Tag Archives: SaaS

saas timesheet

Data Sovereignty matters more and more

When we started with TimeControl, the location of the client’s data had nothing to do with us.  We published the software with an on-premise license and the client decided where to install the product and where to locate the data.  The location, security and access to that data was completely decided by the client.  With the release of TimeControl Online a dozen years ago, that all changed.  TimeControl Online’s data was originally stored only in the US but as Software as a Service (SaaS) became more popular in medium to large corporate environments, the location suddenly became more an issue.

As it has with so many changes to the technical world, TimeControl adapted.  The TimeControl Data Location option, allows a client for a fee to decide from a wide range of countries where to locate their data.  The option is well established in our own technical department and has been taken advantage of over the years by clients requesting their data be stored and secured in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.  There are other countries and regions that can be supported as well including Brazil, South Africa, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, India, Australia, Japan and others.

The TimeControl Data Location option goes beyond just storing the data.  At HMS we understand data sovereignty.  So, when this option is used, we don’t backup or transport data to any other location outside the country or region where it is located.  We also don’t ever read client data directly from our Canadian offices in Montreal without a client’s direct request.  And, when the Data Location option is involved, we work with the client on how to access the data through their own systems to achieve whatever might be required to help with support or features.

HMS does manage these remote servers of course. We monitor all our Data Location servers just the way we do with the US-based servers on a 24×7 basis. We also handle all the upgrades and updates directly but that is an application-based update, the TimeControl application then handles upgrading the data locally in each location on its own.

Storing the data and self-restricting our access to the data is only part of the data sovereignty conversation.  It is then up to the client themselves to determine which users can access TimeControl and from where.  For global companies, that can take some thinking to make sure that both data sovereignty and user privacy are respected.

The Data Location option is available to TimeControl Online and TimeControl Industrial Online clients at any time.  If this is of interest to you, contact your TimeControl Account Executive at: TimeControl.com/contact

timecontrol online

TimeControl Online turns 10 years old!

We are very proud to announce the 10th anniversary of our TimeControl Online Software as a Service.  TimeControl Online is the subscription based version of TimeControl in the Cloud.  We first launched TimeControl Online in August 2011.

For those of you who’ve worked with TimeControl throughout that time, you’ll know that the new Online service coincided with the release of the TimeControl API and the free TimeControl Mobile App.  Both of these aspects of TimeControl were critical to our ability to launch TimeControl as an  online subscription service without losing any capabilities that on-premise clients enjoy.

TimeControl Online has enjoyed a better than 99.9% up-time since it’s release 10 years ago.  The architecture is built around the Amazon AWS EC2 environment which helps with stability and the ability to scale.

Since the first release of TimeControl Online we’ve also introduced Data Location options for clients with data location compliance obligations with data centers now in the US, France, Canada and the UK.

TimeControl Online and TimeControl on-premise both have identical software source code to ensure that whether clients choose to go on premise or in the cloud, the functionality is the same.

For more information on the 10th Anniversary of TimeControl Online, see our press release at: TimeControl.com/resources/newsroom/press-releases/2021-08-16.

TimeControlOnline

Getting back to the office in person and hybrid work

In some areas of the planet, people are slowly being called back to the workplace to do in-person work.  In other areas staff are still working from home virtually.  For those areas where in-person work is starting, a new type of work environment has evolved that has been termed a hybrid workplace where people will work in the office for some part of their week, work virtually for some part of their week and perhaps even have flexible schedules for some part of their week.  This kind of environment would have been considered quite radical only 18 months ago but not so much today.

Many organizations shifted their on-premise corporate systems such as timesheets to a more online environment when the pandemic first ordered shutdowns.  Other organizations made longer term plans for shifting to cloud-based software as a service but on a slower, more managed pace.  Here at HMS we have been busy since March of 2020 working extensively with both new and existing clients on shifting on-premise timesheet systems to our own TimeControl Online subscription service in the cloud.  That work continues.

As workers start to shift to on-premise work, there will be a natural blend of some people doing some work in the office, some people doing some work from home, some people doing all work from home.  Not everyone will shift simultaneously even within one organization.

There are other complications to getting everyone back to work as well.  During this time, some organizations have extended their offshore working teams.  After, all, if we’re all virtual anyway, what difference does it make if someone is at home down the road or at home on the other side of the world?  Now, as some workers shift back to on-premise work, these new offshore workers will have to be blended into shifting HR policies.

All of this may feel very disruptive to people as the routines they and their families have gotten used to are changed.

One thing that has been a stable force for the TimeControl Online clients is knowing that no matter where you are located, accessing your timesheet to report the work you’ve accomplished and, to report your presence or absence is a given.  The TimeControl Online subscription service in the cloud can be accessed from anywhere there is Internet via a web browser or a mobile device (Android or iOS).

We expect in the coming weeks that many of our clients will use TimeControl’s flexibility to add a field to the timesheet asking the employee to record where they were for the line item listed.  Did that work occur at the office, at home or, elsewhere?  It’s a change that takes only minutes and it will give the organization insight into where people are when they’re getting their jobs done.

Here at HMS we’re still all working remotely and will be for the next few months at least.  But, once we’re able to gather in person again, we’ll almost certainly start to do so in a phased-in approach with a blended at home/at work policy.  We’ll let you know, right here on the blog, when that happens.

For more information on TimeControlOnline, visit: https://www.timecontrol.com/features/timecontrol-online.

 

timecontrol

The Migration to SaaS timesheets continues

Nerd gets lost in cyberspace

Here at HMS we’ve seen a steady stream of new and existing customers migrating their timesheet process from on-premise deployments to our TimeControl Online timesheet subscription service in the Cloud.  With remote workers now becoming a much more long-term fact of business life, we anticipate this migration to continue.

There will, of course, always be a desire for on-premise or private cloud deployments of a product like TimeControl but this is now more likely to be associated to those working in high security environments such as Defense, Aerospace and ultra high-tech innovation where the desire to keep all data inside the building’s walls is a high priority.  These industries however, are seeing a much lower incidence of remote workers.

At HMS we are committed to support both our on-premise TimeControl and our TimeControl Online subscription service in the cloud indefinitely.

For organizations that are trying to come to terms with a movement of data and applications out of the office and into cloud services, there are some decided benefits to a TimeControl Online.

We started TimeControl Online back in 2011 with the intent that it be accessible by users anywhere in the world.  TimeControl had already been browser based for years and, by 2011, TimeControl was a well-established enterprise timesheet system with 17 years of experience in the market.  Moving to TimeControl Online provides no disadvantages for existing users.  All the functionality of TimeControl is identical in TimeControl Online.  In fact, we maintain a common code base for both systems.

With the Online Service in the cloud, HMS takes on some of the responsibilities that may be becoming harder and harder for remote workers to provide.

With TimeControl Online, HMS takes over all the technical responsibilities of managing the system including:

  • Maintaining and updating the servers and their operating systems
  • Maintaining and updating the databases servers
  • Managing disk space, logs and performance of the servers
  • All hot fixes for TimeControl are installed automatically
  • All upgrades to new versions of TimeControl are included and performed automatically
  • Security including malware production
  • Backups
  • Continuous 24×7 monitoring

All that’s left for the client is to actually use the system.

For existing clients who are considering migrating from TimeControl on-premise to TimeControl Online, ask one of our staff about the cross-over program that can give credit from any on-premise TimeControl licenses with a current support agreement towards a TimeControl Online subscription.  They can be reached at info@hms.ca.

timecontrol

Integrating corporate systems in a mixed IT Environment

Many clients ask us how TimeControl can adapt to their changing IT environments.  It wasn’t so long ago that every mid to large-sized firm would have its corporate systems located on servers on-premise, inside their facility with databases, applications and networking all handled internally.  Advances in the stability, performance and security of Infrastructure in the cloud services from major vendors like Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft have shifted the computing load of many organizations to cloud providers.

One of the key advantages of having all your corporate systems on-premise is that integration between them can happen in the background at a database level.  Even if the ties between tools are done as an import/export of transaction files, having everything on the same servers makes that a little bit easier.

With the move of systems to the cloud, internal IT personnel are confronted with the question of, “How will our systems integrate?”  The most common environment is one where there are still some organizational systems working internally on premise, some systems which are subscribed to as a service and some systems which are hosted on external cloud servers in what is commonly known as a “private cloud”.  We think of these mixed environments as “hybrid”.  And, if that’s not enough, corporate environments are changing at a faster and faster pace.  The impact of the pandemic has had many IT departments reaching out to see how they can leverage cloud computing to better server their workers who are no longer co-located.

At HMS we are asked how to support these kinds of shifting environments all the time.  The short answer to the question, “Can we integrate our hybrid systems with TimeControl is, “Yes”.  But given that’s not too useful, here are some basic points to understand about why we say so:

Both on-premise and in-the-cloud

TimeControl started as a on-premise solution back in 1994.  There were no cloud computing offerings then.  In 2011, we released the TimeControl Online subscription service in the cloud.  That service has continued and expanded since that time.  To this day, TimeControl is still offered for on-premise and in-the-cloud use and our understanding of both environments makes us particularly well suited to help integration in a mixed hybrid environment.

One Code-base

One decision we made early on was that we would maintain a single code base for both TimeControl Online and TimeControl on-premise.  This would ensure that any features or improvements we made for one environment would work for the other.  That kept a sharp focus on being able to support not just TimeControl but anything linked to it no matter what environment it was in.

Many ways to integrate

As part of creating the TimeControl Online service, we had to look at how we would continue to empower the integration abilities of TimeControl.  One method we’d used sometimes in the past to integrate two systems was database-to-database.  That was clearly not going to be available in the online service.  So we worked on expanding one existing method and adding another.

Scheduled Imports and Exports

We extended existing functionality in TimeControl for importing and exporting transaction files in several ways.

First, we made the imports and exports scheduleable so they could happen automatically in the background.  With corporate systems like ERP environments, there was an overwhelming desire to not push data programmatically into the Finance system but rather to deliver a properly formatted set of data to be imported by the ERP tools.  That left CFOs more confident that their ERP tool had validated the data with whatever rules had been established for the organization.

Second, we made it possible for imports and exports of those transaction files to support FTP connections, so the resulting files didn’t have to be on a network server that TimeControl had access to but could rather work through encrypted FTP protocols to move data to and from servers that were under the control of the client whether they were on-premise or private cloud.

Application Programming Interface (API)

The ultimate tool in integrating seamlessly in the background of TimeControl is our RESTful API.  This bi-directional programming interface allows data to be pulled from TimeControl for use by other tools and allows data to be pushed from corporate systems like HR, Payroll, Finance, Cost control to populate the data that TimeControl needs for users to function.  The API is extensive and can interface with other tools whether they are database-based or API’s themselves or middleware environments that are used to tie multiple systems together.

If you’d like to find out more about TimeControl’s flexible architecture and support for your own IT environment, visit: TimeControl.com/features/flexibility or contact HMS to talk to a product specialist at info@hms.ca.

 

timecontrol

TimeControl Online makes the move to version 7!

Following the announcement in August that we had released TimeControl 7 for on-premise installations, we are thrilled to tell you that TimeControl Online has now been migrated to the version 7 architecture!

TimeControl Online is HMS Software’s Timesheet-as-a-Service in-the-cloud subscription service and includes everything that you’ve come to love about TimeControl.

Everything we’ve been talking about in the new version 7 architecture is here in TimeControl Online 7 as the code-base is the same for both on-premise installations and the online service.  So TimeControl Online users are now starting to enjoy the many new and enhanced features of TimeControl 7 including:

Multi-line edit timesheettimesheet.jpg

The TimeControl 7 timesheet has been completely rewritten to allow all cells in the timesheet to be edited simultaneously. For those with timesheets that have a large number of pre-loaded tasks, this will be a welcome change.

Gantt ViewsMyAccount_Gantt2.jpg

TimeControl 7 now allows you to view projects, tasks or assignments in graphical Gantt charge views. The view is highly configurable and is accessed from either the Reporting tab or the MyAssignments tab of each user’s Options page.

Calendar Views

TimeControl 7 introduces a brand new view into assignments with a calendar view. The view can include assignments and/or calendar_viewTimeRequests™ and can be accessed from either the reporting view or from right inside the TimeRequest Approval screen.

 

There’s lots and lots more!

There are more than 40 more exciting new and improved features in TimeControl 7 that we haven’t even listed here.

But, those using TimeControl Online didn’t have do the upgrade or worry about being on the latest version because that’s all part of the service when you subscribe to TimeControl Online.

For a more complete list, see the Latest in TimeControl page on the website.

 

timecontrol

MCAP’s IT department is using TimeControl Online for cost tracking

As anyone who uses TimeControl knows, we’re highly committed to our client’s satisfaction so you can probably imagine how excited we get here in the office when one of our clients shares mcap_150x150how  TimeControl is making a difference in their organization.  We’ve just published a case study done by our clients MCAP who deployed TimeControl Online in 2011.  MCAP is a large independent financing company based in Canada. MCAP was considering upgrading a large internal project and portfolio system but instead made a strategic decision to implement TimeControl due to its flexibility.

Previous systems seemed inappropriately sized for MCAP’s needs but TimeControl was able to focus attention on the aspect of project controls that MCAP needed most.  With multiple projects, multiple locations, multiple project managers, a flexible time tracking tool that could adapt as MCAP evolved was a must.

MCAP elected to subscribed to the TimeControlOnline service in the cloud rather than install TimeControl internally which allowed MCAP’s IT department to avoid making their own chargeback timesheet another internal system they’d need to manage.

You can read the story that came from the interview of Barbara McDonald, MCAP’s Senior Director of IT in the MCAP case study at: www.timecontrol.com/why-timecontrol/case-studies/mcap.

To see other case studies on how organizations are becoming more effective by implementing TimeControl, go to www.timecontrol.com/why-timecontrol/case-studies.