Rules that shape tracking
An admin can set a few rules that decide how time may be recorded in a workspace. When someone says “it won’t let me”, one of these is usually the reason.
Where
Workspace settings, General and Permissions
Who sets them
Owner and admins
| Rule | What it does | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Required fields | Time cannot be saved without a project, task, tag or description, whichever are ticked. | Basic |
| Overlapping entries | Allow, warn, or block two entries of one person at the same time. | Free |
| Force timer | Time can be tracked only with the timer. No typing of times. | Pro |
| Lock date | Time before a chosen date is frozen for everyone except the owner and admins. | Standard |
| Approval | An approved period is read-only for everyone. | Standard |
Required fields
Under Do not allow saving time without, an admin ticks Project, Task, Tag or Description.
- The timer still starts. It cannot be stopped until the fields are filled, and Punchly asks for them right away.
- Saving by hand is refused with “Can’t save, field missing: project”.
- While the Timesheet is switched on, Project is always required.
- The rule applies to owners and admins too. Clocking in at a kiosk is not affected.
Overlapping entries
The setting has three choices. It starts as Warn.
- Allow: nothing is said.
- Warn: the entry is saved, with a note that it overlaps another.
- Block: the entry is not saved.
Entries that touch end to end, such as 10:00 to 11:00 and 11:00 to 12:00, do not overlap. Breaks, time off and holidays never count.
Force timer
With Disable adding and editing time manually ticked, time can only come from the timer.
- Switched off: Manual mode, typing a start, end or duration, typing in the Timesheet, drawing on the Calendar, Split and Duplicate.
- Still possible: changing the description, project, tags and $, deleting, continuing an entry, and breaks.
- It applies to owners and admins too.
Lock date
Under Lock time before, an admin picks a date. Everything before it is frozen: regular members cannot add, change, delete or restore time there. Owners and admins still can.
The date can move forward by itself: every week, every month, or always a set number of days behind today.
Approved time
Once a period is approved, its entries are read-only for everyone, the owner included, and no new time can be added to it. The approver can reopen it. See Approve timesheets.
A running timer
While your timer runs, you cannot add time by hand, on the Time tracker, the Timesheet or the Calendar. You can still duplicate or continue an entry, and edit existing ones. Stop the timer first.
Other limits
- A description can be up to 3,000 characters.
- An entry longer than 24 hours shows a warning.
- An entry can have up to 100 tags.