Modifying dates in Timelog entries
There is the option to change the date when entering a timelog entry. Does this alter the date of the entry, or can this be used to enter a timelog entry retroactively for work/time performed last week/month/etc.? The reason for asking is we are extracting timelog reports and have some staff who have entered time entries for work done in previous weeks/months, and this messes with our report accuracy. Is it best practice for staff to use that date field to indicate WHEN the work occurred (it defaults to the day of entry) as this might be a solution.
Hi zzzPeter Barron,
we are also extracting the timelog for our finance department via an Excel sheet. We are locking the possibility to enter times via the Timelog. So if you have a space (or a project) where you want people not to change timeentries anymore in the past, go to the space (project) and choose Timelog as view. There you can choose "Lock or unlock dates". As Admin you can give the right to lock and unlock and also to change looked times to special people. So we are taking care that people do not change their entries afterwards. At the end of a month we lock our hole space (for the past) and then extract the times for finance. So we are sure that Wrike and the finance data stay the same. (see Locking Tracked Time – Wrike Help Center)
In that way normal staff can not change anything, but our finance department has the right as Time Manager (see Tracking Time for Other Users – Wrike Help Center) to change also locked times. So if something is rebooked in finance for some rules they can also change the Wrike booking.
Sven Passinger
Thank you for your explanation. I was looking at the lock/unlock feature this morning, and that may be an option for us. So for clarity, there's no way in Wrike to separate the date for when the hours were performed from the date the hours were entered into the task? I was thinking maybe the date field in the hours pop-up would let you designate that the hours being entered were for a date other than today (the day the hours are being entered)? If that was a possibility, then I could instruct staff to enter hours retroactively so that our data for the extract would be complete. Obviously this would not be best practice but would allow us a method to accurately capture hours that were being added after the target time frame. Otherwise, if they are entering hours in April for work done in March, those hours will only count for April stats. Does this make sense? :-)
Update: I did some experimenting and the date field in the time-entry dropdown allows you to enter time RETROACTIVELY for some date other than today, and reporting recognizes the date entered in that field (NOT the date of entry). This is helpful for running reports where staff may have entered their hours AFTER the targeted period of time, but they MUST use the date field to choose the correct date when entering the hours.
zzzPeter Barron Wrike is using a date resolved time entry. In principal you can enter times when ever you want for any time. You can see it in the Timesheets.Their you can enter your time for any day you want. I would recomend the Timesheets to enter time for past days (you also have than a very good overview of times you already entered as it is always a risk to enter time double if you do it for the past). The other way you can do you described.
Nevertheless the problem is that if you run a report for March at 31st and somebody enters a time for March on April 1st you have a problem with your report (I expect it is the same as with us that you have to hand over the report to finance and they are processing it further) because Wrike and the report you officialy extracted are different. So the locking is in my oppinion the best and only way to resolve this problem of diverging Wrike and extracted report.
Thank you Sven for following up on this! I agree, and we may get to the point of using the Locking feature. As we're just beginning to standardize this process, it's helpful to know what the interface can and can't do/accommodate. Appreciate your help with this!