Give PMs ability to prevent users from Logging Time to Completed Tasks

[#1]

One of the biggest complaints from our PMs is that there is no easy way to ensure that users stop logging time to a task after it is "Completed". We will have situations were at the end of the month a person it needing to update their timesheet and they are entering hours beyond the date the task was closed. So it becomes a 'dumping ground' for hours. We have created exception reports to help the PMs monitor when someone is logging time to a Task beyond the Actual Completion Date, however, it's just extra overhead for them that takes time away from more important PM functions. They would really like it if they have an way to stop this from happening; they already have enough reports to monitor.

There is one option that they can attempt to stop this, but it requires that they update the Sharing Option for each person assigned to the Task to un-check the "log time" option, which is also very time consuming depending on the number of Tasks that need to be updated and the number of people assigned. So this isn't perceived by them as a "easy" solution for obvious reasons.

[#2]

45! :)

[#3]

I wanted to further "qualify" this original Idea. Not only would it be good for PMs to be able to prevent users from logging time to a Task/Issue after it is marked "Complete / Closed". It would also be a PLUS if any Assigned Resource could log time retro-active to the Actual Completion Date.

Here's the use case:

In our organization, all resources have until the end of the week to log their hours for that week. We have a task that can be marked "complete" on Tuesday of this week. If we change the status of the Task to "complete" on Tuesday, we want to ensure that if an Assigned Resource is updating their timesheet on Friday afternoon, that they are able to apply hours on days up through Tuesday (Actual Completion Date) for this Task, without allowing them to apply hours beyond Tuesday. :)

[#4]

Not our case, we have some T&M projects with a monthly fixed budget, we encourage our workers to fill their timesheets as they work and we track this budgets very tightly, if we close a task is because all the budget has been used, logging the time late will mean having to discuss this with the client and getting approval for invoicing over this agreed amount. Maybe a checkbox allowing or not retroactive logging time?

[#5]

@Jessica - good point! I'm sure there are other use cases beside ours. Hopefully, WF considers all of them and develops a comprehensive solution that covers all use cases! :)

Another scenario that comes to mind...ensuring that Assigned Resources cannot apply time on any day prior to the Actual Start Date of the Task.

[#6]

This can be done manually by removing all sharing (including inherited). Make it view only to everyone except the PM. We've done this in our system as a manual procedure to follow when PMs are marking tasks as closed. Additionally, in the meantime before this idea becomes a true system setting, you can monitor where this is happening through a simple hour report or through a TASK object report with the following filter:

EXISTS:a:$$OBJCODE=HOUR

EXISTS:a:$$EXISTSMOD=EXISTS

EXISTS:a:taskID=FIELD:ID

EXISTS:a:entryDate=FIELD:actualCompletionDate

EXISTS:a:entryDate_Mod=gt

[#7]

I have also seen instances were hours have been logged to a project that is marked complete. As Workfront requires that time is manually corrected, I (project manager) would need to re-open numerous timesheets to have users log their time to the correct project. Another issue is that I cannot transfer hours to the correct place. If you bill a project using the agency rate card model - chasing colleagues to ensure that their hours are logged in the correct place is yet another responsibility that is dumped on the PM.

[#8]

A possible workaround is to turn off "Log time on projects that are complete" and "Tasks and Requests that have been completed" in the TImesheet preferences in the Setup section of Workfront.

[#9]

We also need to prevent users from adding time to a Closed Task. When a user pins a task to a timesheet and the task is closed, that task should be greyed out so as not to enable the user to log time against the task. This is causing us tremendous difficulties in reporting cost against the task and controlling the project costs as well. 

Thank you, 

Matthew Hipps

[#10]

+1
We are also in trouble for users logging time on completed tasks, and our customers who use Workfront as well.
This is a long-time reported issue (6+ years) and it has a number of likes enough to be considered as a really needed function.
What does prevent you in moving this to a top list position in the development roadmap...?

Thank you,
Andrea Benfenati

[#11]

Thank you for the submission! We think this is a good enhancement to the Workfront platform overall and this product area in particular!

Workfront currently prioritizes large-scale, foundational enhancements such as the new Reporting experience and changes to the core data model, so this item does not fit in our near-term roadmap. As such, I am marking this as Declined now, but we'll keep this in our backlog for the improvements for this area so that we can revisit the decision in the future.