💡 On Oct 26th, 2023, we started to roll out the new time tracking Day view layout (BETA).
Some of the benefits of the new layout:
Time entries can now have a Start and End time (i.e., 2 pm-4 pm).
Quick access to predefined groups of services: Pinned, Scheduled, and Recent. Start tracking time with a single click! Or fold away groups you're not using.
For all other cases when a service is not in those groups - searching for services has been improved. Type a part of the project name or part of the service name to get started.
Manual time entries
There are two core ways of tracking time in Productive: manual tracking and the timer. Manual tracking allows you to freely enter any time worked against a budget and service. On the other hand, the timer lets you start tracking time directly as you start working.
In this article, we will cover manual time entries. For more information on using the timer feature, please click here.
To use manual time tracking, navigate to the Time tab and select My time.
Picking the date
You will find weekdays at the top of the user interface. You can pick any day from the list and start adding time entries for that day.
Use arrows to navigate between weeks. Click the dot in the middle to get back to the current day.
You can also choose a date from the calendar.
Filling out the form
You're tracking time against a particular budget and service within that budget.
Pay attention to budgets and projects. Every project has at least one budget, and a budget has at least one service. So when you're tracking time, make sure you've selected a service from the right project and budget.
Put down a brief description of what you've been working on in the Note field and for how long.
You can record different time formats:
8
0.5
8h
8 hours
30 min
0.5 h
5 m
108 m
Manual mode vs Timer mode
Whether you prefer manual or timer mode, you can easily switch between two standard modes of tracking time. Click the icon in the top right to do so:
Filling out the form in Manual mode
When you're done filling out the form, hit the Save entry button.
Here's what a properly filled out form would look like:
You can also use Start timer (in timer mode) and Productive will automatically log your time to a specific service.
Just don't forget to come back to the Time tab and stop the timer when finished.
Suggestions
If you're Scheduled to work on some project you will get automatic time-tracking suggestions under My Time. Clicking these suggestions will pre-fill the budget, service, and time for you.
Include time off
By enabling the 'Include time off' setting, all time off bookings will be added to that day's total hours.
For example, having a time off booking for 8 hours and tracking 5 hours of work, the total will be 13:
With the setting turned off, the total will be 5 hours:
Greyed-out dates in the header section
There are three scenarios when the dates in the header section are greyed-out and appear as non-working days
there is no capacity set in the person's cost rate
a holiday is considered a non-working day - it will be marked with blue and red triangles (see screenshot below)
time off is booked on that date (see screenshot below)
Can't track time for some reason?
There are a few possible reasons why you can't track time.
There is no budget - you need to create a budget and add services to it
The budget is delivered - you can't track time against a closed budget
The date range is wrong - you can't track time in the future so you need to adjust the budget date range
You don't have a cost rate - contact your admin to define a cost rate for you before you can start tracking time.
Time tracking option is disabled on a service
You are not added to the Budget Sharing options
Read more about defining a cost rate here.