The Timesheet Blog

In Web TimeSheet, you manage several types of confidential data including project pricing, client information, and payroll records. You need to control who sees this private information. Fortunately, our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products are specifically designed to keep your data secure. It will be safe from prying eyes while giving the appropriate amount of access to the users you select.

Here’s how it works:

Secure Browser Connections
The Web TimeSheet host server features Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocols. That means all the information sent between your computers and our host server will be encrypted. This keeps your confidential data safe from external parties.

Customizable Permissions
Every action a user can take in the Web TimeSheet system requires permission. This includes viewing or modifying data, running reports, entering time worked, creating a project, etc. You get to decide who can do what. Use our standard role-based permissions profiles to quickly assign access to each user in your organization. You can fine tune these profiles to restrict or add more capabilities if necessary.

Hierarchy Filtering
Hierarchy filtering prevents users from viewing or editing data outside their own department. A single mouse click allows you to activate this option and ensure confidential information is only accessed on a “need to know” basis.

Password Restrictions
Your overall data security is increased when you use complex passwords and change them regularly. Web TimeSheet helps you follow best practices in this area. You can decide how complex user passwords must be and when they will expire.

Idle User Session Timeout
Use our automatic timeout feature to choose how long Web TimeSheet can be left idle before the system automatically logs the user off. If a user forgets to sign out before leaving their workstation at the end of a session, the amount of time their private data is accessible to unauthorized users will be limited.

Do you have questions about additional steps you can take to increase your level of security? Ask us in the comments section. Also, remember to connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep up with our latest announcements.

As your SaaS vendor, we take full responsibility for continuously upgrading all our products. We’ve just finished improving Web TimeSheet version 8.11.1 to make it even more user-friendly. Check out these new features!

Increased Employee Visibility into Time-Off Requests

As a manager, it’s no fun telling an employee he can’t take a vacation because someone else has already asked for that week off. Now, employees can collaborate in scheduling their time-off. In addition to viewing approved time-off for coworkers, Managers have the option to grant permission for team members to see requests that are still awaiting approval. That way, they have the opportunity to work out their conflicting requests and come up with a plan that satisfies everyone.

Keep Your Work Weeks Straight

Do you need to limit the number of hours employees work each week to stay in compliance with labor laws in your area? Set up a “weekly” Web Timesheet validation rule to automatically monitor hours worked. Base this on your organization’s definition of a work week for each individual’s profile. That way, if you use a monthly timesheet you don’t have to worry about employees surpassing their permitted hours.

In the past, this error might not be caught immediately. This could happen if the excess hours were worked during the final days of a partial week at the end of a month. Payroll would have to manually check timesheets to catch this problem. Now, you can set up Web TimeSheet to validate full work weeks even if they are split between two different months.

See Who Needs To Approve Timesheets Next

Several new fields are available in the Timesheet Status Details report. For example, you can now include the name of the next approver scheduled to review a timesheet. This person appears in the “Waiting Approver Name” column. You can see the previous approver(s) who have already done their job listed under the “Approver Name” column.

Check out the complete documentation on this latest version of Web TimeSheet for more.

Do you have suggestions for further improvements? We are always eager to hear your ideas. Talk to us in the comments. Track our latest developments on Twitter; network with us on LinkedIn; and sign up for a free trial.

At Replicon, our philosophy of constant innovation has paid off once again for our customers.  We are excited to introduce the newest addition to our Web TimeSheet family of products – Web Schedule.  This employee scheduling software module makes creating, updating, and communicating work schedules as painless as possible.

Why Employees Like Web Schedule

With Web Schedule, your employees have access to real-time updates to their individual schedules.  This eliminates confusion about last minute changes.  When you integrate this employee scheduling software with Web TimeSheet, employees can instantly populate their timesheet using the data from their published schedule.  Then, they can simply make changes to indicate any discrepancies (such as additional time or missed time) each day.

Why Managers Like Web Schedule

Managers tasked with managing schedules and approving timesheets can do this much more quickly now.  Any discrepancies are listed and described at the top of the timesheet approval page.  Errors can be corrected before the final timesheet is sent to payroll.  Actual failure to adhere to the schedule can be addressed while the incident is still fresh.  Managers can also pull historical reports to identify a pattern of time & attendance issues.

Why Companies Like Web Schedule

Besides the obvious benefits of saving time and optimizing labour cost through effective scheduling, you get access to a free trial.  Try Web Schedule with your existing access to Web Timesheet or sign up to sample both of these products together.

Watch this quick video to see our Web Schedule software in action.

Are you using this software on a trial basis right now?  We would love to hear your first impressions.  Talk to us in the comments.  Also, feel free to join us via LinkedIn and Twitter to stay fully connected.

Some time back, we came across a couple of tweets about getting automatically logged out of Web TimeSheet:

Well, that day’s here – in fact, it’s been some time now since we’ve included this option!

We’d like to thank Dave and Mentha for bringing up this issue and today we’re going to see how to avoid getting automatically logged out.

But before we jump in, here’s something to note:  Timesheet data can be as confidential and as critical as financial statements.  Most companies don’t want timesheets created, modified, or deleted by anyone other than the timesheet owner.  While you can limit such activities through system permissions, the permissions alone will not prevent an unauthorized user from taking action while signed in with someone else’s credentials.  To avoid such problems, we recommend setting a session timeout in Replicon Web TimeSheet.  The session timeout will automatically log out the current user after a set timeframe, thus protecting the user’s timesheet information from unauthorized access in the event they’re called away from their desk.

If you need to turn off – or at least modify – the automatic logout setting, you can do so in Web TimeSheet version 8.7 and higher.

To modify your logout settings, you must have administrator access.  Go to the Administration tab and click on System > System Preferences in your left menu.  Look for the setting “Idle user session timeout (minutes)”.  You can enter a different logout timeframe, or choose the “Never automatically log out” option to never be logged out again.  Make sure you save your settings when you’re done!

Idle User Session Timeout

[Click on image to view full screenshot]

Hope this helps!

Please feel free to post comments or queries you may have about this feature.

One of the things we’ve been hearing from customers is that you need a way to track when your people are supposed to be working – and not just the hours they’ve actually put in their timesheets.

We understand, and to make sure you get what you need, we’re expanding our product line once again!  Web Schedule is the latest addition to our software suite, and is currently available for beta testing.

If you want to set up employee schedules, this is the tool for you.  It’s really easy to use, with a calendar interface that lets you type in each employee’s scheduled work for a given day, and then use drag-and-drop to move schedules around or copy from one day to another.  For employees who work the same shift day in and day out, there are scheduling templates to save you time.

If you add Web Schedule to your existing Web TimeSheet solution, you’ll also be able to compare the schedules you’ve created with the actual hours each employee works – making it really easy to track discrepancies.

What’s really nice about Web Schedule is that it’s not just for supervisors or managers.  Your employees can use it to check their schedules in a calendar view that also shows them their booked time off, holidays, and actual hours they logged in their timesheets.

Web Schedule is still a work in progress, of course, but we’re getting great feedback from our beta testers.  In fact, we’ve already put together a big list of features to add in the future!  If you want to join the beta program, we’d love to hear from you – just leave us a comment, or contact us via phone or email so we can get you set up with a free trial.

We’re really excited about this new direction we’re taking, and can’t wait for the official Web Schedule launch in the next few months!

To get a sense of what Web Schedule can do, take a look at the video of our beta release.

Replicon Web Schedule Demo