Time Tracking

[careymc]

Can someone suggest software, a plugin, or a setting with MS Project that
handles the following need:

1. 6 PM's will use MS project to create and modify projects and project
tasks.
2. 40+ employees will need to be able to report time against these project
tasks without using MS Project (only buying enough licenses for the PM's).
3. All employees will need to report their time, but not necessarily always
against a project task created in MS Project (i.e. checking emails wouldn't
fall under a specific project).
4. We would need to pull reports of the hours by time, project, tasks,
secondary tasks, etc.

There is a lot of stuff out there but certainly someone is using a good
solution that allows MS Project users to export their information directly to
a time reporting system. Consequently, the solution should allow employees
that use the time reporting system to load the hours into MS Project so the
PM's are aware if they are meeting their timelines. Any suggestions or
resources would help. We are trying to gather our thoughts together to
present the best solution that only requires one entry system instead of
employees having to enter hours in two different systems.

 

[Rod Gill]

Microsoft Project Server can do this. If you can wait until the end of the
year I Would recommend Project Server 2007 as they have done a lot of work
since '03.

 

[careymc]

How does the time reporting work in Project Server? Are there 40 licenses
included so PM's and development can report time? Any handy links to demos
before I go searching myself? My concern is:

 

[John Sitka]

If the PM changes the actual values, does a person still get paid?
If yes then how? and which version of the truth is accurate. If the PM is not allowed to adjust actuals
what happens if someone enters an extra zero by mistake, do they get paid ten fold wages.

These are the core issues you are looking at, it isn't trivial.

Payroll needs to be generated based on a persons residency (7am to 5pm)
AND project tracking is concerned about performance, the two are not very
similar beyond simplest of all cases.

 

[careymc]

Payroll is always based a person's salary. The time tracking is 100%
dedicated to project management (i.e. comparing hours budgeted vs. hours
used). I didn't make it clear that the time reporting isn't linked to
payroll at all. The time entries are used to bill against budgeted baseline
hours and assess when variable rates kick in. Good points, though.

 

[John Sitka]

whew, bullet dodged...

one of the frequent posters here has a
time and track application addin for sale.
It'll show up soon.