HTC brings over a dozen improvements to HourGlass with v3.5. The strategy behind the latest round of updates was to provide richer information to administrators with respect to costs, budgeting and billability, and to improve the user experience.
New in HourGlass v3.5
- Budget Balance Report
- Employee Cost Tracking & Reporting
- Expense Payment Method Tracking
- Projects Can Be Flagged as Non-billable
Balance that Budget! - The new Budget Balance (by Project) Report allows management and administrators to stay abreast of project budgets by accounting for work performed and outside expenses. A project’s budget, an accumulated time to-date amount, an outside expenses to-date amount and a budget balance amount are all provided within this report. Decision makers and project managers now have even better information at their fingertips.
Employee Costs, Payroll & Profitability - Employee Hourly Cost can now be assigned to individual workers for the determination of project costs, payroll and profitability. The Budget Tracker report has been enhanced with an additional ‘by Employee Cost’ calculation method that provides even richer information on Project costing and profitability, which can also be used for payroll purposes. HourGlass can effectively calculate an Employee’s pay at their Hourly Cost based on the hours they have entered over a given pay period.
To Bill Or Not To Bill? - Prior to v3.5, manual changes for invoicing purposes were sometimes required to accurately bill Clients. Now, Projects can be deemed Billable or Non-billable. This update enhances Billing flexibility and efficiency while reducing the number of manual edits made to Employee time sheet entries. This is particularly useful in the ‘Non-billable’ early stages of project pitches. Once you get the project, switch it back to "Billable" status.
Try Before You Buy - Five demo accounts were created for prospective users of HourGlass. The accounts are fully-functioning with pre-populated data; users may make entries, manage tasks, generate reports, play with administrative settings and get a good sense for HourGlass’ robust functionality. Trying HourGlass has never been so fast and fun; it’s also FREE!”
Announcing HourGlass v3
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Just a Click Away
“The first thing existing users will notice,” says HTC Account Director, Freddy Davy, “is that now every page is accessible with just one-click. It’s amazing how much of a difference just that change makes to productivity levels.” With one-click access, HourGlass users can hover over menus to ensure they select the appropriate tab or page they are looking to access.
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Get the Message
Project Managers can now send notification emails through the HourGlass system to alert employees when tasks are added or modified. This keeps the communication channels clear between team members. As Davy points out, “email notifications are a great way to keep the dialogue going and they let users follow HourGlass tasks using email clients like Outlook.” In addition, Completed Task Alerts let managers know when employees check tasks as completed, while Delinquent User Alerts notify them when Timesheets are left blank during the work week.
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Go with the Workflow
Another new feature boosts productivity by allowing Project Managers to make multiple additions and changes to Tasks, Deadlines and Assigned Employees by using the Microsoft Excel Task Upload function. “This is my favourite addition to the system,” notes Davy. “It’s a real time-saver for large projects. Now updating schedules and timelines en masse is a breeze.”
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Advanced Reporting
HourGlass v3 has seven new reports, and with updates to all existing reports, the software now offers fourteen robust reports allowing your data to be processed and exported in a choice of three formats:
- HTML
- Microsoft Excel 97-2003
- Microsoft Excel 2007
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All the Time in the World
Now companies using HourGlass can specify different time zones on a per-employee basis, to facilitate management and reporting along billing cycles. In addition, employees can select between a 12-hour and 24-hour format and hit “enter” without an end time to automatically use the current time instead. “The bottom line,” states Davy, “is that making timesheets easier to complete improves efficiency and compliance, which saves companies time and money.”
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Moving Forward
“We are extremely pleased with the success of this product,” adds Davy. “That so many HourGlass users enjoy using the software and have taken the time to send us feedback has really helped us develop the functionality and improve our solution.” He adds, “We are grateful to each support call and feature request for helping us make version 3 that much better, and we look forward to continuing that dialogue.”
The HourGlass Story
Once upon a time, branding and Web firm High-Touch Communications (HTC) was looking for a Time Tracking platform that was:
- Easy-to-use
- Fully bilingual (English/French)
- Completely secure
- Accommodate company hierarchy
- Match our workflow
- Allow remote entries
So we created our own.
When our clients began asking us about it, it became clear we were not alone. So we built v2 to release to the public. And the rest is history!
These highlights represent a small sample of the full list of the upgrades, features and usability improvements. For more information about the v3 upgrades and enhancements to HourGlass, consult the HourGlass Release Notes.
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