For example, John Doe is a regular employee who is working in the Development Group. I just want John to get access to "Enter TS", "Enter Expense Report", "Enter ECR" and "Employee Vacation Report", and nothing else. How do I control his access only to these areas in the system ?

NetConsole/Timesheet uses "Navigation Groups" to control their access to different Menu Items (Modules and Functions). You can assign John to the pre-defined "Employee Group" to gain access to "Enter TS", "Enter Expense Report", "Enter ECR" and "Employee Vacation Report" function, and no access to other areas.

You can also create your own "Navigation Groups" and assign them to the desired Modules and Functions. Employees belong to these custom-defined "Navigation Groups" will have the access only to those Modules and Functions that are defined for these "Navigation Groups".

To create new "Navigation Groups", use "Group Manager" under "Access" Function in SysAdmin module. To define a Navigation Group's access privileges to different Modules and Functions (system menu), please use "Access Manager" under "Access" Function.

For example, Amy Baker and John Doe are working on the same Project (ABC Project) for the same Client. However, Amy works in the Sales Group, while John is working in the Development Group. How do I restrict Amy and John seeing only their own Tasks belonging to their respective Groups ?

NetConsole/Timesheet uses "Project Groups" to control their access to the Projects and Tasks (and thus, Charge Codes). So You will assign "Sales Group" to "ABC Project" and its Sales-related Tasks, and assign "Development Group" to the same Project, but assign this "Development Group" only to Development-related Tasks. Assign Amy to the "Sales Group", John to the "Development Group", then Amy can only see Sales-related Tasks, while John only sees Development-related Tasks under this Project.

Employees are accruing their vacation and sick leave hours based on their own "Accrual Rates" tables, which are created by their pre-defined "Seniority Levels".

So, first, you'll define several "Seniority Levels", such as Entry Level I, Entry Level II, Junior Level, Mid-Level, and Senior Level, etc. You will need to go to SysAdmin --> Parameter Manager --> Accrual Hours, click on "Create New Seniority Level" to start defining the Accrual Rate table for your new level.

You can select any Accrual Cycle (Weekly, Bi-weekly, Bi-monthly, or Monthly), define the first and last Accrual Dates as well as the First Accrual Date. Provide the system with the Annual Vacation Hours and Annual Sick Leave Hours. Make sure to check the "Prefill" option, so NetConsole/Timesheet will automatically calculate and populate the Accrual Rates for each Accrual Periods (say, every two weeks if Bi-weekly cycle is selected.)

Second, you will need to assign each employee with a Seniority Level. To do this task, go to SysAdmin --> User Manager (select an existing employee) --> Edit --> Vacation - Accrual Hours. You will then select a "Seniority Level" from the drop-down list and assign this Seniority Level to the selected employee to become his or her own "Accrual Rates" table. For new users, you can assign the new users a Seniority Level when using "New User Creation Wizard".

You can modify employee's "Accrual Rates" table according to their unique Accrual Rates for each Accrual Cycles. You can also update or define employee's FY Begin Balances, which usually came from the remaining balances from previous FY through Carry-Over task.

Once an employee has been assigned an "Accrual Rates" table, NetConsole/Timesheet will then accrue this user's vacation and sick leave hours based on the Accrual Rates and Accrual Cycles defined in his or her "Accrual Rates" table.

Employees can see their Y-T-D Accrued Hours, FY Begin Balances, Used Hours as well as their Remaining Balances for vacations and sick hours in their "Employee Vacation Reports" diplayed along with their Timesheets.

We always assigned the default System Admin as the default supervisor to every employee in additional to their own supervisors, but how do I set up the Email Option for this System Admin account to receive the Email notice everted employees submitted their timesheets?

When you first installed NetConsole/Timesheet system, your default Supervisor Email Option for the "System Admin" account is set to receive Emails (you can check under SysAdmin --> Parameter Manager --> Timesheet Settings, under "Supervisor Email Option for default System Admin", you will find the Email option is default to "To: Mail".)

You can change this default system setting by going to SysAdmin --> Parameter Manager --> Timesheet Settings, under "Supervisor Email Option for default System Admin", and set the Email option to "No Email" or "CC: Mail".)

You can also manually reset this option for specific user's account. Just go to SysAdmin --> User Manager, select an employee --> Job Relationship, and update Supervisor Email Option to "No Email" or "CC: Mail" for System Admin account. You can also do this when using "New User Creation Wizard", at step 3, you can change this default Supervisor Email Option to "No Email" or "CC: Mail".

In NetConsole, you can assign a Salary Rate (for Payroll) and an employee's Charge Rate (for Billing) for each employee. If you like to charge to different Projects using different Charge Rates per user, you will use Charge Code's Charge Rates (defined in Charge Code Manager under SysAdmin module).

Here is how it works -

Project A -- Task1 (Charge Code: ProjectA-Task1 assigned to Amy Baker) ...$90/Hr
                Task 2 (Charge Code: ProjectA-Task2 assigned to Amy Baker) ... $105/Hr

Project B -- Task3 (Charge Code: ProjectB-Task3 assigned to Amy Baker) ... $ 100/Hr

Note that Amy Baker can have as many different Charge Rates as you like per Charge Code, so when Amy Baker logged 20 hours to ProjectA-Task1 ($90/hr), logged 5 hours to ProjectA-Task2, and logged 30 hours to ProjectB-Task3 ($100/hr), you will see the followings report in your Billing Reports by Charge Codes -

Time Period Week 47, 2005 ~ Week 51, 2005

Name: Amy Baker

Charge Code	Hours	Rate	Amount
ProjectA-Task1	20	$90	$1,800
ProjectA-Task2	5	$105	$ 525
ProjectB-Task3	30	$100	$3,000
Total	55		$5,325

or

Billing Reports by Projects -

Project	Hours	Amount
ProjectA	25	$2,325
ProjectB	30	$3,000
Total	55	$5,325

The "Lock TS" function is designed for Payroll to "Lock" employee's Time Sheets after the timesheets are due or before the Carry-Over task can be performed, so that employees won't be able to go back previous weeks to update their timesheet hours.

Before the "Lock TS" function can be perform, NetConsole Timesheet will check selected employees' time sheets status for the selected weeks, and only perform on the following time sheet status - (1) employees with no Timesheets for selected weeks, (2) Timesheets with data but not submitted, and (3) Timesheets already submitted but not yet approved.

For (2) Timesheets with data but not submitted, the system will submit and approve the timesheets. For (3) Timesheets already submitted but not yet approved, NetConsole/Timesheet system will approve the selected timesheets. For (1) employees with no Timesheets for selected weeks, NetConsole/Timesheet will insert a Project called "Payroll" and a Task called "Lock-TS" as a line of charge code with no hours reported in the timesheet, and then submit and approve the timesheets.

The "Approved By" info for these selected timesheets will show the Payroll or SysAdmin account who actually performed this Lock TS function.

On the end of each billing cycle, did you ever wonder how to compile a report with total logged hours from employees' time sheets broken down by each Project for all Employees ? the challenge is that your boss needs that report in 10 minutes !!

In NetConsole/Timesheet, you can get the Timesheet Report within just 3 minutes.

As a Payroll/Billing manager, you can go to Payroll --> TS Report-Payroll, select Begin and End dates, select the Projects, select the Employees, and then choose "Project" as your reporting column, then click on "Tabulate" button. You will see a nicely lay-outed report sorted by each selected employees with their respective Projects and logged hours. A grand total is also included to show how many total hours have been worked from the selected time periods.