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Ticket Timers

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This article shows how use Ticket Timers to track time and bill for it on your tickets.

Table of Contents

Set Up
Use Ticket Timers
Manually Create and Adjust Entries
Ticket Timer Options
Ticket Timer Tags
Multiple Ticket Timers
View All Active Timers
Pausing Ticket Timers -Coming Soon
Using Non-Billable Labor

Set Up

  1. Go to More > Admin > Tickets - Preferences.
  2. Turn the Enable Ticket Time Tracking module checkbox.
  3. Click Save.
  4. In the left navigation, go to Inventory - Preferences.
  5. At the bottom, under the Category Editor, make sure there is a Labor (or Labour) category. If not, click Add and add it.
  6. Go to the Inventory tab.
  7. When you track time, you'll be able to select between multiple labor items, so that you can bill for your time at different rates. So add or edit your various labor rates and make sure the Category is set to Labor.
  8. Go back to More > Admin > Tickets - Preferences.
  9. At the bottom, click Additional Settings.
  10. Scroll down to the Labor Product for Ticket Timer labor charges field.
  11. If it does not already have the default labor rate you want to use for ticket timers, type the Labor item you want to use. As you type, it will list the matching items from inventory. Click the desired item.
  12. Click Save.

You can default to different labor rates for each technician if you want. To set up those defaults, edit your users and select the desired rate in the Default Labor Product dropdown. Then when using ticket timers or manually adding entries, the Rate dropdown will default to the rate defined for the technician performing the action.

If you want any non-global admins to be able to use the RS Lite mobile app to track time, you will also need to make sure that the Security Group they belong to has a setting enabled.

  1. Go to More > Admin > Security Groups.
  2. To the right of a security group to which your non-global admin users belong, click Edit.
  3. Turn on the Ticket Timers - Overview box.
  4. Click Update Group.
  5. Repeat as needed for any other groups.

Use Ticket Timers

Now when you are on a ticket, there will be a Labor Log section.

  1. Select a different labor Rate if desired. All items with Category set to Labor will show here.
  2. Enter a description of the work performed.
  3. Click to start and stop the timer.
  4. View and adjust all the entries, and manually create timer entries, including for a different Technician.
  5. A list of existing labor times, both charged and uncharged.

Manually Create and Adjust Entries

As mentioned in step 4 above, clicking the View Log button will open the Ticket Timer Log where you can do several things.

To manually add a labor time entry,

  1. Select a different Date if needed.
  2. Enter the starting and ending times.
  3. Select the desired labor Rate.
  4. Defaults to the name of the user logged in. Select a different Tech if desired and they will get the credit. This is the only place you can select a different Tech.
  5. Enter a description of the work performed.
  6. Click Add.
  7. Work entered this way, along with work entered in the Communications section where Charge now was not turned on, will show up below. You will need to click Charge Time in order to invoice the time worked. You can also adjust any of the Duration (in minutes), Notes, and labor Rate. Click X to delete the row.
  8. Once Charge Time has been clicked (or work was entered in the Communications section with Charge now was turned on), the button changes to Clear Charge and the charge can be invoiced. The row cannot be adjusted or deleted unless you click this button, which changes it back to the green Charge Time button.
  9. After invoicing the charges, the button(s) will change to Invoiced (not shown here). Clicking it will take you to the associated invoice.

Ticket Timer Options

There are some options available for Ticket Timer that enhance its abilities. These are all located in More > Admin > Tickets - Preferences > Additional Settings section.

Ticket Timer - Round UP to number of minutes: This will make it so that your timer logs will round up to the nearest minute selected from this dropdown. Handy if your work has minimum time charges.

Labor Product for Ticket Timer labor charges: Allows you to select your default labor product that the timer uses when it creates charges.

Customize Text for Ticket Charges: This is especially useful because you can customize what customers see in the charge description on invoices. This can use Ticket Timer specific tags, along with Ticket, Customer and Asset tags!

Ticket Timer Tags

{{ticket_timer_notes}}
{{ticket_timer_tech}}
{{ticket_timer_date_and_times}}
{{ticket_timer_date}}
{{ticket_timer_start_time}}
{{ticket_timer_end_time}}
{{ticket_timer_total_hours}}
{{ticket_timer_total_minutes}}

Ticket Tags

{{ticket_number}}
{{tech_name}}
{{tech_bio}}
{{tech_photo_url}}
{{ticket_creator_name}}
{{ticket_date}}
{{ticket_due_date}}
{{appointment_start_time}}
{{appointment_end_time}}
{{ticket_subject}}
{{ticket_public_comments}}  
{{ticket_problem}} 		{{ticket_meta_details}}
{{ticket_custom_fields}}
{{initial_comment_body}}
{{initial_comment_date}}
{{initial_comment_tech}}
{{assets}}
{{asset_properties}}
{{invoice_disclaimer_template}}  
{{ticket_disclaimer_template}}
{{intake_form_terms}}
{{signature_line}} 		{{signature_date}}
{{signature_img}}
{{outtake_signature_line}}
{{outtake_form_terms}}
{{problem_type}}
{{password}}
{{ticket_barcode_string}}
{{ticket_worksheet_tables}}
{{ticket_worksheet_tables_compressed}}
{{ticket_images_rendered}}
{{ticket_link ticket_url}}

 

Multiple Ticket Timers

It is possible to run multiple ticket timers at once. When you have one or more timers running, a dropdown appears at the top of the page listing the number of active timers. Click the dropdown to display them. You can click any of the timers to go to the tickets they are running on.

View All Active Ticket Timers across the account

Note: All Global Admins will have immediate view access to this feature. Non-Global Admins will need a Security Groups' permission turned on called Ticket Timers - Overview before they are able to see the All Timers page.

There are two ways to view all active Ticket Timers on an account.

In the upper right of the page, click the active timers dropdown > All Active Timers.

The second way is to head to the Tickets tab and click the View button > Active Timers.

Active Timer Page

User: The tech that started the timer
Customer: The customer on the ticket
Ticket: Link to the ticket
Ticket Title: The Ticket Subject
Labor: Which type of labor is selected for the timer event
Duration: Current length of time the timer has logged on a ticket

Click the stop button on the right to stop a timer and remove it from the list.


Pausing Ticket Timers -Coming Soon


Prerequisite

  • Have the Ticket Timer feature enabled in Ticket Preferences

How It Works


Head to a Ticket you have created and locate the section called Labor Log. In the upper right of this section there will be a Play and Stop button.


From there, you can press the Play button to start the timer. When the Timer is active, the Play button converts to a Pause button.



When you press the Pause button, the timer will stop and turn Red. 



Hitting the Play button will start the timer back up. You can also press the Stop button at any time to save the Ticket Timer as an Entry for billing.




Using Non-Billable Labor

If you want to be able to track time but not bill for it, you can create a Labor item that has $0 cost. You can then use this in Timer tracking when working Tickets and report on un-billed time.

Create a Labor item similar to this:

Regardless of what you name it, make sure to use the Labor category. Then you can add these hours to tickets as you would any other kind of labor.

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