Workflows example: Employee Time Tracking

This article explains how you can set up an Employee Time Tracking workflow to automate the collection and management of timesheets. 

With this workflow, you can automatically: 

• Collect timesheet submissions from employees
• Inform employees that their timesheet submissions have been received 
• Notify and/or assign a task for the right person(s) to approve an employee’s submission
• Push the timesheet data into a 3rd party system for further analysis 

Steps to create an employee time-tracking workflow

[Section 1 - Create employee time-tracking form]

1. As a first step, you’ll need to build an employee time-tracking form to allow employees to track their work hours. Go to the “Dashboard”, click on “Toolbox” on the left menu, then select “Forms”.
2. Set up your employee time-tracking form. Here’s a form template to help you get started quickly: 

We recommend using the time field for the clock-in and clock-out times, as well as the break times, a short text for the number of (over)time the person has worked, and a user select for employees to select their manager when submitting their timesheet.

[Section 2 - Set up employee time-tracking automation workflow]

3. Next, you’ll need to set up a workflow to automate your employees’ time-tracking submissions. Go to the “Dashboard” and click on “Toolbox”, then “Workflows”.
4. Click on “Create new Workflow” if this is the first workflow in your tenant or “Add New” if you’re already using workflows.
5. In the “Workflows settings'' panel on the right side, enter the workflow name and optionally add a description.
6. Then click on the “Add a Trigger” in the middle of your screen to indicate how the workflow will be triggered.
7. Select “Form Submitted” from the trigger list and select “Add”.

Within the panel on the right side, in the field “Form name” select the Form which should trigger the workflow. This is the name of the form you created in the second step. Simply start typing and select the correct form from the list. 

[Section 3 - Inform employees that their timesheet submission has been received]

8. Then click on “Add an Action”.
9. Select the Action: “Retrieve User Profile Data” and click “Add”.

This step allows you to get more information from the selected user’s profile such as first and last name, role, etc. You can reference these fields in the further steps of the workflow, for example, to create a dynamic file name or address an employee by name in a chat message or email.

10. Fill in the field ‘User’ on the right side. You can start typing their name or select a Magic Variable on the left. In our example, it makes sense to retrieve the magic variable ‘Form Submitter’, so we can use the information in their profile (such as first name, last name, etc.) in a follow-up step.
11. Click on the “+” below the action to add the next step.
12. Select an Action: “Send a Chat Message” and click on “Add”.
13. Fill in the fields in the panel on the right side:

Send to - Select “Form Submitter” as a magic variable to send a chat message to the submitter.

Message - type the chat message e.g. to thank the form submitter for their submission and let them know about the next steps. We also recommend putting in the submission link, so they can retrieve their submission at any time.

[Section 4 - Assign a task for the right person(s) to approve an employee’s timesheet submission]

14. Then click on “Add an Action”. 
15. Select an Action: “Send Request and Branch on Approval Status” and click on “Add”.
16. Fill in the fields in the panel on the right side: 

Task Title and Description - enter the title and the task description. You can enter a static text or use the Magic Variables to reference fields from preceding steps i.e. the form name, the time of submission...etc.

Requested by - this will enable you to send the request on behalf of the selected user. If you leave this blank, then the creator of the task will be the ‘Workflow Automation Bot’. In our example, we will want the Form Submitter to follow-up on their request in the Tasks Overview, so we select ‘Form Submitter’ as a magic variable.

Approvers - you can assign the request to a specific user by selecting them from the dropdown or use the Magic Variable ‘Form Answer’ to select the user from the previous steps. In this case we will add the employee’s manager as an approver and therefore choose ‘form answer’. You can select up to 5 approvers, either through a magic variable or by typing in directly the names of the approvers.

17. Click on the “+” below the action to add the next step.
18. Select an Action: “Convert Form Submission to a PDF”

Submitted form - use Magic Variables to enter the submitted form.

Submitter profile data - using this field, you can add the details of the person who submitted the form to the generated PDF file: their full name and avatar picture will show up on the PDF.

Approver profile data - using this field, you can add the details of the people who approved the form to the generated PDF file: their full name, avatar picture and approval status (approved or rejected) will show up on the PDF.

Page format - select A4 or Letter.

File name - you can enter a static name or use the Magic Variables. When you leave it blank, the file name will display the form submission ID. If you are planning to upload this file to the document library, the file name has to be unique.

19. Do this for both branches “Approved” and “Rejected”.

[Section 5 - Inform employees that their timesheet submission has been approved/rejected]

20. Click on the “+” below the action to add the next step.

21. Select an Action: “Send a Chat Message” and click on “Add”.

22. Fill in the fields in the panel on the right side:

Send to - you can select the user to send a chat message or use a variable to reference a user from the previous steps. In this case we want to send a chat message to the user who submitted the form and we will select him/her using a Magic Variable.

Message - type the chat message. It should be different if their request has been approved or rejected.

File attachment(s) - using Magic Variables, select “Generated PDF file key” from the “Convert form submission to a PDF” step in order to attach the submitted form in a PDF format to the chat message. This PDF will show the submitter’s user name and avatar, the approvers’ user names and avatars, as well as the approval status

[Section 6 - Push approved timesheet submission data into your preferred 3rd party system]

Read this article to understand how you can push the timesheet submission data into a third party system like Google Sheets.

[Section 7 - Validate your workflow]

23.  Save your workflow.

Now that your entire workflow is ready you can validate the trigger and each action and save if everything is correct. The system will not let you save the workflows in case something is missing or not correct.

Correctly updated trigger and actions have a green checkmark next to their name

Incorrectly updated trigger or actions will have a red cross and the field which is not updated will be highlighted in red:

24.  When the trigger and all actions have a green checkmark, you can save the workflow.