One system instead of four tools: a working day

An average working day in a company that works for clients looks roughly like this: a request arrives in email, its status is kept in one tool, the project in a spreadsheet, the hours in a third tool, the schedule in a fourth, and absences in a calendar nobody opens. The day is spent not on the work but on moving from one place to another.

Rather than describing this in the abstract, here is one ordinary day in UnitLook. The times are illustrative, but every step exists in the application: requests, projects, planning, absences and time logging.

8:45, the manager: morning overview

The first thing opened is the requests dashboard. It holds the numbers a manager needs before the first coffee: how many requests are open, how many are unassigned, how many are waiting for client confirmation, and which ones are overdue or about to be.

Unassigned requests have their own counter because they are the ones most often forgotten. A click on a row opens the request, and assigning it takes a few seconds.

9:15, the mailbox: a message becomes a request

A client has sent an email to the shared mailbox. In the Email inbox the message sits on the New tab. A click on Create request opens a form with the title and text taken from the message. If the system knows the sender, it suggests the client and the contact. The manager fills in what is missing and saves, and the message moves to converted, with the request number next to it.

Messages that do not need a request are simply skipped.

10:00, the employee: takes over the request

The employee opens the request and sees who the owner is, who the client contact is, the deadline and the priority. The request always shows whose turn it is. They send a comment to the client, and the client receives the reply by email. Internal notes stay hidden from the client.

The request also has its own Time entry action, but we will get to hours a little later in the day.

11:00, the project manager: the Gantt view

The Projects page shows projects as a Gantt chart. Every project is a bar from its start to its deadline, and a vertical line marks today. Filters narrow it down to my projects, status, client, department or project manager, and projects are grouped by category.

A click on a bar opens the right panel. Above the tabs there is a summary: hours and request progress. The Overview tab shows how many days are left until the deadline, who is on the team, how many hours each person and each client has logged, and how many requests are in which status. The number of requests in the chart is a link: a click on it opens the requests of that project, without opening the project form.

Dates are not changed by dragging the bar. The Gantt chart is an overview, and changes are made in the Edit project window.

13:00, the manager: the schedule for the next days

After lunch the manager plans. In Planning a request is dragged from the list onto a calendar cell, which creates a block for that person, at that time, linked to the request. The cell length can be 15, 30 or 60 minutes, and the view can be narrowed to chosen employees.

Every day carries one of three states: capacity fine, close to the maximum, or exceeded. The color in the calendar follows the state, so an overload is visible before the week is closed. A plan is intent, not time spent. Moving a block does not enter any hours.

14:00, absences: announcement and approval

A colleague announces annual leave. In the form she chooses the employee, the absence type and the dates, and optionally writes a note. The announcement gets the status awaiting approval and appears for the manager on the Approval tab, where it is approved or rejected with one click, with a note if wanted.

An approved absence does not remain just a record. It enters the planning capacity for those days and the monthly overview. So later, in the same place where work is scheduled, the manager sees that the person does not have full capacity that week. Checking who is absent on any given day comes down to selecting a date.

15:00, the client: reply and confirmation

The client received a notification by email and opens their request. They see only what is theirs: the requests of their own company and the public messages. When the work is done, the assignee marks it Resolved, and the client chooses Confirm or Reject. If they reject it, the request goes back to work and the assignee sees straight away that it is their turn again.

16:30, time logs: hours where the work is

Hours can be logged in two ways, and both end up in the same record.

The first is the Time entry action directly on the request: it opens an entry with the request already selected, without going to another tool. The second is Time entry as a calendar of hours. A request from the list is dragged onto a day, and in the window you enter the date, actual hours, work type, description of the work and billing type.

There are two numbers in that entry and they are not the same thing. Actual hours are how much work there was, and billable hours are how much goes to the client. If the second field is empty, billing takes the actual hours, and the Show in billing checkbox decides whether the entry goes into the client’s billing at all. The calendar header shows daily totals, so before going home you can see whether the day is filled in.

End of the month: the same data, another view

At the end of the month nobody stitches exports together. The Monthly overview is a table of hours for one month: employees in rows, days in columns. Weekends and non-working days are marked, and next to the hours you see the absences the manager approved on Tuesday afternoon. A click on a day opens the detail: what was done, on which request and under which billing type. The whole table can be exported to Excel.

The total of hours in the overview has to match the time dashboard for the same month, because both read the same entries.

What actually changed

The job did not change, the number of places where it is tracked did. A request, a project, a schedule, a time entry and an absence are no longer separate records that have to be joined. They are different views of the same work, so an absence shows in the schedule, the hours on the project, and the project from the request.

It is only fair to be clear about the limits too. UnitLook is not a CRM and not an accounting program. It covers the work from the request to the logged hour, and next to billing reports it gives the basis for invoicing, but it does not replace the system in which invoices are issued.

What to read next

• Your first week in UnitLook, if you are thinking about how to start.
• Absences and capacity, on how absences and the schedule connect.
• Client communication without email, on why a thread on the request beats a chain of messages.
• Time tracking without Excel, for hours and reports.

An overview of the features is on the pages ticketing system, project management, capacity planning, leave management and time tracking.

FAQ

How many modules do we have to use at once?

None are mandatory. The modules are connected, but most organizations start with requests or projects and add the rest once the basics are running.

Can the client see internal notes?

No. Internal messages and data about other clients stay hidden. A client sees the requests of their own company and the messages not marked as internal.

Can I get a request automatically from email?

Yes, in two ways. In manual mode the message waits in the mailbox and the manager turns it into a request, while in automatic mode every incoming message becomes a request on its own. The mode is chosen in integrations.

What is the difference between planning and time logging?

Planning is intent, a time entry is an hour actually worked. A plan says who should do what, a time entry says what really happened, and only a time entry counts toward billing.

Do the numbers in the monthly overview match the dashboard?

Yes. The total of hours in the monthly overview has to match the time dashboard for the same month and the same department filter.

If you would like to see what one of your own days would look like, get in touch for a demo at unitlook.com. It takes 45 minutes and needs no preparation.