Calendar timesheet – how to use your calendar for time tracking

How Does Calendar Time Tracking Work?

It’s surprisingly easy:

1. After inital setup, users just carry on using Outlook or Google calendar as they normally do.
2. As users add appointments to their calendar, they are seamlessly added to their timesheet.
3. Timewatch automatically analyzes appointment content for customer / project data and adds this to the timesheet.
4. Where customer / project information is found, the items are shown in green or blue, depending on whether the employee wants time automatically added (blue) or if they want to review entries first (green).
5. Appointments that don’t have customer / project info are shown in red, to highlight that they need attention.
6. That’s it! Semi or fully automated calendar time tracking from Outlook or Google.

What Are The Benefits of Calendar Time Tracking?

As the time data used in calendar time tracking is derived from calendar data, employees save time and timesheet accuracy is increased. Administrators, Project and Account managers report time savings from more streamlined day-to-day functions, analytics and notification systems; Business and C-Level managers report better, faster decision making through real-time analytics configured to perfectly meet the organization’s needs.

How Much Time Does Calendar Time Tracking Save?

Depending upon the level of time sheet details required, calendar time tracking typically saves employees between 1-3 hours a week, or 4-12 hours a month, an potential increase in productivity of 2-8%.

How is a Calendar Timesheet More Accurate than a Traditional Timesheet?

Calendar timesheets benefit from the accuracy with which people manage their calendars, which is less prone to error than manual time tracking.

How Timewatch’s Calendar Timesheet Saves Administrators Time

Timewatch is highly configurable and customizable. Timewatch helps each customer setup their system in such a way that it perfectly matches their organization’s needs: their terminology, rules, analysis levels, entry fields, workflow, notifications, analytics etc. Once setup, it is as if the system has been specifically written for that organization, but without the pain and cost of a custom solution. It is a solution that works how the company works, not the other way around. This makes for the most powerful, intuitive and easy to use solution for administrators and managers, which saves them time.

A Calendar timesheet is simple, easy, fast and users love it!

Why? Customers tell us their weekly timesheet entry is no longer a chore. As one customer explained:

“Our technology team suggested Timewatch’s Outlook calendar Timesheet system would help us get faster at tracking time and also help us with reports. Both those suggestions have been proven true.”

How does Calendar Timesheet Entry Work?

Timewatch’s Calendar Timesheet can be viewed in the classic spreadsheet layout, or in a calendar format like Outlook and Google calendar. The image to the right shows a calendar timesheet in weekly format, which will be very familiar to Outlook and Google users. The system supports a full or work week timesheet format, a two-weekly timesheet, bi-weekly / half month and four week timesheet formats.

Each item has an icon that shows where it came from: Google calendar, Outlook calendar, or the keyboard icon shows time that has been manually entered.

If your organization uses Outlook or Google and also enters timesheets, Timewatch® is the perfect choice for your timesheet and time tracking. It provides a powerful time and billing capable back end, which, with it’s configurable rules, terminology and workflow, is made the simplest, easiest and most intuitive timesheet and time tracking system for end users as it was configured to perfectly match the way your organization works.

“We previously used a web-based program but most of our staff didn’t care for it because of the amount of manual entry on the front end,” a current Timewatch® user explains.

“I would say that 20 percent of our staff struggled to get their time in at the end of the month. Our staff, however, is very diligent about calendars and the Timewatch® calendar time tracking system has made it possible for employees to go from their calendars to their timesheet with a few clicks, and from any device. It has made our employees’ lives better.”

Calendar Time Tracking From Any Device

Timewatch’s Outlook and Google calendar timesheet systems support all versions of Outlook and Google on all devices. Whether you use Mac, PC, iPhone/iPad or Android, you can use your Outlook or Google calendar for time tracking. Timewatch doesn’t change the way you use Outlook or Google, there is no app or plugin to install that slows down Outlook or Google, and nothing new to learn, it uses intelligent systems to utilize data you put into your calendar to automatically allocate time to the right customer/project in your timesheet.

Office 365 time tracking and Google calendar time tracking is now super simple and super easy. Rather than having to re-enter data already in your calendar into a timesheet, Timewatch seamlessly and automatically turns calendar appointments into timesheet entries – but always with the user in full control.

No matter which version of Outlook you use, PC, Mac, Phone or Tablet, OutlookTime® can turn appointments into timesheets in seconds. There is even an Outlook plugin for Outlook for Windows desktop users that brings OutlookTime® functionality right into Outlook itself.

“What impressed our team about OutlookTime® was the ability to tie categories you already use to a project. That clicked a lightbulb for our team: we continue to use the categories we already have set up and the software automatically charges it,” explains another customer who works in the health care sector. “ At the end of the week we submit and are done. That was the ah-ha moment. OutlookTime® ties in so well with what we are already doing.”

If your organization uses Outlook and needs to track timesheets, OutlookTime® can save your users time, increase timesheet accuracy, and improves timesheet analytics and reporting. If you are using timesheets for billing, OutlookTime® can also decrease delays in billing and increase cash flow.

What about Reporting and Analytics?

One of Timewatch’s key strengths is its reporting and analytics. The system includes traditional reporting tools, as well as dynamic, interactive drill down tools, dashboards and notification systems. There are also optional report writers and dashboard designers which allows customers to create custom reports and dashboards, and Timewatch also provides a reporting writing and dashboard creation service.