantt2Version 7 of TimeControl brought a completely new display type to our viewer.  A barchart or Gantt chart can show tasks or assignments in a barchart view similar to most project scheduling systems.  Invented by Henry Gantt in the 1910’s, this type of display shows activities horizontally across a range of dates.  It is, by far, the most popular display of task data.

In TimeControl, almost everything refers to a date so charting our information across a Gantt chart is somewhat natural for us.  HMS personnel have been working with project management tools since the 1980s.  We’re very familiar with barchart displays around here.

So the Gantt chart’s arrival to TimeControl is like welcoming home an old friend.  You can find the view in the Report tab and Resource Assignments tab of your My Account Area.

There are many options in the Gantt chart view but at their core, you have 3 options.  A Gantt chart can be based on the Project list, the Activity list or the Assignment list.  You can set filters to show only some of the information and make and save as many of each type of view as you wish.  Once you’ve created the view, you can export it to Excel, PDF or an image fit for printing or embedding elsewhere.

Given our familiarity with Gantt charts in general, we expect this aspect of TimeControl to evolve continuously in the coming releases of the product as we add more and more flexibility to creating views and reports in this format.

Excel, timecontrol, TimeControl Reporting, timesheet

Exporting / Printing long notes

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If you have timesheet notes that are longer than 255 characters, you may have found it difficult to print those notes in a regular TimeControl report.  This is thanks to the Formula1 module that has been used in TimeControl for a very long time to product and view reports.  In an upcoming version of TimeControl we’ll have some additional reporting functionality but for the moment, there is another easy way to get a report that includes notes up to 4,000 characters.
Just export them to Excel.  Here are the basic steps
1. Make a new Table Export based on PSDetails
exportnotes1
2. Select fields that may interest you such as Charge Codes and Descriptions from the Posted Charge Revision table and Hours and Date work performed from the PS Detail table
exportnotes2
3. Now select the Posted Detail/Line table and select Posted Notes. These are the notes that are attached to each line in the timesheet. (For the notes that are attached to the entire timesheet header, select the Posted Line Header table and select Posted Header Note)
exportnotes3
The resulting CSV file will export the notes which should be readable into Excel.