Version 6.68 Build 263, November 6, 2009

This page documents all new features, enhancements and bug fixes included in this release of Pacific Timesheet. For information on changes made in previous versions of Pacific Timesheet, please see the release notes archive.

1. Improved Costing Support for Salaried Employees

Employee profiles have a new 'Salary' property, that if non-zero, will be used to compute an effective pay rate and pay amount for all time entries in a timesheet period. This will help you better determine project and job costs, especially in cases where you have both salaried and hourly employees. Note that the effective pay rate calculation is based on the total hours worked in the timesheet period. As an accurate total is not known until the timesheet is submitted, you should also specify the 'Scheduled Hours' employee property if you want the effective pay rate computed before the timesheet is submitted.

2. Default Pay Code for Time Clock Punches

Previously, time clock punches (e.g. with ACTAtek devices) would have a blank pay code by default. If the employee's timesheet allows them to choose the pay code then time clock punches will now default to the first pay code in the list on the timesheet. In this way time clock punches behave in the same manner as punching in and out from the web timesheet.

3. New Policy Rule: Wage Rules

A new set of policy rules to aid in wage compliance has been added. These include support for computing a missed meal premium, as well as a premium for working split shifts. The online help topic for the System > Policies > Wage Rules page has more information.

4. Latest Java

The Pacific Timesheet installer now includes Java version 1.6_16. The primary change is this has a faster and more stable optimizer than in the previous version, 1.6_12. In addition, the latest JDBC driver for Microsoft SQL Server is now used, in order to provide SQL Server 2008 support. SQL Server 2005 and 2000 are still supported by this new driver.

5. Yearly Time Periods Can Now Start on the 29th, 30th or 31st.

You can now create yearly time periods that start on, say, October 31. Previously you could only go up to the 28th of any given month.

6. Late Notices Not Sent to Employees with Leave-Only Timesheets

Employees with leave-only timesheets no longer receive due or late notices by default. If you prefer, you can have them receive notices by checking the appropriate send option on the System > Notices > Timesheet Due and System > Notices > Timesheet Late pages.

7. Editing Permission Levels Could Clear Published Report Permissions

Viewing or editing permission levels on the System > Permissions page could cause some published reports to have their permission checkboxes cleared (the permission checkboxes appear to the right of the Publish checkbox when editing reports).

8. Employee Balance Import File Columns Issue

The employee balance import file now correctly handles missing optional columns. Previously, you need all of the columns to be present, even ones documented as optional, to correctly import employee balances.

9. Deleting an Employee Now Deletes Any Published Reports Created by that Employee

Both published and unpublished reports created by an employee are now deleted when the employee is deleted from the system. Previously, only unpublished reports were deleted. This would result in 'orphaned' published reports that could not be edited by anyone, as only the report owner is allowed to edit the report.

10. Balance List on Home Tab Now Restricted to Pay Code Permissions

In previous versions, all balances on the Home tab would be listed. Now only balances for pay codes the employee has permission to view are shown.

11. Checkbox Custom Field Issue

Fixed an issue in which checkbox custom fields could never be cleared once saved in the checked state.

12. More Reliable Shutdown

In some instances Pacific Timesheet would not stop running when you stop the Pacific Timesheet service. This release ensures that Pacific Timesheet shuts down completely when the service is stopped.