This blog post, is about a topic that seems to be as widely known, as it is unknown.
So, you are using Project Server (or Project Online), but not using Timesheets at all for logging progress and time tracking?
That is fine. While I am a fan of Timesheets, and really like the tracking ease it brings, I understand that not all organizations are not ready for using the ‘hours’ kind of tracking.
However, there is one feature of Timesheets that you can absolutely take advantage of, even if you do not use it for daily time tracking. That is the tracking of ‘Vacation’ (or other out-of-office) time.
The standard practice for tracking of resources’ out of office time without Project Server is to manually (or programmatically) enter exceptions on each of the resource calendar.
However. When using the timesheets for the same purpose:
- You get an inbuilt approval system out of the box
- An easy OOB reporting of planned vacation vs Actual Vacation
- The non-working time also adds exceptions to the resource calendars, there by accurately moving dates in your organizations projects whenever someone goes on vacation.
In addition, the project manager cannot assign any NEW work during that time.
So, sold on the hypothesis here? Let’s see how we can set the timesheets up to just use them for vacation tracking. Here is a quick 3-step process for you:
Step 1: Basic Setup
- Set up the Time Reporting Periods,
- Set up the Timesheet Managers Group,
- Assign a Timesheet Manager for each resource.
Step 2: Non-Working Categories
Step 3: Set up Timesheet Settings
Step 4: Change the name
- Clicking on the Report Out-of-Office Time link will display the non-working time categories for the user.
- Now to enter the ‘planned’ vacation, enter the hours on the ‘Planned’ row, and click Save. To send the hours for approval, click Send Progress for selected tasks. This will send the hours for approval to the timesheet manager that you set up for the resource.
- Once this update is accepted, you will see that the resource’s timesheet is grayed out, indicating that the days/hours are non-working.
- This also creates an exception on the Resource Availability.
- This, in turn reschedules any scheduled work for those days, in any Project Schedules. This way, the project manager also is informed of the unavailability of the resource during that time.
- Once the resource takes actual vacation, he/she can add the actual hours and send the final time sheet, for future vacation reporting.
April 20, 2015 at 1:39 pm
Excellent post Prasanna, a great DIY post for vacation planning.
April 20, 2015 at 2:37 pm
Thanks Erik!
May 17, 2015 at 2:15 pm
What I am looking to do is enter non working times in PWA for resources(Planned Vacation) and Then I want to see Non-working times for all resources in an excel file (Planned Vacation)
June 9, 2015 at 3:41 pm
Since you are not using the timesheets feature, the data is in the Resource Exceptions table. This data is available in the Published Database. Alternatively, you could use something like this: https://azlav.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/identifying-resource-calendar-exceptions-with-project-professional/
June 9, 2015 at 3:41 pm
Since you are not using the timesheets feature, the data is in the Resource Exceptions table. This data is available in the Published Database. Alternatively, you could use something like this: https://azlav.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/identifying-resource-calendar-exceptions-with-project-professional/
June 15, 2015 at 1:47 am
Hi Prasanna, I was trying to get this setup the other week in PS2010. It works fine but the exceptions were appearing in individual resource calendars without any approval taking place. Is this normal behaviour or is as I have heard mentioned a possible bug with this feature?
February 23, 2018 at 1:35 am
A wonderful article on the use of software like timesheet and all. Please keep posting more information on these topics. I am very glad to read about these topics. For more info:- https://www.livetecs.com/