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Time Management settings for resources
Resources that use Time Management-related features must have a time sheet policy, a time approver, and a billing approver. This topic describes the settings that need to be configured for resources that use Time Management.
Configure time sheet policy and approvers
You configure a resource's time sheet policy and default approvers from the Time Management tab for the resource.
To configure Time Management settings for a resource:
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From the PPM menu, select Open > Resource Management > Resources > Search Resources.
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In the Search Resources window, provide the search criteria for the resource whose time sheet policy or approvers you want to configure, and click Search.
The resources that meet your criteria are added in the Select Resource to View section of the Search Resources window.
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In the Username column of the target resource, click the name link to open the Modify Resource window.
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Select the Time Management tab.
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In the Resource Time Management Settings section, configure the time sheet policy and approvers for a resource:
Configuration Details Time sheet policy Under the Resource will: heading, specify a time sheet policy for the resource:
- To use the global time sheet policy, select the Inherit Global Policy option.
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To use another policy, select the Use This Policy option, and then select a target time sheet policy.
If you plan to use time sheet policies other than the global policy, create them before configuring the resource's Time Management settings. For details, see Time sheet policies.
Time sheet notifications To prevent the resource from receiving any time sheet notifications for submitting time sheets or for reworking rejected time sheet lines, select the Do not send this resource time sheet notifications check box.
This action overrides the notification settings configured on the Notifications tab of the resource's time sheet policy. For details, see Configure the Notifications tab.
Default time approver In the Default Time Approver field, select an individual resource or a group of resources as the default approver of this resource's submitted time.
A default time approver can approve time sheet lines for this resource, unless other priorities take precedence as described in Determine time approvers.
Note: The maximum number of resources allowed in a resource group is controlled by the MAX_RSC_IN_SG_TMAPPROVERS parameter. By default, the value of the parameter is
10,000. If the actual resource number exceeds the value of this parameter, a warning message pops up on the Modify Resource page.Default billing approver In the Default Billing Approver field, select an individual resource or a group of resources that can freeze and close this resource's time sheets.
Administrators can make the Default Billing Approver field read-only by setting the TM_LOCK_DEFAULT_BILLING_APPROVER parameter to true. In this case, you cannot configure the billing approver for individual resources. Instead, you can run the Change Default Billing Approver report to set the default billing approver for all resources. For details, see Change Default Billing Approver .
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Click Save to save the selected time sheet policy and default approvers for the resource.
Effects of time sheet policy and approver changes
Changing a resource's time sheet policy and default approvers have the following effects:
- Changing the time sheet policy for a resource only impacts new time sheets created for that resource. Existing time sheets are not affected.
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When you change the time approver for a resource, the new approver is applied to the resource's time sheets that are saved or submitted after the change. Delegation information is not considered in determining the approver when a resource's time approver is changed.
- If a resource has multiple billing approvers (such as a resource group), only one of these billing approvers needs to freeze or close the resource's time sheets.
Considerations for time approvers and billing approvers
Time approvers are determined by multiple factors depending on work item types, as described in Determine time approvers.
Changes to such factors as resource's time sheet policy, override rule, and project setting lead to changes of time approvers. Similarly, changes to default billing approvers and override rules lead to changes of billing approvers. Additionally, changes to delegates can affect time approver determination.
The PPM background service Evaluate TM Approvers periodically checks for changes in the resources assigned to approve a time sheet. For details, see Evaluate TM Approvers.
PPM recommends you avoid the following scenarios as they may affect the performance of the Evaluate TM Approvers service:
- Use a security group as the time or billing approver for a large amount of time sheets
- Assign a resource as the time or billing approver for a large amount of time sheets
- A resource creates a large amount of time sheets
- Use an override rule to control a large amount of time sheets
Determine time approvers
When a time sheet is saved or submitted, Time Management determines (derives) the approvers of each time sheet line. Only people who is designated as time approvers or their delegates and also have the Time Mgmt: Approve Time Sheets access grant can approve a specific time sheet line.
Time approvers for a specific time sheet line are determined by multiple factors depending on the types of work items associated with the time sheet line, as described in the following table:
| Work item type | Details |
|---|---|
| Requests, packages, and miscellaneous items |
Time approvers for time sheet lines associated with requests, packages, and miscellaneous items are determined by the following criteria:
|
| Projects and tasks |
Time approvers for time sheet lines associated with projects and tasks are determined by the following criteria:
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Note: When there are multiple approvers can approve submitted time (for example, when the resource's time approver is a resource group, or when both a delegator and an associated delegate can approve a resource's time), only one of the approvers needs to approve or reject the submitted time.
Evaluate TM Approvers Service
The PPM background service Evaluate TM Approvers periodically runs to check whether the resources assigned to approve a time sheet has changed. For details about PPM background service, see PPM background services.
Every time when the Evaluate TM Approvers service runs, it not only records changes information such as security group changes, override rule changes, and resource changes, but also renders these changes information into the Reevaluate Time Sheet information.
You can configure the TM_REEVALUATE_COUNT parameter in the server.conf file to control the amount of the Reevaluate Time Sheet information. By default, the value of the parameter is 1,000,000. If the amount of information exceeds the specified number, the system stops rendering the changes information into the Reevaluate Time Sheet information, and only deals with the Reevaluate Time Sheet information that has been rendered.
If the Reevaluate Time Sheet information is so large in quantity that it cannot be completely covered by the service in just one running process, the service will deal with the information in batches. The batches of information that is not covered in this running will be covered in the next.
If the service running time is longer than 720 minutes, specified by the JOB_STATUS_CLEANUP_INTERVAL parameter, the service stops running. When it runs the next time, it continues dealing with the information left.
Control number of time and billing approvers
To ensure system stability and performance, the following sever configuration parameters are added in the server.conf file to control the number of time approvers and billing approvers:
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| TM_MAX_TIME_APPROVER_WARNING_COUNT |
The maximum number of time approvers of time sheet lines allowed by the system before it throws warning. Default value: Valid value: Positive integer |
| TM_MAX_BILLING_APPROVER_WARNING_COUNT |
The maximum number of billing approvers of time sheets allowed by the system before it throws warning. Default value: Valid value: Positive integer |
| TM_MAX_TIME_APPROVER_ERROR_COUNT |
The maximum number of time approvers of time sheet lines allowed by the system before it throws error. Default value: Valid value: Positive integer |
| TM_MAX_BILLING_APPROVER_ERROR_COUNT |
The maximum number of billing approvers of time sheets allowed by the system before it throws error. Default value: Valid value: Positive integer |
The system reports error log to remind the system administrator to check the configuration of time approvers or billing approvers, or to check the table space, if both the following happen:
- The number of time approvers exceeds the number specified in the parameter TM_MAX_TIME_APPROVER_WARNING_COUNT
- The number of billing approvers exceeds the number specified in the parameter TM_MAX_BILLING_APPROVER_WARNING_COUNT
If the system throw warnings or errors, but the table space of the TM_USERS_BILLING_APPROVERS table and the TM_USERS_TIME_APPROVERS table is still big enough to store more approvers, administrators can increase values of the four parameters according to your business need.
We recommend that you use the PPM Purge Tool to purge the outdated time sheets. In this way, the records of time approvers and billing approvers would decrease and the performance of Evaluate TM Approvers Service would be better. For information about the PPM Purge Tool, see Purging Stale PPM Database Data.
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