Plan Tasks To-Do and Record Time Using Plan Task Timers.
Plan Tasks To-Do and record time using Plan Task Timers for yourself or for other Timekeepers without the need to have a Matter Plan in place.
Plan Tasks To-Do
If you actively use Tasks, there is a main To-Do tab at the top of the TimeSolv application for quick access to creating and editing Tasks. TimeSolv allows its users to create Tasks for themselves or for other Timekeepers without the need to have a Matter Plan in place. Still, if you do wish to create a proper Matter Plan with Phases for your Tasks, you can do this under Clients>Clients & Matters>[matter name]>Matter Plan.
To create a Plan Task To-Do, click on To-Do>Plan Tasks To-Do.
Click on the New Plan Task To-Do button to create a new task.
Note:
If the user does not have ‘Access to all Clients‘ under Account>Timekeepers>User>Permissions tab, they will not be able to create new Task To-Do’s.
Users can mark the Task as ‘Complete’ or ‘Delete’ if it has no unrecorded time or if a Timer running against it.
By default, the new Task will be assigned to the user creating this Task. If you need to assign the Task to a different user, select that user’s name from the Timekeepers field on the search bar and hit ‘Search.’
Tasks can be searched based on the Timer’s different states to narrow down the search results. From the ‘Timer‘ dropdown, users can select from All, None Accumulated, Running, Paused, and Limit Exceeded. These states are represented by different colors, while the Timer in a ‘Running‘ state is shown as a blue animated icon.
Plan Task Timers
For each task, the user can capture time by clicking on Record Time and manually specifying the hours or running a timer.
The timer for a task can be started and stopped multiple times, and the elapsed time for these runs is automatically populated in the Hours field when the user clicks on Record Time.
Plan Task Timers can also be set up so that Admins can limit the number of hours a Timer can run. To learn more about enforcing the Timer limit, see the next section on ‘Limiting Timer Runs‘.
The Timers on the Plan Tasks To-Do screen appear in different states:
– Blue: Default state for a new task or when a Timer gets reset after a new time entry is created.
– Orange: A timer in a running state is indicated by a Blue animated timer, and if the timer exceeds the limit, the color changes to Orange. Users can ‘Record Time’ and ‘Reset’ the timer if required.
– Green: Paused Timers that have un-recorded time against a task. Users can ‘Record Time’ and ‘Reset’ the timer if required.
Non-admin users can also reset the Timers or mark the task as complete using the line-item dropdown. The ‘Complete’ option appears in the dropdown to mark the task as complete if the timer has not run yet, i.e., when showing up in blue.
Timers can run even if they exceed the Maximum Unrecorded Time defined in the ‘To-Do>Settings.’ The timer animation color changes to orange to indicate that the maximum threshold has been exceeded. Users can still stop the timers which have accumulated time more than the maximum limit.
Clicking on the Record Time link while the Timer is running will automatically stop the Timer. Hovering over the Timer icon brings up a tooltip showing the total unrecorded time as an hourly unit.
Tip:
For Plan Tasks accessible to multiple users, Timers record activity independently against individual Timekeepers assigned to the Plan Task.
Timer Runs associated with the logged-in user are not impacted by the ‘Timer’ runs against the same task by any other Timekeeper.
Limiting Timer Runs
Firms can enforce a policy to limit the time added against a Timer before the user is forced to record a time entry.
Users can set this up from To-Do>Settings>Maximum Unrecorded Time (Hours), which allows the Firm Admins to specify the maximum unrecorded time in hours.
Once a timer’s elapsed time exceeds the value specified in the text field, the Timer’s color changes to orange.
After recording a Time Entry, the respective Timer is reset, and the user can start the Timer again.
Recording Time
Clicking on the ‘Record Time’ link at the end of each Task opens the ‘New Time Entry’ pop-up allowing the user to create a Time Entry for that Client-Matter. If the Timer associated with the task has some unrecorded time, the Hours field and the date on the New Time Entry dialog are prepopulated with the combined hour’s duration for the aggregated timer runs from the earliest start date.
Users who have permission to enter time for other Timekeepers can select the responsible Timekeeper from the dropdown when creating the Time Entry.
Users can also mark the Task as ‘Completed’ using the checkbox at the end of the Plan Task To-Do field.
When recording time, the Time Entry dialog populates the Hours field with the combined duration of the timer runs for the earliest start date. If the user clicks on ‘Record Time’ again, the hours for the next day against this task are calculated and filled in the Hours field.
For example, if a user has a Plan Task Timer that crosses over through midnight, the Timer runs are spliced into two: one that starts at the Timer’s start time and ends at midnight (23:59) and the other starting from midnight (00:01) up to the time when the Timer is stopped.
Timer runs can be processed for each unique date and record Time by repeatedly clicking on the ‘Record Time’ link. When all the Timer runs have been processed, and the system has recorded the time entry, the respective Timer gets reset and switches back to the default blue state.
Resetting Timers
The Timers feature can also be set up to force the users to Record Time and simultaneously enforce the hours that the timer can run. If the Timer Run exceeds the hours defined in the system, users will still be able to record time.
Timekeepers can also ‘Reset’ the Plan Task Timers in a stopped state with some time associated with them and timers with exceeded hours.
