Welcome to the Autumn release of 2024, TimeTrak 24.1
Please browse through this document to find out more.
Contents
1. Attachment Gallery
2. Dashboards within TimeTrak Professional
3. Payroll Calendar
4. SMS Notifications
5. User must change password on next login
6. Welcome Email
7. Geolocation links added to Activities and Checklists
8. Ability to favourite Knowledgebase articles
9. Appointment Alerts in Professional Open Calendar in Week View
10. Fill Day behaviour updated to exclude specified roster hours
11. Ability to select serviceable unit, task and state of job quote lines within TimeTrak APP
12. MYOB Advanced Integration Improvement
MYOB Advanced Task ID now available as TaskCode in TimeTrak
Professional – Task code searchable on the task grid
Other useful areas where Task Code can be customised to display
Task Code Display in the App and Mobile
Mobile & App – Task code searchable on the task and queue
Ability to make Project Code Read Only
Ability to prevent data syncing after errors
Stock Level Improvements
13. Financial Year Start Setting to assist with TimeTrak Reporting
14. Appointments Colour – Labour Code Colour
15. Profile setting to control Quick Task functionality in TimeTrak Professional
16. New Contact Form Layout in Profiles with ability to force contact Email and Phone Number
17. Added ability to convert an appointment to a time entry without the time entry screen opening
18. Icon to indicate if disbursements are assigned to an entry in TimeTrak Professional
19. Add disbursements to entries via right click in TimeTrak Professional
20. Security Improvements and Email TLS version changes
21. Added ability to complete Global Approval via Professional Calendar
22. Profile setting to control “Copy Day” functionality within TimeTrak APP
23. Shift Patterns
24. “Stack Calendar Items” Timeline View now stacks entries that go over midnight
25. Ability to define against a customer if they pay for staff lunch breaks or not
26. Stack Breaks (at end of day)
27. Prevent Mobile/App users from disabling lunch on time entries
28. Public Holidays display in timeline calendar view
29. Quickly view and add attachments to calendar items via TimeTrak APP.
30. APP Appointment creation push notifications
31. Appointment Activities available in TimeTrak APP
32. “Send me a copy” email template changes
33. Update multiple providers via right click in professional
34. Embed Report as HTML inside the body of an email when sending scheduled reports
To provide a better overview of images within TimeTrak attachments an “Open Gallery” option is now available within TimeTrak Professional to display images on Attachment tabs.
If the profile setting “Show Attachment Gallery” is enabled against the user’s profile a new “Open Gallery” option is available on the attachments tab.
On selection of “Open Gallery” an attachment gallery of all images in a thumbnail view will be displayed as per below example on a job in order to review these easily.
Selection of a thumbnail image will display the image larger with the ability to scroll through images attached to review as per below:
From release 24.1 there is the ability to have dashboards display within TimeTrak Professional.
Standard dashboards are available and can be found here.
Once dashboards have been imported or created, visibility of these is controlled by profile visibility settings.
Custom dashboards can be created to meet your business requirements.
Once dashboards have been imported or created visibility of these are controlled by profile visibility settings.
For clients who already have power BI and would like TimeTrak data to be utilised within this, it is now possible via a report URL that does not require authentication.
Click here for more information:
Previously payroll calculations were driven by the time of day and the user’s roster.
In release 24.1 there is the ability to create custom payroll rules and apply these to a roster.
Users with permissions enabled can run the payroll calendar as per below, via a workgroup in TimeTrak Professional to review and apply changes to time entries ensuring that payroll reports are correct.
For more details, see below Whitepaper on the Payroll Overtime Calculator
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/payroll-overtime-calculator/
The ability to send scheduled SMS notifications of upcoming appointments to customers along with the ability to send manual SMS messages to customers via TimeTrak Professional and the APP is now possible in TimeTrak from version 24.1
For more details, see below Whitepaper on TimeTrak SMS
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/timetrak-sms/
Note: SMS Functionality will incur an additional monthly fee that will be billed via Focus Technology Group.
The ability to force users to reset their TimeTrak password on next login is available in TimeTrak from 24.1.
Global Administrators who can access users within TimeTrak professional can now set this as per below:
Global Administrators who have access to TimeTrak Professional can access TimeTrak users.
Users can now be filtered by columns displayed.
All displayed users or multiple users can be then selected and on right click there is the option to “Send User Welcome Email” as per below:
Selecting Send user welcome email will;
-
- Generate a welcome email to the email address assigned to the user as per below example:
2. This welcome email will contain with their login Id and a temporary password that will expire in 5 days.
TimeTrak Mobile users will have links to download and install the TimeTrak APP for both Android and Apple Devices.
Once downloaded staff can select the Setup App Connection link from the email which will add the APP connection.
TimeTrak Professional or Full Access users will also have a URL link to the professional website.
3. The user will be prompted to reset their password on login
This process has been designed to make onboarding new staff members into TimeTrak more efficient and secure.
Location links are now available in Professional when a geo location was recorded at the time of the activity.
Checklists:
On the checklist tab of a job if the geo location was recorded when the checklist was completed a geo location icon can be seen as per below:
On selection of the geo location icon the location the checklist was completed can be seen within a map view:
Activities:
The Same functionality as checklists is also available in Activities such as Job, Time Entry and Appointment Activities.
If the geo location was recorded at the time the action was completed the location icon will be displayed with the ability to see the map location as per below:
You can now mark related client, job, task and serviceable unit Knowledgebase articles as favourites in TimeTrak Professional from version 24.1.
This is a great improvement for businesses who use the Knowledgebase heavily and would like certain related articles to be displayed first across the organisation.
When an article is marked as a favourite it will display at the top of the related articles list for all users ensuring quick access.
When the profile setting “Enable Unbilled Appointment Alarms” is enabled users are forced to deal with historic appointments that have not yet been converted to time entries within TimeTrak Alerts.
Previously selection of the appointment would open a locked one-day calendar view meaning appointments were unable to be dragged to future days to quickly reschedule.
From 24.1 on selection of an appointment a seven-day calendar view will open within TimeTrak professional allowing users to drag appointments to future day(s) in order to reschedule work quickly:
10. Fill Day behaviour updated to exclude specified roster hours
In the previous release of TimeTrak the ability to exclude certain hours (roster classes) from time balancing was added as per below:
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/timetrak-23-1-release-notes-whats-new/#6-exclude-specified-roster-classes-from-time-balancing
In this release, this functionality has been improved further also excluding these hours from “fill day” functionality.
In version 24.1, there is expanded functionality for quote line management within the TimeTrak APP.
If APP users have quote line “Form Layout” settings enabled for Serviceable Unit or Task on quote lines, these are now able to be seen and set within the TimeTrak APP as per below:
This enhancement provides greater flexibility for managing quotes efficiently on mobile devices
In the Admin Console < Profile < Form Layout tab, there are settings to determine the visibility of the Task Code field and whether it is Read Only or Required.
Typically, the Advanced Task Id is adopted and Synced to TimeTrak, in this instance Read Only would be selected.
Where a Task is added via TimeTrak then Required could be set, this is dependant of the Advanced site Task ID settings. Please consult your TimeTrak Consultant if this setting compatible with your ERP system.
The Task Code is also used by other integrations to TimeTrak where the setting Required may be of use. Please consult your TimeTrak Consultant if this setting compatible with your ERP system.
In Professional, the Task Code is displayed on the Task Details tab and shows in the Task form header.
Task Code can be made visible on the Task grid, from the Column Chooser, and is also searchable.
In the Administration Console, Profile Customisations, Task Code is now available to choose from in the pick list for Appointment, Task or Time Entry Customisations.
Task Code can also be applied to Templates.
Important: Within the TimeTrak App and Mobile platform, the Task Code field will only display if the Task Code field is populated.
Mobile Browser:
Task List and Task display
Mobile App:
Task List and Task display
The Task Code is searchable on a queue, but this does require Task Code is made visible via the Profile < Customisations tab within the TimeTrak Administration Console.
Option to force quote lines to be mapped to a Task
Here we can see the Task field is highlighted yellow, enforcing the user to select a task
Both the Mobile browser and the App platforms follow the same behaviour to enforce selection.
Quote Line State can be viewed and set within TimeTrak APP
Quote line “state” was added to TimeTrak Professional and Mobile in release 21.2 as per below for MYOB Advanced clients in order to control which quote lines sync through to MYOB Advanced.
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/timetrak-21-2-release-notes-whats-new/#Point13
The ability to see and set the quote line state has also been added to the TimeTrak APP within this release.
The Advanced Project ID flows through to the Job Code field in TimeTrak, a Read Only setting has been introduced to prevent this field being edited in TimeTrak.
TimeTrak Validation Alerts have been introduced to assist with the TimeTrak Sync Integration process. The there are occasions when data can fail to sync from TimeTrak to Advanced. When enabled, this feature allows client self-management of this data.
Often this can be resolved easily but requires a Resync of that data to sync to Advanced.
There are times when the TimeTrak data can no longer be synced or is no longer required to be synced, to Advanced. A Cancel Sync option has been introduced manage such instances. This means that, when this icon is clicked on, the item will be ignored from the sync going forward and will no longer try to sync the data to Advanced.
13. Financial Year Start Setting to assist with TimeTrak Reporting
An additional global system setting “Financial Year Start” has been added to TimeTrak from version 24.1 to assist with reporting requirements which run based on the financial year instead of the calendar year.
14. Appointments Colour – Labour Code Colour
Adding to the flexibility of appointment colour coding there is now the ability to have appointments colour coded based on the labour code colour as per below:
Labour Code Colours can be specified against the item under Disbursement/ Allowances within the Admin Console as per below example:
In order to set the labour code against an appointment users need assigned to a profile with “Default Time Entry Labour Code” visible on appointment form layout.
On appointment creation the default labour code can be set:
Which will colour code the appointment based on the configuration set (left colour in this example)
This is a great enhancement for those businesses who would like to colour code their schedules based on the type of work that will be completed.
15. Profile setting to control Quick Task functionality in TimeTrak Professional
Quick Tasks were introduced to TimeTrak Professional in version 4.0 as per below to improve task creation for reactive work:
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/quick-tasks-in-timetrak-4-0/
In some instances, quick tasks should be prevented from being added as additional data against the task needs to be added.
A new Profile setting “Add Quick Task” has been added to control this functionality.
16. New Contact Form Layout in Profiles with ability to force contact Email and Phone Number
From release 24.1 a new Contact form layout is available in Profiles which provides the ability to force users to enter an Email and or Phone number on add and edit of a contact within TimeTrak:
This is a great improvement for businesses who wish to ensure contacts are added to TimeTrak with the appropriate information.
17. Added ability to convert an appointment to a time entry without the time entry screen opening:
In release 21.2 the ability to select multiple appointments and convert these to time entries via the TimeTrak professional calendar was added as per below:
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/timetrak-21-2-release-notes-whats-new/#Point3
This provides the ability to quickly convert an appointment to a time entry using the defaults.
In this release there is now the ability to quickly convert a single appointment to a time entry without the time entry form opening by selecting the entry and pressing “Shift” and “T” on the keyboard.
Alternatively, users can right click an appointment and press “shift” when selecting “Convert to Time Entry” as per below to convert the entry without the form loading.
Changes have been made to this process to prevent single or multiple entries being converted via keyboard short cuts if “Must Choose” is set on the users’ profile time entry form layout.
The message below will display preventing this:
18. Icon to indicate and show count of disbursements/ attachments assigned to an entry in TimeTrak Professional
As per below, a new orange icon with a count will display against both time entries and appointments that have disbursements assigned to them
Note: The count is the number of disbursement lines assigned to the time entry/ appointment not the total quantity of items.
Disbursements also include fixed travel fees and payroll allowances.
An updated icon and count for attachments will also be displayed for time entries/ appointments that have attachments assigned as per below:
This is a great visual improvement for schedulers and professional users to ensure items have been assigned without the need to open the entry.
19. Add disbursements to entries via right click in TimeTrak Professional
If professional users have the profile setting “Add Disbursement” enabled there is now the ability to assign disbursement(s) to multiple time entries or appointments for the same job/ task via a right, click in the calendar as per below:
This will load a blank disbursement form where multiple disbursements can be added by clicking the + icon.
On save these will be assigned to each of the appointment/ time entries that were selected:
This is a great improvement for businesses who need to add additional costs to time entries and appointments frequently.
20. Security Improvements and Email TLS version changes
As part of being security conscious this release includes patches for TimeTrak website vulnerabilities identified in quarterly security scans.
Windows also recommends that applications do not set the email TLS version and instead use the operating system default.
From release 24.1 the TLS version used by emails sent from TimeTrak is no longer dependent on TimeTrak but rather the default set on the web server operating system.
21. Added ability to complete Global Approval via Professional Calendar
Global approval provides the ability for staff to approve hours on behalf of another users.
For example; when a manager is on leave and another manager needs to approve entries on their behalf.
Previously Global approval could only be completed via Approval reports and was unable to be completed via the calendar.
From this release, when users have “Enable Global Approval” enabled on their profile. On selecting one or multiple-time entries via the calendar and using the keyboard shortcut ‘V’ the approval prompt as per below has the added ability to “Complete Global Approval” of the entry when selected.
This selection will be cached to the browser meaning when selected this will be selected by default and complete global approval of the entries selected via the calendar without the need to use Approval reports.
For more details on global approval within TimeTrak click here.
22. Profile setting to control “Copy Day” functionality within TimeTrak APP
Copy Day functionality was added to the TimeTrak APP from version 22.2, for details on this click here.
For some businesses all hours recorded via the TimeTrak APP should be generated via appointments scheduled.
In this release an additional profile setting “Hide Copy Day” has been added to user’s profiles.
When enabled the Copy Day function will not be available to APP users.
23. Shift Patterns
In release 24.1, a new Shift Pattern feature has been designed for clients who schedule their staff to the same job/ task based on a set shift pattern.
Global Administrators can access “Shift Patterns” via TimeTrak Professional under settings.
Here shift patterns can be setup at a global level as per below example:
A Colour can be set against the shift pattern, this is available in appointment colours as per below in order for appointments to be colour coded based on the shift pattern.
The Shift description can be set and is available in Appointment Profile Customisations “AppointmentShiftPatternDayDescription” if this description needs to flow through to the calendar for scheduling or field staff.
The Time Analysis drop down is limited to Non-Productive (Leave) time analysis codes for clients who schedule employees rostered days off.
For clients who do not schedule employees rostered days off of the start / end time is set to 00:00 as per below example, these days will be missed and not scheduled:
Professional users with the profile setting “Show Shift Patterns” enabled will have a Shift Pattern selection within an appointment form as per below:
On selection of a shift pattern Start/ End Times are no longer displayed as the time will be set based on the shift pattern.
Start time is the date you wish the shift pattern to start from.
There is the ability to “repeat” a shift pattern which will repeat the entire shift pattern displaying the end date of the pattern(s)
The End date of a pattern can be manually selected instead of using the repeat function.
When selecting the end date, the shift pattern will repeat until this date.
The repeat field will be cleared and an icon will be displayed to indicate to the scheduler that the shift pattern will only be partially repeated as per below:
Note: Disbursements and serviceable units assigned to the appointment will be assigned to each appointment for the job/ task on the pattern.
On save, the appointments will be generated as per the pattern, in this example with a repeat of 1 the pattern has been generated twice:
24. “Stack Calendar Items” Timeline View now stacks entries that go over midnight
For clients who schedule work over midnight, in previous releases the display of this was not very user friendly in the timeline calendar as per below:
From release 24.1 when “Stack Calendar Items” is enabled within a timeline workgroup items that span over midnight will display within a single day column as per below:
25. Ability to define against a customer if they pay for staff lunch breaks or not.
In some organisations there are agreements with some clients that they will pay for staff lunch breaks when working onsite.
In TimeTrak Professional, when users have the ability to edit clients and the Client Form Layout Setting “Paid Lunch Breaks” set to visible they can specify if the client pays for staff lunch breaks or not as per below:
When time is added to a job/ task in TimeTrak for a client with “Paid Lunch Breaks” enabled;
If the user does not have any breaks setup against their roster or in “My Breaks” (professional users) there will be no lunch recorded.
If the user does have breaks setup against their roster but they are not mapped to a non-productive time analysis code like “lunch” this will behave as it usually does, and no time entry will be created for lunch.
If the user has “breaks” setup against their roster or in “My Breaks”, the break is mapped to a non-productive time analysis code like “lunch” and the break is enabled on the time entry;
On save the “lunch” time entry will be recorded to the job/ task instead of the non-productive lunch code with a narration of “Paid Break” as per below example where D & C Panel beaters pays for lunch breaks, but Comfort Automotive services does not:
26. Stack Breaks (at end of day)
Businesses who have staff working on the same job/ task long periods of time often do not want multiple time entries created against the job/task on the same day which is what occurs when hours are split over lunch.
To provide the ability for a single entry to be created against a job/task and have break hours reduced from the entry duration ensuring hours are correct for payroll.
An additional setting “Stack Breaks (at end of day)” has been added to Rosters against the break tab from release 24.1as per below:
When enabled, on save of a time entry that has “break” enabled the break(s) will be stacked at the end of the entry ensuring there is only one entry for the job/ task with breaks recorded at the end as per below:
27. Prevent Mobile/ APP users from disabling lunch on time entries
From release 24.1, in profile settings under Form Layout> Time Entry there is a “Breaks” option with the ability to set this as read only.
This is useful for businesses who set breaks against their staff rosters and wish to disable the ability for staff to not record a lunch break and adjust the time lunch was taken on a time entry that spans the break time.
28. Public Holidays display in timeline calendar view
Public Holidays displayed in all TimeTrak Professional calendar views (excluding Timeline) from version 20.1.5 as per below:
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/holidays-now-display-in-timetrak-professional-calendar/
From this release public holidays also display in the timeline calendar view as long as “Day” is enabled in time scales.
This is a great improvement for customers who complete scheduling via timeline calendar views as well as those customers who have leave approval workgroups in timeline views like below:
Ensuring that public holiday leave is approved on public holidays without the need to check.
29. Quickly view and add attachments to calendar items via TimeTrak APP.
This release includes the added ability to quickly view and add attachments to both time entries and appointments via the more option within the TimeTrak APP calendar view as per below if users have “Show Attachments” and “Add Attachments” enabled.
30. APP Appointment creation push notifications
TimeTrak APP push notifications were introduced in release 23.1 as per below:
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/timetrak-23-1-release-notes-whats-new/#8-timetrak-app-push-notifications
From this release the profile setting “Enable Appointment Change Push Notifications” has been renamed to “Enable Appointment Change in Todays Calendar Push Notifications” to reflect when enabled only new or edited appointments for the current day will send a push notification to the user.
An additional profile setting “Enable Appointment Creation Push Notifications” has been added to this release.
This profile setting will send push notifications on creation of appointment(s) to users without the limitation of these being today.
It is important to note that “Enable Appointment Creation Push Notifications” and “Enable Appointment Change in Todays Calendar Push Notifications” are unable to be enabled together as their behaviour conflicts.
A new system event “Send Appointment Created Notifications” controls the push notifications for the profile setting “Enable Appointment Creation Push Notifications”.
This defaults to every 5 minutes which can be adjusted, which provides the ability to consolidate notifications to the frequency of the scheduled event.
For Example, if there has only been one appointment added for the user a notification will be as per below:
On selection of the notification the appointment details will open:
If multiple appointments are assigned within the scheduled event frequency for example appointments generated over multiple days manually or via the new shift pattern function a single notification will be sent indicating the total amount of appointments assigned as per below:
On selection of the notification an appointment search grid will display with all new appointments that have been assigned since the last notification.
31. Appointment Activities available in TimeTrak APP
Appointment activities can be seen within TimeTrak professional as per below to provide an overview of the activities against the appointment including SMS messages sent to the appointment contact:
Appointment activities are now available within the TimeTrak APP as per below:
To provide APP users an overview of the appointments activities as well as the ability to see SMS messages sent to appointment contacts as per below:
32. “Send me a copy” email template changes
Email enhancements were completed in TimeTrak release 22.1 as per below;
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/timetrak-22-1-release-notes-whats-new/#email-enhancements-in-timetrak-professional
From 22.1, “send me a copy” functionality was introduced in email templates within TimeTrak professional.
This would send a separate copy of the email to the logged in user’s email address. However, because it was a separate copy of the email there was no reference to who the email was sent to.
From 24.1.2, Email templates send a single email.
When “send me a copy” is enabled the logged in users email address is essentially Bcc’d into the email to receive a copy of the email and see who it was sent to.
From Address email template changes
Previously email templates within TimeTrak could be sent from the logged in users email address or the Admin Email (Email specified in global system setup Email Settings).
Global administrators had the ability to change this when sending email templates from Professional although the default come from the email template.
From 24.1.2, additional flexibility has been added providing the ability to set email templates to come from a selection of email addresses.
Admin contacts can be setup within the TimeTrak Admin Console with an email address as per below:
Email templates can then have the from address set to one of the below:
-
- Current User Email Address (Logged In Users Email Address).
- Admin Email (Email specified in global system setup Email Settings).
- Email Address marked as an Administrator Contact
Email templates will default the from address to be the same as the email template.
Global administrators can however adjust the from to the Admin Email, Current User Email or the Email Address marked as an Administrator Contact.
Note: If the email template is set to come from an Administrator Contact the list will be limited to only the Administrator Contact specified on the email template.
33. Update multiple providers via right click in professional
Lead and secondary provider columns have been available in both job and client grids within TimeTrak professional since version 22.2 as per below:
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/timetrak-22-2-release-notes-whats-new/#lead-secondary-provider-available-in-professional-grids
To further enhance this functionality from version 24.1.2 multiple clients or jobs can be selected in grids and the right click edit functionality now also includes lead and secondary provider as per below:
This added functionality is great for organisations using lead and secondary providers providing the ability to bulk update especially when an employee leaves this can be filtered in the grids and updated.
34. Embed Report as HTML inside the body of an email when sending scheduled reports
The ability to schedule the emailing of reports was introduced in version
https://timetrak.co.nz/blog/category/whats-new-timetrak-19-1/#Scheduled-events
From 24.1.2, there is the ability for the scheduled report to be embedded in the email body as HTML instead of as a PDF attachment that users need to open.
A perfect example of this may be sending staff an overview report of unallocated time as per below example:
To achieve this, within the scheduled report email event the Export As setting is set to HTML as per below:
The Email template attached to the scheduled report includes the tag under “Other” “Message Text From Application” as per below which will be replaced by the report.
