Approval settings and the lock date
These settings decide whether time needs approving, how often, and by whom. The lock date is a second, simpler way to freeze the past.
Where
Workspace settings, General, Approvals
Who
Owner and admins
Plan
Standard
Switch approvals on
- Enable time approval, and choose the period: Weekly, Semi-monthly (1st to 15th, 16th to month end) or Monthly.
- Enable expense approval, with its own period.
When a kind of approval is switched off, its Submit bar disappears.
Who approves
The owner and admins can always approve. For timesheets and for expenses separately, tick which managers may approve too:
- Team managers, for their own team. Ticked to start with.
- Project managers, for time on their projects.
With neither ticked, only admins approve.
Approval and the lock date compared
| Approval | Lock date | |
|---|---|---|
| What it freezes | One person’s approved period | Everything before a date, for everyone |
| Who is bound | Everyone, the owner included | Everyone except the owner and admins |
| How to undo | An approver withdraws the approval | An admin moves the date |
Set a lock date
Under Lock time before, pick a date. Regular members can then no longer add, change or delete time before it.
To have the date move forward by itself, tick Automatically update the lock date and choose one rule:
- Every week, lock the previous week.
- Every month, lock the previous month.
- Every day, lock everything older than a number of days.
The automatic date only ever moves forward. Turning the rule off leaves the past locked.