The Time approval feature in Productive allows budget owners to review time entries before they are visible to clients or included in internal budget and profitability reports.
Here’s how to enable and use this in your budgets.
Enabling Time Approval
Turn on the Time Approval Addon
Navigate to Settings > Time tracking.
Enable the Time approval toggle.
Activate Time Approval for Individual Budgets
Once Time approval is enabled in Settings, navigate to the budget, open the budget sidebar, and select the Settings tab (marked by the gear ⚙️ icon).
Toggle the Time approval switch to enable or disable time approval for each specific budget.
Hovering over the info bubble next to the toggle lets you know who the budget owner, i.e., the time entry approver, is.
Using Time Approval
Approving Time Entries
The budget owner must approve time entries to ensure they meet the necessary criteria before becoming visible to clients or included in internal reports. Here’s how the process works:
1) Notification and Approval Screen
After a time entry is added, the approver receives a notification.
The time entry will appear on the approver's approval screen, showing entries that are awaiting review.
2) Approval Timeline
Note that time entries for the present day will not be visible on the same day; they will appear the following day.
3) Actions in Approval Inbox
Approve the Entry: Click on the tick to approve.
Request Changes: Click on the reload icon to request changes.
Edit the Entry: Accessed through the three-dot menu to the right, allowing for direct edits.
View Timer Logs: If the timer was used, view logs for accuracy.
Delete the Entry: Remove the time entry entirely if necessary.
4) Additional Details
Only after approval does the logged time become recognized and billable. Only recognized time entries are considered in the budget usage calculations. If a time entry is not approved and unrecognized, it will not affect the total budgeted time.
Note that besides the budget owner, admins also have the option to approve other people's time entries, ensuring flexibility in the approval process.
Changing the Budget Owner
To change the budget owner, and thereby the person responsible for approving time entries:
Open the budget sidebar, select the General budget info tab (marked by the home icon 🏠), and click on the Edit general budget info option.
Select the new budget owner from the dropdown and click Update budget to save the changes.
