Time Entry Approvals – PPO Support Portal

This article covers:

Types of approvals;
Setting up time entry approvals;
Time Entry Approver;
Using time entry approvals.

The success of a project often depends on the measures and controls put in place to govern the project. PPO caters for this requirement through its Approvals functionality, allowing approval records to be created for team members’ time entries, documents, projects, scope changes and more.

Types of approvals

Two types of approvals are available:

Time Entry approvals, and
Client-defined approvals.

This article deals exclusively with Time Entry approvals. For information on client-defined approvals, see the following knowledge base article.

Setting up Time Entry approvals

Time Entry approvals are available under the following conditions:

The Edit Time Entry functionality option should be enabled in the user group’s logical access. This can be enabled by navigating to Administration > User Groups. For more information related to User Group access, follow this knowledge base article.
The "Allow approvals on time entries” option under Administration > System Configuration should be set to true. For more information related to System Configuration, follow this knowledge base article.
If the above conditions are met, the Time Entries icon will be available in the top right corner of the window.

Time Entry Approver

When Time Entry Approvals are enabled, the Project Manager of the related project is the Approver by default. If there is a need to make changes to the default Approver, you can log a support ticket requesting a change.

There are certain circumstances where you might want the Project Manager to Approve project work, but a Line Manager to approve BAU work.

Using Time Entry approvals

Once the time entries are ready for approval, there are 3 options to Submit your time for Approval. See details and screenshot below:

Option 1: Submit for Approval

If you have done your time sheet for the week and you are ready to submit for approval, you can simply click on the "Submit for Approval" icon. This automatically submits ALL records for Approval without having to manually tick the Approval Request box.

Option 2: Approval drop down

By clicking on the Select All option under the Approval drop down, the Approval Request check box (3 above) will be checked for every row. Using this option, you still need to click on "Submit" to send the records for approval.
Using Unselect All will uncheck all the boxes but can only be done if you have not yet submitted.

Option 3: Approval Request field / checkbox

If you only want to select certain line item/s for approval you can manually select the check box for the relevant items and click on Submit.

After requesting Approval, the Status field of the time entry sent for approval will change to Ready.

Simultaneously, a feed notification is sent to the project manager of the related project, notifying them that an Approval Request has been created on his/her Home Page.

The Approval records will appear on the Approvers' Home Page (generally under the Home tab).

The manager can then review the time entry and decide to Decline or Approve the entry and click on the corresponding action to indicate his/her decision.

The manager’s decision will reflect on the user’s Time Entries page. If the time entry has been Declined, the user will be notified by a feed notification.

The user is then allowed to alter their time entry and resubmit it for approval.

To resubmit a declined record for approval, use any of these options:

Update your time on the line item and click on the Submit for Approval icon. This will resubmit all Declined time as well as time not submitted yet.
Update your time on the line item, tick the Approval Request tick box of the specific record/s and Submit.
After updating your time and clicking Submit, click on the Declined hyperlink and click on the Resubmit for approval action button.