Some parts of TimeControl are rarely seen.  Let’s take one of the most fundamental elements of the timesheet and how it’s created.  When you open your timesheet, you see a week at a time, right?

Not always.

When we released TimeControl version 1.0 back in 1994, the timesheet length was always 7 days.  We hadn’t encountered anyone where that was different.  But it didn’t take long before we did.

Some organizations have timesheets that are two weeks in length.  Some TimeControl Industrial clients do crew timesheets every day.  Some organiztaions do monthly timesheets or bi-monthly (that’s one timesheet from the 1^st-15^th, and a second timesheet from the 16^th to the end of the month so the timesheet length is variable).

Can TimeControl have different period lengths?

Let’s make it more complicated.

Let’s say that part of the organization insists on weekly timesheets and another part of the organization insists on bi-weekly.  Impossible?  Need two separate TimeControls?

No.  Let’s talk about the TimeControl Period Generator

The Period Generate lets you create multiple timesheet periods.  There’s an automatic generator that lets you create those periods for years in advance and give them labels that match how you refer to those timeframes such as “Week 17, 2025”.  Once created, that collection of periods are attachable to each employee record.

There are many possible automatic period generation options: daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly or custom (meaning you can type in any sequential periods you need).  The period generator won’t let you create overlapping periods in one collection but otherwise you can have an array of different time spans.

You can create multiple periods so the challenge of some of the organization is weekly and the rest is bi-weekly is met right there.

But the Period Generate allows for much, much more.

TimeControl always stores the results of a posted timesheet in a daily format so it can be exported, integrated to other systems or reported on.

Some organizations have to do that exporting or reporting using different periods.

Let’s say you collect on a weekly basis but export on a bi-monthly basis for payroll and a monthly basis for Finance.  Or, let’s say you use a 13-month calendar (popular in some government projects where each month is exactly 4 weeks long to make up a 52 week year of 13 months). This could all be accommodated by the Period Generator.

It’s an elegant and rich part of TimeControl that almost no one outside the TimeControl Administrator will ever see.