Sending Reminders to Users to Submit Time Sheets

Time sheets are due when their time periods end. You can send users who are required to submit time sheets one or more reminders to do so. Reminders can be sent via email or by Chatbot. You specify how many days before or after the due date a reminder is to be sent. You can configure multiple reminders. Each user is sent reminders per time sheet per configured reminder. The number of the reminders is decided by the running frequency of Time Sheet Notifications Service.

If a user has already submitted a time sheet when a reminder for that time sheet is scheduled to be sent, the reminder is not sent.

Reminders are sent soon after midnight the day after the day you specify. Examples are provided later in this procedure.

To send reminders to submit time sheets to all the users with this time sheet policy:

  1. Reminders are allowed only for users whose time sheet policies require submitting a time sheet for each time period. On the Time Sheet Policy tab, select the check box with text that begins with Resources are expected to fill out a Time Sheet for each time period.

  2. In the Time Sheet Policy window, select the Notifications tab.

  3. In the Notifications tab, click New.

    The Add Notifications window opens, with the following two tabs:

    • Setup tab (displayed by default)

    • Message tab

  4. On the Setup tab, do the following:

    1. In the Event field, select Reminder.

    2. In the Description field, enter a description of the reminder.

    3. In the Send the reminder section, specify when to send the reminder.

      Each user with this time sheet policy will be sent this reminder per time sheet, soon after the end of the day you select. You may receive the reminder several times per day, which depends on the running frequency of Time Sheet Notifications Service.

      For example, if a Weekly time period ends on Friday, September 3, and the reminder is configured to be sent the last day of a time period, it could be sent at about 12:05 a.m. on Saturday, September 4. And if Time Sheet Notifications Service is scheduled to run every 2 hour, you would receive 12 reminders per day per time sheet until you submit your time sheet. If you want each user to receive a reminder each Friday in this example, configure the reminder to be sent each Thursday, 1 day before the end of the time period.

  5. Select and complete the Message tab as follows:

    1. In the Notification Template field, select the notification template.

    2. In the Notification Format field, select the notification format:

      • Select Plain Text or HTML if email notification is to be sent.

      • Select YAML if the notification is to be sent by Chatbot (for PPM 9.62 and later).

        Note: For Chatbot to send reminders, you should enable the Chatbot feature. For information, see PPM Chatbot.

    3. Click the Choose button to the right of the From field, which specifies the sender of the email notification as seen by its recipients.

      The Email Header Field window opens, with the following options:

      • Enter a Username. Use this option to specify a particular user to receive the notification. The user must have an email address.

      • Enter an Email Address. Use this option to enter an email address for the notification.

      • Enter a Standard Token. Use this option to select from a list of system tokens that correspond to a user, security group, or email address.

      • Enter a User Defined Token. Use this option to enter any field token that corresponds to a user, security group, or email address.

      Select one of these options. The other fields of the Email Header Field window are automatically updated accordingly.

    4. Complete the other fields in the Email Header Field window and click OK.

    5. Repeat step c and step d for the Reply To field, which specifies where user replies will be sent.

    6. Complete the Subject field for the reminder notification.

      The default Subject field is as follows:

      Time Sheet for Time Period [TMG.TIME_PERIOD] is due.

      The token [TMG.TIME_PERIOD] displays the time period for which the notification is being sent. You can use the default Subject field entry or enter your own subject line to be used in the email notification. You might want the Subject field to reflect when the reminders will be sent relative to when the time sheets are due.

    7. In the Body field, complete the text of the notification that reminds users to submit time sheets. Use or revise the default entry, or enter your own message. You might want the text to reflect when the reminders will be sent relative to when the time sheets are due.

    8. Click OK.

      The changes are added to the Notifications tab.

  6. If you want to send email reminders to users with this time sheet policy on multiple days before or after their time sheets are due, repeat step 3 through step 5.

  7. Click OK or, to configure other tabs, click Save.

    The changes to the time sheet policy are saved. For details about when reminder notifications are sent, see step 4.