Most people don’t think much about it but with every TimeControl instance an automatic scheduler service is created. This is true for TimeControl, TimeControl Industrial, TimeControl Online and TimeControl Industrial Online.
The TimeControl Scheduler is a remarkable service which runs around the clock and awaits any TimeControl job that needs to be run unattended in the background on a particular schedule. This is a tremendous method of automating certain functions. For each defined scheduled task, a log is created so it can be reviewed later if necessary and an optional email can be sent to an administrator whether the job is successful or unsuccessful. These tasks simply run whenever they’re told to without intervention. For any of these tasks, they can also be run on-demand from within the application.
There are numerous automated services inside TimeControl which can use this service. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Missing Timesheet Notifications
On a regular basis, TimeControl can notify users via email about a missing timesheet. This can be done more than once. Perhaps on a Friday, you might schedule an email at 2pm reminding users that their timesheet is still missing. On Monday morning might send an email saying the administrator is still waiting for this timesheet. On Monday afternoon, the email might ask the user to urgently complete or release their timesheet. These emails would only go to people who’s timesheets are missing or still unreleased. If the timesheet was complete and in the hands of a supervisor who hasn’t approved it, the email would go to them instead.
Imports and Exports
TimeControl has tremendous integration capabilities. In some cases, you might want to bring in data under a carefully supervised process so you would do this on-demand but in many cases you can automate this to work every night or every few hours to bring in projects, tasks, new employees, HR information, account codes and so on.
Exporting is the same, while you can always move data to external systems on demand, in some cases, it makes more sense to schedule the updates. HR Vacations and Time-off data is a common example. In this case, the TimeControl Scheduler executes the transfer and sends the data to the secure FTP site of your choosing where it can be picked up an integrated to the external system on its own schedule.
Timesheet Posting
Part of the TimeControl process involves posting timesheets which have been approved. This can be done on demand but many administrators run this through the TimeControl scheduler. The process can also double check any validation rules before posting and can be filtered by any criteria needed. If this is done at night or over the weekend, this leaves only exceptions for the administrator to review and post themselves and can be a big time saver.
Reports
Scheduled Reports have been a part of TimeControl for a long time. By creating reports that run through the TimeControl Scheduler, Administrators can automate a process that otherwise can take up a lot of manual time. Scheduled Reports can be run at any time desired and the result can be saved in several formats such as a PDF. Then the resulting file can be emailed to whoever needs it. If the file is too big to email, the Scheduler will, instead, store the report and send a link to it. Aside from saving the time needed by an administrator to create and email a report, this process also allows for the creation of exception reports that will only be sent if there’s an exception based on the filters defined.
Autofill
TimeControl’s Autofill function lets an administrator go through timesheets that were created “by exception” and fill in the remaining hours automatically. This can be done for situations where a user only fills in a timesheet with vacation, sick leave or other time-off and TimeControl completes the timesheet automatically with the hours required to make a full week. This can be run automatically by the TimeControl Scheduler at the time desired.
Timesheet Creation
Some organizations prefer not to have users create the timesheet at the beginning of the week on their own but instead to have TimeControl do this for them. This can be done by the TimeControl Scheduler just prior to the week (or whatever the timesheet period is).
Accruals
TimeControl’s Accrual module is designed to automatically calculate information tied to Employee Banks. It is ideal for calculating the amount of vacation or sick leave earned each period of time. Accruals are almost always run on a schedule using the TimeControl Scheduler but can be run on-demand when needed or when there is an exception.
And more…
All TimeControl Scheduled jobs can be managed in the Manage Scheduled Jobs or Manage Queued Jobs in the Maintenance menu of TimeControl. Jobs can be inactivated from here or edited. Logs of past Scheduled Jobs can be reviewed in the Manage Logs function of the Maintenance menu.
It’s important to think about what you are trying to schedule and how it may affect your system. A common error is to schedule a huge transfer of data into TimeControl and make the schedule such that it will restart before the first job is complete. Imagine we have 10,000 employees and ask for a full import of every employee from the HR system is scheduled every 5 minutes. The result is a mess. The fix can be as simple as only importing the “delta” or difference in records changed since the last import. So, think about how much data you need to move or what the real needed frequency of moving such data is before activating this powerful tool. You can also talk to the HMS technical team to run your ideas through before implementing them.
It’s not uncommon for a new TimeControl client to ask if it is possible to preserve their existing timesheet data in TimeControl so they can have long-term reports.
We’re excited to share a report by CIO Bulletin naming HMS Softwgare as 
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