Tag Archives: multi-language timesheet

TimeControl’s ability to be multi-national is unparalleled

Many products have the ability to be localized.  What this usually means is that the user installing or accessing the product can see the interface in their local language and other factors like how currency or dates are displayed is aligned to their country selection.

Different Languages

TimeControl’s abilities go well beyond this.  First of all, yes, we have multiple languages.  TimeControl ships with a number of different languages built in and a language editor to adapt those language definitions or to create your own.  Do you call a “cheque” a “check”? Fine.  TimeControl let’s you adapt that definition.  Does you organization call “Charge Codes” “Task Codes”?  No problem.  Use the TimeControl Manage Languages function to change that.  When TimeControl is upgraded to the next version, it will check any changes you’ve made and not erase them so your changes will be supported.

But, TimeControl can do more.  It will adapt to the user’s browser for some items such as the welcome message or how the calendar is displayed and other selections in TimeControl’s System Preferences and User Profile preferences can define how certain terms or fields are displayed but what might we do about something like different currencies?

Different Currencies

TimeControl’s rate system is extensive and you can use fields to define what currency is used for a particular rate type.  So, “US Labor” for Engineer might be $80 USD and “Canada Labour” for Engineer might be $110 CAD.  The field for currency can define whether the amount entered and then used for calculations is in US dollars or Canadian dollars.  The amounts can be reported on and kept distinct for reporting or exporting but you could do more with a bit of work.  You could use a daily API feed for currency exchange such as www.oanda.com to calculate the rate values right into TimeControl and use one of the extra cost fields to normalize all those costs into one currency for reporting.  Not everyone is going to need this sort of functionality.  Most of the multi-national organizations we’ve seen try to push everyone into one currency but not all.  When you get to a person-by-person data entry system like a timesheet, you may have some needs for reporting that are more local and other needs that are more global.

Different weekends.

TimeControl has the flexibility to have different timesheet periods for different users.  So, a group in the US might have a 7-day calendar with Saturdays and Sundays scheduled as weekend time off.  Within the same TimeControl, another in the Mediterranean might have a weekend that is Thursdays and Fridays.  Still a third group might have a bi-monthly timesheet that is submitted for the first 15 days of the month and a second timesheet for the balance of the month.  Once any of those timesheets are approved and posted, TimeControl is storing the results day-by-day so reporting and exporting aren’t really affected.

Not every multi-national organization has this kind of requirement but it’s nice to know that TimeControl’s flexibility can adapt to include all the users in the organization wherever they are and whatever their work structure is.