Redmine

Since adding tracker info to the issue name was one of our request that will really help us, I would like to thank you.

1. I'm just installing Weekly Timesheet 1.3 with my Redmine 2.1 ... and it looks working fine. Do you think they will have any reason for WT 1.3 to be compatible with Redmine 2.2 instead of 2.1 or greater?
2. can you provide guidance one the way to use the Approval System introduced in WT 1.2 ? I have probably miss something :-( I haven't the clue how to approved/unapproved a timesheet.

Thank you again Dhanasingh for this Christmas Gift... and I wish you all the best for the coming new year.
Cheers

Olivier,
You are welcome.
1) Glad to know it works with Redmine 2.1 also, but we tested it only on Redmine 2.2. This release was specifically made for Redmine 2.2, because the previous release of wktime 1.2 was broken in Redmine 2.2
2) On the Approval process, here are some details.
i) Now in addition to the Save button there is also a submit button
ii) A team member can save a timesheet any number of times, but can only submit once.
iii) once a timesheet is submitted, his manager can approve / reject that timesheet.
In the mean time if he wants to take back his submission, he can unsubmit his timesheet
iv) Once approved, the timesheet can never be edited.
v) If the timesheet is rejected, then it goes back to the project member for re-submission
vi) Once approved, a timesheet can be unapproved, it sends the timesheet back to submitted state (new feature of 1.3)
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any further questions on this.

Thank you and I wish you a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.

Dhanasingh

Thank you for your very quick answer. Let me suggest to add the approval system description in the README file and/or in your web site.

Here few additional questions/remarks (in the middle of your description)

2) On the Approval process, here are some details.

0) the WT plugin setting include a toggle to "Use Approval System". When enabled:

i) Now in addition to the Save button there is also a submit button
ii) A team member can save a timesheet any number of times, but can only submit once.
iii) once a timesheet is submitted, his manager can approve / reject that timesheet.
In the mean time if he wants to take back his submission, he can unsubmit his timesheet

How can we define who is/are the manager? Is this linked the Redmine build-in "Manager" role? or to a Redmine build in "Permission"? ... It could make sens to have a dedicated permission "Manage Time-sheet status",isn't it?

iv) Once approved, the timesheet can never be edited.
v) If the timesheet is rejected, then it goes back to the project member for re-submission

In this case, is a mail sent to the user (with the comment provided by the manager when he reject it)?

vi) Once approved, a timesheet can be unapproved, it sends the timesheet back to submitted state (new feature of 1.3)

Finally, a question/problem in which I fell:
How to approve the manager time-sheet? This looks impossible today isn't it? I think it make sens to have an option to allow manager to approved its own time-sheet, isn't it?

Thank you for your help.
Olivier.

Sorry, I thought I had already put the approval system description on the README and the plugin page, I will update them.

The Manager is determined by the "Manage Members" permission, if a user has this permission, then he is considered a manager.

The rejection email is not sent to the user now, we will take this as a feature request.

Manager's Time-Sheet can be approved by another manager if there are multiple managers for a project, otherwise it can be approved by the admin

thanks again for your suggestions and feedback.

Dhanasingh

Dhanasingh Krishnapandian wrote:

Manager's Time-Sheet can be approved by another manager if there are multiple managers for a project, otherwise it can be approved by the admin

Ok, it make sens and looks good. But in my case I'm the administrator, and no one in the organization can approve my time-sheet. And even as an administrator I cannot approved my own time-sheet. The only work around was to log as a different user to approve my time-sheet. Can we allow the administrator to approve his own time-sheet?

I think, in my opinion, the admin should not be involved in the day-to-day activities of redmine like project, issue, time management stuff, he should strictly be doing admin work. And you should have your own userid to do the day=to-day work. Then you will not have this problem. I would like to wait and see if others have any opinion on this item, So I will park this item for now.

The code checks to see if the submitter and the approver are the same user, you can comment or remove that line and that should eliminate this problem for you for now.

here is the IF statement you should remove in edit_issues.html.erb (around line# 109)

<% if @user.id != User.current.id >
            <= submit_tag l(:button_wk_approve), :name => 'wktime_approve', :disabled => !(@row > 0)%>
            <%=h hidden_field_tag('wktime_notes', "") >
            < # the jquery dialog box doesn't port the reject button value%>
            <%=h hidden_field_tag('hidden_wk_reject', "") >
            <= submit_tag l(:button_wk_reject), :name => 'wktime_reject', :disabled => !(@row > 0),
                :onclick => "return showNotes();" >
        < end %>

just remove the IF and the end statement.

Dhanasingh

Thank you for your answer and work around Dhanasingh,

I think, in my opinion, the admin should not be involved in the day-to-day activities of redmine like project, issue, time management stuff, he should strictly be doing admin work. And you should have your own userid to do the day=to-day work. Then you will not have this problem. I would like to wait and see if others have any opinion on this item, So I will park this item for now.

This is a good question... I'm still a beginner with Redmine and I have still some open questions around Administrator privileges, but I perfectly understand your opinion and I'm also agree it is usually a good practice to disable Administrator features for day-to-day activities for security and process reasons. Let me say especially for process reason since I'm not sure there are real security issues/risks with Redmine.
Do you know if there any discussions somewhere around this subject?

Now, if I well understand your suggestion and if I disable the administrator privilege on my account: I'm agree that I will be able to log with a separate Admin account to approve my own time-sheet but I'm not sure it sounds very good since it is not a real Admin task, isn't it?
Regarding time-sheets validation, question is who must approve the Approver. I think, some organization will answer an other Approver, but some will say the Approver itself (especially when there are only one).

As you, I'm interesting to share opinions on this point to enhance our process.

Olivier.

Nice Plugin :D

Just need a minimum hour per day.

We will take this as a feature request.

Dhanasingh

Another feature if you want in some future is a real control. Example, How do we control that all users are entering the hours?

Maybe, a mail as notification its a good idea, and in second instance a mail with copy to the manager if he did not enter the hour?

This is a company's view.

Sorry for my english...but i hope you understand me.

atte.

Cristian

Cristian,
Yes, we will take this a feature request as well.

Dhanasingh

Thanks you, a great plugin.

Reading the Cristian's comments, i think is a good feature.

send an email as notification to all users every Thursday to remind them to enter the hours spent on each task. Then if a user has not entered the hours that day resend the mail on Friday but with a copy to the manager.

Jhon,
Thanks for your feedback.
I think most timesheet app would send an email if timesheet was not submitted on-time, like Cristian suggested.
The way we might design this is; have a configuration for setting the submission deadline and if timesheets are not submitted by the deadline, we will send out notifications.

Not sure, if sending email before submission would be beneficial, we will see if any more people second this, before taking this feature request.

thanks

Dhanasingh

Cristian, Jhon, Dhanasingh,

Agree, it will be useful to automatically notify users what haven't submit time-sheet on time.
But to keep notification reasonable and avoid unwanted email I think, it is not a good idea to send a cc of the notification to the manager, nor to send notification before the deadline (as Dhanasingh I think a configurable offset of time is necessary).
An other point, that sound important (for me) is to be abbe to identify account that have/haven't to submit time-sheet (for example with a redmine group of users).

Hope this helps.
Olivier.

Olivier

The people always forget register or submit time sheets. How do we control this?

unfortunately if you really want your timesheets on the date stipulated, you need to warn your employes. I think climbing the notification (email) to the manager is the way .

if people meet the timesheets on the date stipulated, nobody will have unwanted mails.

Cristian

Cristian,

1. notifying time-sheet submitter is enough, and cc the manager will not provide real advantage.
2. then, how to identify the relevant manager for each submitter?

Olivier.

Olivier

I think in my opinion

1. The real advantage is: people do not want to be penalized by their manager, so it will serve as a warning.

2. Can be defined. I think the relevant manager for each submitter is the project manager.

Cristian

this is good discussion, I think for now we will keep the notification as simple as possible and build on it later.
Here is the high level design:
1) There will be a configurable submission deadline day
2) notify users who didn't submit on time (turn on/off through settings)
3) notify supervisors on their nth late submission (turn on/off through settings, n is configurable as well)
4) notify users before the deadline (configurable, turn on/off)

We have really not been using user groups within the plugin yet, so we will get to this at a later time.
And again, like Olivier mentioned, it will be difficult to determine the manager when they log time to multiple projects within a timesheet, I guess we will pick the manager from the first project and send it to him.

Hopes this keeps everybody happy :-)

Dhanasingh

Dhanasingh,

I'm still confused on one point, are you assuming that all users have to submit a time-sheet?
In my case only a small part of my Redmine accounts have to deal with time-sheet.

Olivier.

ok, I got it now.
you are right, if we don't restrict this notification to certain groups of users, we may be sending emails to people who are not required to submit timesheets at all.

ok, I guess we will have to have a setting to choose the user groups, who should be checked for submission compliance, default may be all users.

ok, I guess we will have to have a setting to choose the user groups, who should be checked for submission compliance, default may be all users.

Ok, this will work for me.

In my company all users needs submit timesheets.

A retriction could be : "users who can register hours"

Cristian,
That sounds like a real good idea.
We can get a list of all open projects, see if there any open issues,
if there are, then notify the project members with log time permissions if they don't submit on time.

Dhanasingh

All,

We can get a list of all open projects, see if there any open issues,
if there are, then notify the project members with log time permissions if they don't submit on time.

This is a good idea, that will probably work fine for many person... but probably not for me.
The "Log spent time" permission is designed to "Allow user to log time on the project"
With feature you describe it will became a permission to "Request/Require user to log time on project".
This is a problem for me, because I do not have authority over all the stakeholders of my projects. In other words, I wish encourage using the time-sheet system, but I cannot impose it.
In my case I need more flexibility to manage who will or will not receive email notification. This is the reason why my preference is to have a WT setting to select a Redmine group (to identify members to notify).

Olivier.

ok, lets see if anybody else has got any comments on this item and take it from there.
thanks for the discussion.