Requirements to use time recording at our local authority - can you help me position what it can currently do?

[Berto2002]

Hi everyone, I've been asked to look into time recording. While I am going to read-up and do my own tests, etc I would appreciate any nuggets along these lines:

1. I only need agents to log time when they are working on a ticket for a Customer in one or more of certain Organisation Groups
   1. We support a few 'independent' but associated public bodies like the local housing association, carehomes, schools and we need to time record for them but not the core authority
   2. The BP's for these Customers are not separate; they use the same workflows. So I need a way that it 'turns on' the time recording for those OG's in the same workflows
   3. I do not want to have time recording for the rest of the authority because it is an overhead and will slow-down the rest of the operation
2. I need time recording to be 'forced/required' of an agent for every type of action on a ticket for that Customer
   1. I have long known about the time recording feature of each Human Task but I need time recording to be required when using all the Action Icons at the top also like adding assets, setting category and priority, sending emails, adding attachments, linking tickets, adding updates, re-assigning, putting on hold, etc. The requirement is that "no updates for any 3rd party tickets should be possible without time being included
3. reporting of this time to the third party: "To be able to compile a report, possibly using PowerBI or inbuilt tools, that shows how much time has been logged to any specified 3^rd party"

Any comments appreciated from experience.

Else, having seen the Wiki where you asked for feedback and improvement suggestions, I would like to take-up the offer to speak with hornbill about improving the time recording features since these would be the basis of our requirements!

[Martyn Houghton]

@Berto2002

We have common BPM, but enable the time recording at the Service/Request Type level, so you could have separate service catalog for those who require time recording. The thing that will be tricky is making the time recording mandatory, which I do not believe is currently possible.

Cheers

Martyn

[Berto2002]

@Martyn Houghton can you please point me to where you set this "at the Service/Request Type Level"?

[Martyn Houghton]

@Berto2002

If you open the Service from the Service Portfolio and then under 'Config' for each of the enabled Requests Types.

Cheers

Martyn

[Berto2002]

Hi @Martyn Houghton thank you, yes, I had found this as I've been on a deep dive on Timesheets. At the moment the features don't seem to meet basic requirements so I'm headed for a "not recommended" report back to management team next week, combined with a list of critical requirements to Hornbill in case it's useful for their development. @Martyn Houghton do you have other requirements to add to this list to help-out HB in their roadmap? While the features work as designed, they are weak enough that it places a huge burden on the management system and governance to ensure accuracy and completion and I am not sure we can carry that at this stage in our maturity:

1. Some practicalities which will result in bad data:
   1. It's possible for agents to have the timer running on more than one request simultaneously (double-accounting)
   2. Timers keep counting when someone closes the tab/browser for the Request; so we'll have timers running until they are spotted
   3. No central place for someone to see which timers are running so they can monitor/check them
   4. Cannot see the time options for each action unless you actually click on the Action (e.g. on Updates, just selecting the Action does not show the timer options)
   5. No time capture on PCFs when we log Requests on behalf of customers
   6. No time recording option when setting sub-status (i.e. putting on hold)
2. Time must be recorded against Requests (or Assets), as one would expect. This means, if we are to try to bill 'customers' using the data, that we need to migrate all types of work into the Hornbill Service Manager product in order to be able to bill. Examples include project work, management queries/escalations, procurement, etc. This is not a Hornbill issue per se but is a potentially big gap in our intended dataset.
3. Time recording cannot be mandated: 
4. Use of Reports for external billing may not be possible: 
5. Time recording is not available for some critical actions which consume time: 

[Berto2002]

@Gerry. My recommendation is now that 1) we shouldn't do time recording generally because it's a big cultural shift that will cause all sorts of issues but 2) if we are going to do it then to use the free Timesheet Manager tool in the Hornbill suite would be recommended; for any shortfalls it has, the strength of its integration with the ticketing system and the vendors ongoing commitment to improvement makes the recording of time easier to implement than most third party tools and encourages more work onto a single platform. There :-) And I shall leave the thoughts above with you as food for your development roadmap.

[Gerry]

@Berto2002

Thanks for the summary above, I will feed this back into development. 

 

Gerry