Timesheet and planning settings: configuring time entry

Timesheet settings control how everyone in your Beebole account records time: the period they fill and submit, the unit and format for entries, what they can track time on, which restrictions apply, and when Beebole sends reminders. While people use the timesheet itself from the sidebar (see Timesheets), you configure it from the Timesheet and Planning Settings panel.

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Opening Timesheet and Planning Settings

Settings made here apply account-wide. The same panel also exists on every tag and on each person’s profile, so you can override any setting for one team or one person — see Different settings for different teams. The page address names the panel and the tab you have open, so a link copied from it opens straight on that tab, also when you share it or open it in a new tab.

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Period & submission

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Timesheet period

The Timesheet period defines the stretch of time a timesheet covers — the period people fill in, submit, and have approved as one unit. It is not just a display preference: each period is one timesheet. To move your team from weekly to monthly timesheets, set Timesheet period to Monthly. The change applies account-wide unless a tag or person overrides it.

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Auto-submit

Auto-submit timesheets after X days submits unsubmitted timesheets automatically once the configured number of days has passed since the period ended. The auto-submitted timesheet enters the approval workflow like a manual submission. Leave the value at 0 to disable auto-submit. The note under the field sums up what happens at the deadline. For people with no approval workflow, auto-submit approves and locks the period directly, without notifying anyone. It is the only way their periods close: they have no Submit button, since there is nobody to submit to. At the deadline, suggested time entries still pending on the period are converted into real entries before the submission, so a timesheet assembled from suggestions submits itself. Every entry still respects the entry rules — a suggestion a restriction refuses is trimmed to fit the day’s remaining scheduled time, or skipped if it still doesn’t fit. Timesheet reminders announce the deadline in advance, so nobody is surprised by an automatic submission. Some suggestions are never converted, and the period goes ahead without them:

• All of them, when the timer is mandatory (see Timer and start and end times): the timer is then the only way to log time.
• A calendar event the person never put on a task or project.
• A suggestion that needs a project chosen before it can be logged, such as a staffing booking or a task in a planning left out of Record time on these plannings.

Auto-submit only ever acts on one period per person: the most recent one whose deadline has passed. Older periods are never revisited, so switching the setting on doesn’t submit months of history at once. A period that already has a status — submitted, approved, or rejected — is left alone, and an empty period is never submitted: if it holds no time entries and no suggestion could be converted, nothing is sent to approvers. If a period can’t be processed, it stays a draft and is badged Auto-submit failed in the approval view — administrators are notified so they can review it by hand.

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Lock date

The Lock date freezes every time record on or before the chosen day. Time records on or before that day can no longer be created, edited, moved, or deleted — by anyone, administrators included. Attempts are refused with the message Timesheet and Planning Settings prevent any change to the locked date. Use it to close accounting periods: once payroll or invoicing for a month is done, set the lock date to the end of that month and the underlying data can’t drift. The freeze applies everywhere time records change hands, including the BambooHR time-off sync. The lock date covers time records only, meaning timesheet entries and time off. It does not freeze planning: tasks and bookings dated on or before the lock date stay fully editable, including their dates, planned time, and owner, and Beebole has no setting that blocks planning changes before a date. Time already logged on those tasks stays locked like any other entry. To limit who can change planning, restrict Edit access on the Tasks permission in roles. The lock also closes the period to submission. A period whose last day is on or before the lock date can no longer be submitted for approval — Beebole answers This period is locked and cannot be submitted for approval. A period that straddles the lock date stays submittable by hand, since its unlocked days are still the person’s to account for, but auto-submit leaves it alone: it skips any period that starts on or before the lock date. When several entries are deleted at once — clearing a section, or deleting a selection in the calendar — Beebole checks every entry before removing any of them. If one of them falls on or before the lock date, nothing is deleted.

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Restrictions

The Restrictions list controls what time entries the timesheet accepts. New accounts start with two restrictions active: An absence can’t be longer than a day and Require filling the whole schedule to submit (period). When none is active, the panel shows No restrictions configured. Pick a rule from the Add restriction menu to activate it; click the × on a restriction’s chip to remove it. Restrictions with daily and period variants show each active variant as a tag on the chip, and you can activate one or both. The warning and block variants are exclusive — activating one replaces the other. The Add restriction menu also offers DCAA compliance — only the owner or an admin can edit entries, no future time except time off. Picking it turns on Only the owner or an admin can edit entries and Only time off can be recorded in the future in one step. Each then shows as its own chip and can be removed separately, and a single undo reverts both. The choice stays in the menu while either of the two is off. Only the owner or an admin can edit entries replaced the former “Only an admin can edit someone else’s timesheet” restriction, which only kept managers out of draft and rejected periods. Wherever the old restriction was on, Beebole switched this one on automatically, so managers stay locked out. Hide the non-billable option also protects the data behind the form. Any attempt to mark an entry as non-billable — from the timesheet or through the API — is refused with Your timesheet settings do not offer the non-billable option. Entries marked before you activated the restriction keep their flag, and clearing it stays allowed. When entries are copied to another period, the copies arrive without the non-billable flag, even if the originals carried it. The setting follows the timesheet owner: like every restriction, it is resolved through the account, the person’s tags, and the person, so a rule set on a tag applies to everyone under it. Independently of any restriction, a submitted or approved period is locked for its owner while it waits in the approval workflow, and records on or before the Lock date can’t change at all.

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Rules set elsewhere

Two more rules apply to every time entry without appearing in the Restrictions list, because they are configured on the items they protect:

• Valid period for time entry — This panel, available on a project, a person, and a tag, sets a From and To date between which time can be logged. An entry outside the window is refused with This time record falls outside the validity period of: followed by the project or person it comes from. When several windows could apply, the most specific one wins: the entry’s project first (its deepest level first), then the person, and a person or project inherits a window set on its tags.
• Time off allowances — A time off entry can’t push the person past the balance of the allowance that covers that day. Beebole refuses it with This booking exceeds the available quota for: followed by the absence type. An allowance with Allow negative balance checked lifts the limit for the days it covers, and an absence type with no allowance is never limited.

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Time entry

The Time entry tab defines what people type into a timesheet cell.

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Unit for time entry

Unit for time entry sets the unit for every timesheet cell:

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Duration format

When the unit is Hours, two more options appear:

• Duration format — how hour values are displayed and typed: 3:15 (hours and minutes), 3.25 (decimal hours), or 3h15 (compact hours-and-minutes notation).
• Minimum time interval accepted — the smallest increment the timesheet accepts. Durations are rounded up to the nearest multiple of this interval; new accounts start at 15 minutes.

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Timer and start and end times

• Enable timer adds a timer button to each timesheet row so people can time their work as it happens — see Using the timer. Check Mandatory next to it to require the timer: durations can then only be recorded by running it. A timer left running stops on its own at the end of the person’s scheduled hours that day, or, when the schedule gives no end, at the end of the planned task it runs on, and at the latest at the end of the following day. Its owner then gets an email and a push notification, see Timers left running.
• Record start and end times adds Start time and End time fields to each entry’s details, and Beebole calculates the duration. Check Mandatory next to it to require start and end times on every entry.

Checking Mandatory switches its parent option on automatically, and disabling a parent option clears its Mandatory checkbox. With the timer mandatory, hours reach a timesheet only by running it. The timesheet’s duration fields no longer take typed hours, and any other gesture that brings hours of its own, such as pasting entries or drawing or resizing an entry in the calendar view, is refused with The timer is mandatory: log your hours by starting it. Moving an entry without changing its length still works. Suggested time entries can no longer be accepted: Accept all is hidden, and the play button on a suggestion starts a timer on its project or task instead. At the auto-submit deadline, no leftover suggestion is turned into an entry.

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Categories

The Categories tab decides what people can track time on. Each choice becomes a section of rows in everyone’s timesheet.

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Project categories

Record time on these project categories lists the project categories available in the timesheet. Each row of the list is one timesheet section:

• A row with a single category — for example Client — lets people pick one project from that category per timesheet row.
• A row with chained categories — First Client, then Activity — makes people pick one entry for each level: first a client project, then an activity.
• Click Add a row to offer an alternative section, and pick its categories with Pick a category.

In a chained row, the project picked at the second and later levels is a secondary project. Which secondary projects each main project offers is set by Show all secondary projects in the Show or hide by default panel of Account Settings, and by the Show or hide panel of projects, people, and tags.

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Plannings

Record time on these plannings does the same for tasks: people can add timesheet rows for tasks in the selected plannings (task categories). Add one with Pick a planning. While the Allow only planned tasks in the timesheet restriction is on, the plan decides instead. Record time on these plannings becomes read-only, with the note Only planned tasks are available: every planning counts. Tasks appear on their dates, bookings come in as suggestions to accept. The tasks a person owns reach their timesheet whatever their planning. Record time on these project categories shows Only used to justify a booking’s time on a project. People can’t add project rows then, and these categories only serve to log the time of a booking on its project.

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Time off

Allow recording time off controls whether a Time Off section appears in the timesheet, where people add rows for absence types. See Time off.

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Reminders

The Reminders tab configures two kinds of follow-up.

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Reminding people to submit

Remind to submit sends a reminder by email, by push, or both, following each person’s notification settings. It goes only to people who have an approval workflow and whose timesheet for the period is still a draft or was rejected: without a workflow there is nothing to submit, so no reminder is sent. Choose when it goes out:

• Start of next period — on the first day of the new period, about the period that just ended.
• End of current period — on the last day of the period being filled.

Then pick the hour. The reminder is sent at that hour in each person’s time zone. The email includes a summary of their timesheet and lets them submit directly from it. People whose timesheet is already submitted or approved are skipped, and reminders don’t apply when the timesheet period is Daily.

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Reminding approvers

Remind approvers after a number of days if not yet approved follows up on submitted timesheets that are still waiting for review. The first reminder goes out the configured number of days after the approver’s initial notification; while the timesheet stays pending, Beebole follows up a few more times at increasing intervals. Leave the value at 0 to disable approver reminders.

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Warning about unassigned tasks

Notify everyone involved a number of days before an unassigned task starts warns about planned work nobody has picked up. The task manager and the people assigned to the task are notified — the admins when the task has no manager. This setting exists account-wide only, and 0 disables it.

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Time from planning statuses

The Time from planning statuses tab turns task status changes into suggested time entries. When a task enters one status of its planning and later another, Beebole suggests the days in between on the timesheet of the task’s owner. Teams that move tasks across a Kanban board get their time proposed without typing it. Here is how status moves drive the clock:

• Moving a task into its Clock starts at status starts its clock. A task created directly in that status starts it at once.
• Moving it on into its Suggests time at status suggests every working day from the clock start to that move, or to the task’s end date when that comes first, and stops the clock. Statuses in between keep the clock running.
• Moving it back to a status before Clock starts at stops the clock without suggesting anything, and a task that reaches Suggests time at without a running clock gets no suggestion.

The suggestions go to the timesheet of the task’s Owner. When the task has no owner, the person who moves it into either status becomes its owner and gets them. Beebole reads this tab for that person, so an override on their tag or profile applies. A parent task gets no suggestion, since its time comes from its subtasks. Each suggested day gets the scheduled time it still has. Time off and what the person logged by hand come off first, and hand-logged entries are never touched. A day already logged on that task gets no new suggestion for it. When suggestions for several tasks fall on the same day, they share what is left of it. Days off, public holidays, locked days, and periods already submitted get none. Each accepted entry records which source it came from. This tab only covers status changes. Work planned on a task with dates reaches its owner’s timesheet as Planned suggestions whether this setting is on or not, see Suggested time entries.

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Different settings for different teams

Timesheet settings cascade. Values set on Account Settings apply to everyone, but the same Timesheet and Planning Settings panel also appears on every tag and on every person’s profile:

• Set a value on a tag to override the account default for everyone under that tag — for example, a monthly Timesheet period for one department.
• Set a value on a person to override both the tag and the account default for that one person.

Next to each setting, an icon shows where its current value is inherited from. A gear means the value comes from Account Settings: hover it to see the source (Settings / Timesheet and Planning Settings), and, as an administrator, click it to open that panel. After overriding a value, you can reset it to fall back to the inherited one.

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Related content

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Frequently asked questions