Version 6.77 Build 412, November 8, 2010

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. ZK Software Time Clocks Now Supported

This release now supports ZK Software (http://www.zk-usa.com/) time clocks. You can learn more by going to the System > Devices page and clicking the online Help link, or contacting your Pacific Timesheet sales representative.

2. Multiple Timesheet Printing

There is a new 'Print Timesheets' menu option on the Timesheets and Approvals tabs (below the Export and Import menu items) that allows you to download a PDF hard copy of all of the timesheets in the list. This is useful if you need to print out multiple timesheets for signing, for instance. Note that, rather than printing the entire list, you can print selected timesheets by clicking the checkbox on each row before selecting the 'Print Timesheets' option.

3. New Leave Request Rule

There is a new leave request rule that allows you prevent employees from submitting leave requests that would bring their balance below the minimum allowed. The "Don't allow submitting of Leave requests if balance falls below minimum" rule can be enabled on the System > Policy > Schedule Rule page. You can learn more about this by clicking the online help link once on that page.

Even if you don't turn this rule on, a more readily visible message will be shown above the leave request indicating the balance has gone negative. This will help minimize the submission and approval of leave requests that violate any minimum balance rules.

4. Leave Requests Export

There is a new option on the Leave Requests tab that allows you to export the list of leave requests. This is accessed by clicking the popup menu button in the upper-right corner of the list of requests.

5. Leave Request Approval Default Start Date

By default, when you go to the Leave Requests tab to approve requests the default start date looks back 30 days. Administrators can now modify the default value by selecting the new Options item on the tools menu in the upper-right corner of the list of leave requests.

6. Listing Leave Request With Status 'Pending Approval' No Longer Returns Rejected Requests

Rejected leave requests are no longer listed on the Leave Requests tab when the status is set to 'Pending Approval'. To see rejected requests you need to set the status to 'Rejected'.

7. Year To Date, Quarter To Date Reporting Periods

Date range menus for reports, timesheets, etc. now have "Quarter To Date" and "Year To Date" options.

8. Support For Additional Data Types In SQL Expression Report Columns

Custom report fields created using SQL expressions now support text, timestamp, integer and decimal data types. Previously only SQL expressions that returned integer or decimal values were supported. You can also control the formatting of the data, such as whether only the date or time is shown, or the number of digits after the decimal point.

9. Support For Custom SQL "Group By" And "Having" Report Expressions

There is an options dialog available when editing summary reports that allows you to modify the default "Group By" SQL expression. Modifying the "Group By" expression is sometimes necessary after adding a custom SQL fields that refers to a database columns that is not in the default "Group By" expression. You can also specify a "Having" SQL expression to limit which rows of data are returned.

10. Support For SQL Expressions In Report Sort Columns

As you can for report columns, you can now create sort columns that are SQL expressions. This is useful if you have created custom report columns and you would like to have the report sorting based on the data in that custom column.

11. Timesheet Lookup Can Now Filter On Notes

A new advanced search property allows you to filter the list of timesheets on the Timesheets and Approvals tabs based on text in the timesheet or time entry notes fields.

12. Partial Day Leave (Time Off) Requests Default To Half Day

Instead of defaulting to 2 hours starting at 10AM, partial day leave or time off requests default to a half day (based on the scheduled hours per day) starting at the employee's scheduled start time.

13. Employees Tab Advanced Search (Build 410)

The Employees tab now has new advanced search capabilities, including the ability to filter the employee list by permission level, employee type, policy and reporting group.

14. New Time Entry Rule (Build 416)

A new time entry rule, "Don't allow submitting time for inactive Projects, Tasks etc.", allows you to prevent having employees submit time against inactive items. Pacific Timesheet already prevents users from choosing inactive items when adding new rows, and will not carry forward inactive rows if using the "timesheet memory" or "copy previous timesheet" features. However, this rule does a final check of the timesheet when submitted to catch any items that might have been inactivated after any rows were added. See the online help topic on the System > Policies > Time Entry Rules page for more information.

15. Timesheet Memory Issue

If an employee's timesheet allowed them to select their reporting group, the value would not be remembered when rows or hours were carried forward to the next time period. Instead, each row would have the reporting group reset to the employee's current reporting group. This release makes sure that the reporting group carried forward from the previous timesheet is not changed.

16. Rejected Leave Requests Now Ignored When Checking For Conflicts

When a leave request is submitted, the employee will see a warning message if it overlaps with a previously submitted request of theirs. Rejected leave requests are now ignored when making this conflict check.

17. More Clear Error Messages When Importing Employee Balances

When importing employee balances (Vacation, Sick, etc.) a more clear message will be shown if an employee or balance with a given name or ID is not found. In previous versions you could get an uninformative "null" error message.

18. Issue When Exporting Employee Balances In XLS Format

In some previous versions, exporting employee balances in XLS format would result in an error. This is corrected in this release. Note that you can choose whether to export in CSV or XLS from the Home > Preferences page.

19. Automatic Missed Meal Premium Issue

In some cases when working over midnight you could get a missed meal premium when you shouldn't. For instance, if you worked two blocks of time, from 10PM to 12:30AM, then from 1AM to 7:30AM, the rule could incorrectly determine that you missed a meal in the second block of time. This is fixed in this release.

20. Importing Timesheet Data With Missing Employee Login or ID

Importing timesheet data with no employee login or ID specified should result in the record being rejected. Instead, the record was read and a time entry created for a blank employee. This is now fixed: records with no employee information or invalid employee information will be rejected.

21. Additional Check Before Deleting Timesheet Template Custom Fields

If you try to delete a timesheet template custom field (from the System > Templates > Manage Custom Fields page), a check is now made to ensure it is not in use by one or more timesheet templates. If so, the delete will fail with a clear error message indicating which templates are using the custom field. You will need to remove the custom field from each template (active or inactive) before being able to delete the custom field.

22. Fixed Issue In Which Paging Through Timesheet Lists Returned Partial Web Page (Build 411)

In some cases paging through lists of timesheets on the Timesheets and Approvals tabs could result in an incomplete web page being generated. This was due to a cached value expiring, resulting in an internal error that caused the web page to be only partially generated. This has been fixed in this release.

23. Timesheet PDF Totals Issue (Build 412)

The printable timesheet view, which generates a PDF version of the timesheet, could sometimes format the summary totals incorrectly, causing labels not to line up with values. This would generally only happen if you had long names for fields such, such as 'Double Time Hours', instead of simply 'Double Time'.

24. Maximum Hours Rule Now Checked When Automatically Adding Leave To Timesheets (Build 415)

The logic that pushes leave requests and holidays onto timesheets will now check the Time Entry Rules for the maximum number of hours for each type of leave. This means that you can configure, for instance, employees with 9 hours per day of scheduled work, but have only 8 hours of holiday placed on the timesheet.