Setting Up and Managing Processes

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Before you can use Office Timesheets to record time and expense entries, you have to customize Office Timesheets to adapt to your organization’s processes. You also have to define or set up other details such as—

list of holidays;
the task rules;
the approval process; and
the reporting period used by your organization.

Note: By default, only those persons who have a Systems Administrator level of access can manage and set up processes. Normally, only a Systems Administrator would have access to the Process Management tab. If you are not a Systems Administrator, though you may have access to the Process Management tab, you may not have access to all the commands in the Process Management tab, depending upon the settings of the Security Policy that has been assigned to your User Account. (See Understanding Security Policies for more information.)

Use the Process Management tab to define the setup of the processes and projects that the employees are working on.

Using the functions of the Process Management tab, you can—

Define the basic elements that make up the processes in your organization;
Define custom fields for each of the basic elements;
Define additional fields to keep track of task rates;
Set up task status, entry status and approval status values;
Define rate table fields to maintain details of employee pay rates;
Set up a list of holiday groups and holidays;
Define task rules;
Define the steps in the approval process;
Define and set up reporting periods;
Set up employee groups and enter details of all the employees in your organization;
Set up groups and enter details for all the basic elements that make up your organization’s processes; and
Set up expense groups and enter details of the various heads of expense used in your organization.

The Process Management tab

The Process Management tab contains all the functions needed to manage and customize Office Timesheets’ data and process framework for tracking time and expenses.

The Process Management tab

The Process Management tab has three ribbon groups—Customize, Process and Edit—that contain the commands needed to define and set up the processes in your organization.

The following table describes what each of the commands in the Process Management tab does—

Click on...	To...
Define Elements	Define the hierarchy of the basic elements that make up the processes in your organization.
Custom Fields	Define custom fields for each of the basic elements.
Task Rate Fields	Define additional fields to keep track of task rates.
Customize Task Status Fields	Set up task status values to be displayed in the Status Fields panel of the Task dialog box.
Customize Entry Status Fields	Set up entry status values to be displayed in the Status Fields panel of the Time Entry dialog box.
Customize Approval Status Fields	Set up approval status values to be displayed in the Approval Status drop-down list of the Time Entry dialog box.
Rate Tables	Define rate table fields to maintain details of standard and overtime rates payable to employees.
Holidays	Set up a list of holiday groups and holidays.
Task Rules	Define the order in which the basic elements should appear in a task entry. Also specify the dependencies of the basic elements on one another and whether the elements are essential for the task entry.
Approval Process	Define the steps and the order of the steps in the approval process.
Reporting Periods	Define and set up the list of reporting periods that can be used in Timesheet View.
Employee	Set up employee groups and create employee entries for all the employees in your organization; enter the details of the employees and assign them to one or more groups.
Element Items…	Set up groups and enter details for all the basic elements that were defined with the Define Elements function.
Expense	Set up expense groups and enter details of the various heads of expense used in your organization.