Default Time Log Categories

We have multiple time categories that we use: Client, Bill by the Hour, Sales, Marketing, Overhead. 90% of our time logs go to "Client." It would be helpful if we could set a "Default" category so we don't need to manually add it each time (unless we are overriding it to one of the other four). Or, set the default at the project level. This would be hugely helpful!

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Status: On hold

Comments

Tim Schoffelman

I agree. This would be a wonderful feature to have.

Is it also possible to have the option to make a global default or by user?

Meaning, we can say the global default would be "Client". However, if we have an employee that generally doesn't work on client work (say Finance or HR), we could set their default to something else?

Thank you for your help and consideration.

Todd Howard

+1 for a main default category. When reporting on time spent and using categories for billing, capitalization and the like, having entries with no category is worse than having the wrong one.

I'm also for having individual user defaults, which would clear up much of the wrong category entries, but that is more of a nice to have than flat-out required like the former.

Thanks.

Randy Girouard Outside

To add to this line of thought. In addition to a default option, when creating blueprints, the ability to set the timelog category for those items would be great.

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi guys, thanks so much for bringing this up 🙂 This post has now 49 votes, and once it hits 60 votes, we'll add one of the Product Feedback statuses to it, so please keep voting 👍

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Quick update: I've added the 'Backburner' status here, which means that the Product team is interested, but the idea isn't on the roadmap yet. I'll let you know when there's an update 🙌

Aaron Vernon Smith

As well as being time saving feature, the real advantage would be a reduction in un-categorized or mis-categorized timelog entries.

I'd love to see this feature implemented.

Mark Obana

I would like to see the categories be required and an optional default.

Permanently deleted user

Hi everyone, a quick update - the team is still interested in this, but there is no ETA on its implementation. I'll keep you posted on any updates.

Jose Maria Rincon Perez

Hi everyone,

Do you have any news about that? This post has already 77 votes.

Thanks for your help!

Elaine McDonagh

Hey @Jose Maria Rincon Perez, we're checking in with the Product team as we speak. As soon as I have an update I'll let you know 👍

Elizabeth MacManus

Our teams’ two cents: We have the following TimeLog Categories: Administrative, Project Implementation, Remote Implementation, Internal Troubleshooting/Bug Fix/Break Fix, Internal Meetings, Development/Process Improvement, Education, Travel - Non Billable, Travel - Billable, Report Verification, Non-Working, Time & Materials. The category isn’t something our users should even have to worry about – they should put in their time and any detailed comments and the category is something that should be identified at the Project/folder/and or Task level – not on each entry of time entered. What would resolve this whole perceived ‘issue’ is if we could identify the Time Log Category for a task within the Task itself, at task creation or prior to any time entered for that task - or within our Blueprint projects/tasks (that we’ve created), which would then populate the correct category for any user that would put time against that task. By making the user do it for every single time entry – or the need to go back in to define categories at a specific time after all time has been entered is simply not useful time for the user to spend. This model also adds inaccuracy of timelog categorization when added ad hoc by the user each time. Perhaps this could be optional at the task level or if other Wrike users choose to use ad hoc categorization when they add time.

We’ve really only just started looking at these Time Spent reports to see where our users are spending their time and where we can find some efficiencies in our processes or projects – but unless we can figure out a good work around for our users to better understand how to avoid this functionality as its designed without creating more admin and maintenance time – the categories and reporting by categories have no value to us. It is our goal from the beginning to continue getting value out of the different features that we’ve licensed for our Wrike Instance.

Additionally - when this feature is updated - in order to correct all task time log entries - there would need to be the ability to bulk edit tasks and apply the correct category which then would populate all time entries for that task with the correct category. 😀 Easy - Peasy!

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi again, everyone! The team is aware of this suggestion's popularity here on the Community, so they keep it on their radar. We'll keep you posted as the team shares more updates with us in the future 👍

Thank you for supporting this idea 🙌

Santiago Úbeda

Hey! Any update on this suggestion? It has been in Backburner status since July 2019 and last sign of hope was almost 2 years ago. 😉

Currently, the use of Time Categories is not scalable nor reliable -and so Timesheets globally I'm afraid- since it depends on each team member criteria. Furthermore, all similar tasks would be assigned to the same Time Category, so what is exactly the reason to not set default time categories?

My use case is common to most project teams. We're not using Timesheets for control. We need to know how the time is distributed among the different project blocks. We need to analyse average distribution and detect abnormal distribution for specific projects so we can raise alerts, improve our processes, require product improvements, etc. Our projects can have between 20 and 60 tasks and each team member would handle between 5 and 10 projects simultaneously. No way we can rely on manual reporting here. 😉

I would love to know any updates.

Thanks for your help!!! 😀

Elizaveta Bogdanova

Hi everyone, we've checked with the team again - we don't have an update for this request as it's not on the team's plans at the moment. We will let you know if there are any changes in the future.

@Santiago Úbeda Thanks a lot for sharing your use case with us!

TyAnn Kramer

we are now to 2024, I can see the use case to be able to set these in blueprints so that users are using the correct categories. We do multiple projects at once and they have different blueprints and have a dozen categories that they need to fall under for each task. User error is very high with it all being manual with each time entry.

Juan Muttoni

Hi @TyAnn Kramer, thank you for your comment. I understand it can be frustrating not to see this feature implemented yet; please rest assured that we're passing all your feedback on to our Product Development Team and that we will keep you informed in case there are changes 👍

Meri Malmari

Any news about this? As @Aaron Vernon Smith said years ago (!!): the real advantage would be a reduction in un-categorized or mis-categorized timelog entries.
We've just run into this problem again. The uncategorized timelogs are a problem, and would be easily fixed by setting default category to tasks.

Rohan V

Hi @Meri Malmari, Welcome to the Community Forums! 👋

Thanks for bringing up your concerns about uncategorized timelogs. At the moment, this isn't on our roadmap for 2024, as other priorities are taking precedence, but rest assured, I've forwarded your feedback to the Product Team. If there’s any news, I’ll definitely let you know 👍