Common Time Tracking Plugin Mistakes and How to Avoid Them in Your Project Reporting
If you run or manage a business or a team, you certainly won’t need anybody to tell you just how much work goes into ensuring that your organization is operational and is turning a healthy profit or is working at peak performance.
One of the main reasons why so many businesses go under every year, is due to the fact that they fail to get with the times and they fail to keep up with their competitors. If you want to make your business a success, you need to embrace modern technology with open arms, and allow it to help you in the ways it was designed to do.
Everything from project reporting to accounts and finances can be improved with certain software and modern tech, which is why today, we’re looking at time tracking plugin products and software.
Time tracking software is basically a specially designed software which is created to allow managers and employees alike, to manage their time, track how much time they’re spending on tasks and projects, and so much more.
If you’re thinking of implementing it in your workplace however, it’s important that you do so correctly. Here’s a look at several project reporting and time tracking plugin software mistakes that people make in the workplace.
Allowing everybody to add new projects
One of the best things about having time tracking software in the workplace, is the fact that it can help people to prioritize tasks and projects to ensure that they meet deadlines without becoming overwhelmed.
This is all well and good, but the main problem with that is the fact that some businesses allow all of their employees to add new projects to the software that people can report time on. Before you know it, the time tracking plugin becomes overwhelmed with people adding new projects and suddenly everything becomes messy and cluttered.
With so many different projects and assignments, all with different names, filling in the project reporting software becomes a lot more complex and employees find themselves becoming confused regarding where they need to fill in their timesheets, and in which field they should enter the time spent, etc.
The best way to avoid this happening in your workplace is to limit the amount of people who can manually add and remove new projects that people can report time on. If you let everybody do it, the very software that was designed to save time and effort will suddenly have the precise opposite effect, and nobody wants that.
Failing to explain what time tracking is all about
If you want a guaranteed way of ticking off your workforce, just go ahead and install a time tracking plugin without explaining to your workforce what time tracking is and how it works.
A common myth surrounding time tracking software is that it is designed to help employers spy on their employees and ensure that they’re not slacking off when they should be working. This is not the case at all.
Time tracking helps the business and it helps employees as it ensures that they don’t become overwhelmed with too much work, or that they aren’t assigned the work of more than one person, which is sadly very common in a lot of businesses.
Before you go ahead and purchase a project reporting application or software, speak to your employees and ensure that they all know exactly what time tracking is, and how it helps. Explain to them how it works and what it is designed to do and invite them to ask any questions if they do have any uncertainties.
Using basic software for project reporting
Because of the fact that time tracking software has proved to be such a huge hit in the workplace, more and more software developers are looking to cash in and get in on the action by developing their own time tracking products.
This is great in terms of choice, but the main issue is the fact that not all of these products are up to par.
When you utilize a project reporting software, you want the most practical and most professional time tracking software that you can find. The sad reality is that some software out there is simply not good enough, is inaccurate, is difficult to use, and is not secure. This is not what you want.
When you purchase time tracking software, you want a solution that is developed by a tried and tested company with a stellar track record, experience, and plenty of positive feedback. You should also look for software with extra features, like the ability to integrate with Outlook, as this will le you sync it with your Calendar and use other Outlook features in conjunction with the software you’ve got your eye on.
Take your time when researching which time tracking plugin to invest in, read reviews, and consider signing up for a free trial beforehand, as in that way you’ve nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Failing to integrate your time tracking plugin with existing systems
We spoke previously about the importance, of time tracking software which can integrate with programs and systems such as Outlook, but it is down to you to implement it.
When you use time tracking software, be sure to integrate it with other software, applications, and systems to help make it more efficient and more user-friendly. From a business perspective, Outlook works very well with a project reporting software, but you may also wish to share data with your payroll software for accurate and efficiently payments and billing.
Failing to ensure that employees know that it is mandatory
Employee morale in the workplace is very important, yet it is important to remember that you are in charge, it’s your business, and what you say goes.
A lot of businesses when implementing a new time tracking application at work, fail to emphasize the fact that time tracking is not optional and that it is in fact mandatory.
You need to ensure that your employees know that they are obliged to use the software correctly. Here it is important to underline the benefits that they can get themselves from tracking their time correctly.
Failing to share the best ways to track time
When getting to grips with any new piece of software, there will be teething problems to begin with, and for some it may be difficult to learn how to use it at first. What’s more, as some people are less tech-savvy than others, learning how to use time tracking software may take even longer for some people.
Another very common mistake that businesses and business owners make when implementing time tracking software in their business for the first time, is simply failing to share the best ways to track time with other employees.
After you’ve gotten used to using the time tracking plugin, after a while you’ll find that you learn ways of speeding up your time tracking, and ways of filling in your details correctly. When you know how to register and log your time spent on tasks and projects correctly, don’t keep this info to yourself, instead share it with your other employees and/or colleagues.
Once everybody knows how to correctly track their time, and how to use the software correctly, you’ll find that things start moving along quicker in the workplace, and that they also begin to run smoother too, and which business owner wouldn’t want that?
Choosing the cheapest option
Again, this project reporting mistake could fit into what we spoke about earlier regarding inferior software providers, but as it is so important and such a common mistake, we’re giving it its very own section here.
Far too many business owners out there decide to “invest” in time tracking software, only to find that they’re choosing the cheapest options possible and are prioritizing price over quality.
Time tracking software is very important, and because of that there are plenty of options to choose from, all coming in at different prices. When you invest in this software however, you should do so because you want the best for your business, not just because you want the cheapest software possible.
If you find software that is ridiculously cheap and is much more affordable than all of the other options out there, you need to ask yourself exactly why that is. It’s likely cheap for a reason, and if the software fails to work correctly, or if it is inaccurate or prone to crashing, you’ll essentially have wasted your money anyway as you will need to replace it with something of a much higher standard.
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