Continuing from the first blog: here, we want to dicuss what other ways we can leverage this feuture to make it easy for your end users.

I will share how I would setup the default view My Weekly Time Entries in a way that improves the user experience:

By default, the out-of-the-box views are sorted primarily by project name and secondarily by project task.But that can change if you simply want to have them displayed by order of creation. In my example below, I will keep them as is.

I like this structure, from left to right:

The Entry Status, Project, and Project Task fields are essential (I normally set them up in that order because it makes it easier for users to see what has not been submitted yet), while other fields such as Subcontracting and Role can be removed to avoid overcrowding the view and to ensure that important information is easily visible, as in the example below:

Note: I see a lot of organizations keeping fields that will never be used! That is useless unless the person putting the time in is in fact a Contractor (not an employee) or if an employee is including them on behalf of a Contractor. I good rule of thumb is that if users need to scroll their views to the right side to see all the information, there are two many fields in it. If you want adoption, make it simple and easy to navigate!

Since we cannot (at the time of writing this) to display the internal/external comments in this view, users can navigate away onto two other views created by Microsoft: Read Only Grid and Calendar Grid, see the steps below:

..and the other one:

A user can use a hack to view both the standard and control grids side by side by duplicating their web browser window.

In certain scenarios, it might be ideal to have a dashboard that displays information to end users and managers in order to keep up with changes in time entries. Consider this as an option, since data needs to be consumed in diferent shapes depending on the request, and Power BI can certainly shine in those situations, as the example below demonstrates:

Microsoft official documentation: here

Thank you for reading and see you next time!