Tag Archives: Timesheet alternates

timecontrol

Best in Class or All in One

TimeControl Best In Category, Best in Breed, Chris Vandersluis, Christopher Vandersluis, Christopher Peter VandersluisWe’ve been asked to talk about this topic numerous times since the mid 1990s when the first ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) packages were expanding at a rapid rate.

“Is it better”, we were asked, “to select the best of each category of software or instead, to select one package that can do everything at once?”

The conversation would become known as All-in-One vs. Best-in-Class.

The answer from us is always the same.  We see the desire for both Technical management and Finance management to get one system that will do everything.  The advantages on paper are easy to display: The all-in-one product is *already* integrated.  It is only one package to maintain, not multiple.  So, it must be the best choice… Right?

Except it’s often not.

Our answer to people who ask about this is always the same.  It’s the best choice to go with an all-in-one solution so long as it does what you need.  If it doesn’t then very quickly you will end up where you started, with multiple timesheet systems.

And that is incredibly costly.

Over the years, it has happened from time to time that a client informs us that they won’t be using TimeControl anymore.  Their Finance Department has changed or a new CFO has arrived with experience of different tools at previous organizations.  The company will “change directions” we’re told and TimeControl, while working fine, will be retired.

Our response to this is always positive.  “If your new solution does everything you need, then we wish you good fortune,’ we say.

In situation after situation, we get a call 3, 6, 9 months later  “Um, we were a little hasty in moving off of TimeControl,” we’re told.  It turned out that the alternate solution doesn’t actually do everything we were already used to and the person who is noticing the gaps the most turns out to be our CFO.”

“No worries,” we explain.  “We’ll work at getting your system back up and running with whatever updates you might need.”

It’s not that people can’t figure this out in advance.  The problem with a timesheet system is that it’s often taken for granted.  After all, employees use their timesheet for 5 to 10 minutes a week.  It is in the background of their experience.  But TimeControl is an enterprise timesheet which often has many links with other tools and multiple processes in the organization.  The administrators appreciate the complexities of the overall system and, if they’re still involved, so do the people who deployed it.  But it’s an easy part of a corporate system to not pay much attention to as you’re making a sweeping systems change.

It’s not always the same thing with each client.  Often it’s the multiple layers of the approvals process that a new tool doesn’t support. Sometimes it’s a simultaneous link with Payroll on one side and a project management tool like Primavera on another.  Other times it’s the degree to which the flexibility of TimeControl has been employed to meet multiple internal needs at the same time.

And TimeControl can flex.

So we don’t stress too much when a client says they’re looking at alternates other that to be certain that it’s not because there is something in TimeControl the client isn’t happy with.  That we respond to in a very different way.

After all, happy clients are what has made HMS and TimeControl so successful for decades.

To find out more about TimeControl and how it links with ERP systems like SAP and Oracle, see the TimeControl.com/use-cases/links-to-erp page.

timecontrol

The benefits of alternates

Since the earliest days of TimeControl we have had a request for people to stand in for another user for a host of different reasons.  Perhaps a supervisor is absent on a Friday when they needed to be doing approvals or perhaps a person will be out of the office and away from the Internet and needs to call in to have their timesheet completed in their absence.  “Do we need to share our passwords to deal with this?” was a common question.

When we considered how to address this problem, we had to consider also the base principles of TimeControl being an auditable system.

The end result is the Alternate Users function.  This functionality allows a user to declare other users as their delegates.

When you log into TimeControl, you will be presented with a screen that appears only if you have been declared as an Alternate User for that person.  You will be asked if you’d like to log in as yourself or as the alternate.

When you elect to log in as the Alternate, at the top of the screen you’ll see that you are logged in as the delegate but you’ll see your user name too.

That’s because TimeControl will keep track of who is really in the system as you make changes and edits.  As an Alternate you will now see TimeControl exactly as that user, rather than yourself.  You’ll see only the menu functions they see. You’ll see only the data they have access to.  Even changing a personal preference will be changing their personal preference.  If you make additions or changes to key data.  TimeControl will log those changes as though it was the alternate but it will also attach your own user name so that in an auditing situation, it will be apparent who actually made the change, approved the data or added new entries.

If you are listed as the Alternate for multiple users, at the top of the screen under your login name, you’ll see a down arrow and a new option that allows you to switch between any of the alternate users without having to log out and relog in again.

While an Administrator can create alternates for users in the User Table, A user can define for themselves who they wish to have as an alternate in their Account information.

A user can define one or multiple alternates.  For each alternate they can define when that person’s access to their account will automatically expire and they can also ask that emails from TimeControl that would normally go to the user, be redirected to the delegated user.  Throughout the entire Alternate User environment, TimeControl security and auditability are maintained.

Alternate user functionality has been with TimeControl for a very long time and it’s a way of keeping the organization entering and editing data effectively when some people will be away from their post.