The Record Time Screen

The Record time function is accessible from the Actions screen by all levels of Full user (not ServicePoint users). This function always opens in a separate sub window which conveniently means that you can record time immediately it is incurred, even if you are still working in another screen like Answer or Third party.

The purpose of the Record time screen is to allow time spent on a question, that has not been recorded elsewhere, to be recorded. It will usually be for work done when not actually online to RefTracker e.g. Archive searches, but it can also be used to add time used in RefTracker screens that was forgotten at the time.

The Record time screen allows the date and time that the time was used, to be selected so that this information can be entered post dated when appropriate. Supervisors and above can also select the staff member providing the time (lower levels can be allowed to do this by using the staff signon functions, if appropriate).

If the “Stay on this screen” tick box is ticked, this screen will redisplay after Submit is clicked.  Use “Stay on this screen” when you need to enter time used data for multiple staff or times.  When the screen redisplays it will still be showing the last staff member and date/time for which you entered time, which makes for efficient entry of further time used for that staff member.

System administrators can control the ability to enter time for the previous month using parameter 2.25. They can even be entered in relation to a question that is already closed (as bills often take some time to arrive), if your organisation allows this (Systems administrators can change this using parameter 2.24). Time used cannot be entered for a date earlier than the date on which a question was received.

It also allows the type of time used to be selected from values set by your System Administrator in the “Time types” code table.

Time entered will be automatically multiplied by the billing rate of the staff member indicated as having done the work.

Your system administrator can remove this Record time function from your system. They can also remove the Time used field in the Answer, Third party and New screens by disabling the Time types code table when this is not used by your organisation.

If a default value is defined for a time type in the Time type code table, it will be automatically inserted into the Time used field (but it can be changed).

Time can be entered as m (minutes), h:mm (hours:minutes) and h.d (hours and decimal parts of an hour). Time entered will be automatically reformatted to the hh:mm format when you move to another field so if you enter 105 it will reformat to 01:45 to clearly show the time used.  As this screen is specifically designed for entering time, it does not allow entries with zero time to be saved.
The timer can also be used to automatically capture the time used and enter it – click to start, click to stop – but only one timer can be used at a time.

A comment about what the time was used for can also be entered using the Description column.

Importantly, a Journal history summary of all time and costs already recorded in relation to this question is provided at the bottom of this screen, a handy reference point to ensure that you are not duplicating an entry. This is the same information that is presented in the Journal tab of the Summary screen. A total of all the entries in this summary appears at the top right of the summary table. If more than one currency is enabled and all costs in relation to this question are in one currency, the relevant currency code will display in front of the costs. If costs have been recorded in more than one currency, they cannot be totaled and so the costs figure will be represented as “-.-“.

Some organisations just allow users to see the time and/or costs that they have entered themselves in this screen, and not time and/or costs entered by anyone else. System administrators do this by denying the View time (self) and/or View costs (self) functions to that user. 

A Cost centre column may also appear in this screen that allows you to select or enter a relevant Cost centre for the time you are entering. For details of how to use this field see the Cost centre description in the Record costs screen help page.

Other things you should know about recording time

Another way of recording time spend outside of RefTracker is to indicate the time spent on generating emails outside of RefTracker when those emails are imported into RefTracker.  Where time has been spent on an email about a request, outside of RefTracker, and you are using one of the email importing methods to forward the email to RefTracker, you can have RefTracker automatically record the time that you have spent on that email by adding it to the subject line of the email being imported, using one of the following formats:

+nnn   e.g.   +5     is 5 minutes spent                or
+n:nn  e.g.   +1:25   is 1 hour and 25 minutes   or
+n.nn  e.g.   +1.5     is one and a half hours
The + is mandatory for identifying that the following numbers are the time used.
A space can appear between the + and the time numerals.
The time value will be removed from the Subject line before the Subject line is recorded in RefTracker.
The email must be from a staff member as the time will be attributed to that staff member.

Here’s an example of an email being sent to a New question email importing address with 17 minutes of time spent, being indicated in the subject line.

If recording costs is important to your organisation your System administrator may have made the My time recorded summary available for you to view from your home page. The My time recorded summary lists all time that you have recorded against all questions you have worked on over a period of time (such as This month or Last month), so that you can check that all the time you have spent has been recorded. If you need to add more time, the Record time screen provides a way of adding additional time spent.

Your System administrator may have implemented policies that restrict when you can add time and costs.

• They can prevent time and costs from being added to a question after it is closed (parameter 2.24) in which case the Record time and Record costs functions will not appear in the Actions menu for that question.
• They can prevent time and costs from being added for dates earlier than this month (parameter 2.25). This is usually done when the time and costs entered into RefTracker are being extracted for use by a billing system.

Special attributes for System administrators

The Cost center column can be removed, if appropriate, by Disabling the Cost centre field in the Request table of the Data Dictionary.

Supervisors and Administrators can make adjustments to the Time recorded by entering negative values (they will appear in the Journal tab in red).

Administrators can also [Undo] incorrect Time entries using the [Undo] links to the right of each Journal entry.  When the [Undo] function is used it is recorded in the History screen so that there is a record of who deleted that record and when.

Here’s an example showing the [Undo] link in the Record time screen.