Time is one of the most important resources available to a services team. Tracking it accurately helps teams understand effort, improve delivery predictability, review utilization, and protect project profitability.
Rocketlane's time tracking feature helps teams log time against project tasks and activities, mark entries as billable or non-billable, submit timesheets for approval, and generate timesheet data for reporting and invoicing.
When to Use
Use time tracking in Rocketlane when:
- Teams need to track time spent on project tasks and activities.
- Customers are billed based on time spent.
- Managers need visibility into weekly effort and utilization.
- Finance teams need accurate timesheet data for billing and reporting.
- Teams need to distinguish between billable and non-billable work.
- Submitted timesheets need approval before they are used for downstream processes.
Enable Time Tracking
Time tracking is disabled by default. Enable it from account settings before teams can start logging time.
To enable time tracking:
Go to Settings → Time tracking. The feature is disabled by default. Turn it on - you can find it on the top right corner of the screen
Set the number of hours per week that each individual of your team puts into work, in the Team member’s capacity field
Select the Working days for your team
Next, set the day and time of the week that your team is expected to submit their timesheets
Use the Send reminders option to configure when you want to send reminders to your team to fill their timesheets
If you are tracking multiple tasks in parallel, or if there are multiple activities that you want to track, use the Time entry categories option to create and them and your team members can fill the time spent against each of the categories created. You just need to type in the category name and click Add
Use the Approval settings to select who approves the timesheets of your team members. You can either select Project owners approve timesheets for their projects approvers or select Time sheet approver approves timesheets for their team If you don’t set the Approvers, the approval request will go to the account admins
You’ll find the clock icon added to the left side panel once you enable the feature.
Open Timesheets
To view timesheets:
- Click the clock icon from the left navigation panel.
- The Timesheets page opens.
If the user is a manager or admin, the page includes two tabs: My timesheet and Approvals.
Tasks and activities already added to the user's timesheet appear under My timesheet.
Add Tasks to a Timesheet
Add tasks to a timesheet when time needs to be tracked against project work.
To add tasks:
Click Add tasks
Select the project to which the required task is linked
You can further filter for tasks: Completed, In progress, Submitted last week, and All tasks
From the tasks that get listed, select the tasks that you want to include in the timesheet
Add Activities to a Timesheet
Projects often include ad hoc work that may not be captured as a task in the project plan. Rocketlane allows users to track time against activities as well.
To add an activity:
Click Add activity
The activity form that appears:
Fill in a Timesheet
To log time in a timesheet:
- Go to Timesheets → My timesheet.
- Click the time field under the relevant day of the week.
- Enter the time spent on the task or activity.
- Repeat this for all tasks and activities worked on during the week.
- Click Submit week for approval.
Once submitted, the approver is notified.
Note: Any changes made after submission are automatically updated for the approver.
Add Time from a Task
Time can also be logged directly from a task.
To add time from a task:
Go to the task,
Click the clock icon
The time entry is added to the user's timesheet.
Approve Timesheets
Approvers can review and approve submitted timesheets from the Approvals tab.
To view timesheets pending approval:
- Go to Timesheets → Approvals.
The Approvals tab lists team members along with timesheet submission status, approval status, total time tracked, team member capacity, and percentage of billable hours.
Send Timesheet Reminders
If a team member has not submitted their timesheet, approvers can send a reminder.
To send a reminder:
- Go to Timesheets → Approvals.
- Find the team member who has not submitted their timesheet.
- Click Send reminder.
Rocketlane sends a reminder to the team member to complete and submit their timesheet.
Approve a Submitted Timesheet
Approvers can approve a timesheet directly from the Approvals tab or open it for a detailed review.
Approve from the list
Click the Approve option available against each team member who’ve submitted their timesheet, or
If you’d want a detailed view, open their timesheet by clicking their name, check the information, and click the Approve button on the bottom right corner
Review before approving: Go to Timesheets → Approvals, click the team member's name, review the submitted timesheet, and click Approve from the bottom-right corner.
Message a Team Member During Review
Approvers can start a conversation with the team member while reviewing a timesheet. To message a team member, open the submitted timesheet, click Message from the bottom section, enter the message, and send it. Everyone added as an approver can view and participate in this conversation.
Make Changes After Approval
Once a timesheet is approved, the team member cannot modify it. If changes are required, the team member must use the Withdraw option, make the necessary changes, and submit the timesheet again for approval.
Configure Time Tracking in Templates
When time tracking is enabled for the account, time tracking options become available inside project templates. Use template-level time tracking settings to define default billable behavior and categories for tasks created from the template.
To configure time tracking in a project template:
To configure these settings in your templates,
Go to Templates → select the relevant project template
Click the task for which you want to track the time invested
You’ll find a section called Time entry settings
This section allows you to mark the task as billable
You can also map it to a category that you want to link it to (refer to the previous section to learn how to create and enable categories for time tracking)
When projects are created from the template, the configured time tracking settings are applied to those tasks.
Timesheet Lock Dates and Status Restrictions
Timesheet lock dates help keep historical time entries consistent after financial close. Locking can restrict changes to time entries on or before a configured lock date. Locking affects both time entry details and approval status actions, depending on the settings and RBAC permissions configured.
Configure Timesheet Lock Dates
Timesheet lock dates are configured from Settings → Time tracking. When a lock date is configured, entries dated on or before the lock date are treated as locked. Entries after the lock date continue to follow the normal submission and approval workflow.
Restrict Approval Actions on Locked Entries
Rocketlane includes a setting to restrict approvers from modifying approval status on or before the lock date. When this option is enabled, regular users and approvers cannot submit time entries, withdraw submitted entries, approve entries, or reject entries. Only admins can override locked entries and change their status.
Note: Restricting approvers from modifying approval status on or before the lock date is disabled by default. Enable it from time tracking settings for stricter locking behavior.
RBAC Permissions for Locked Time Entries
Timesheet locking is controlled by two separate permissions: Can edit details of date-locked time entries controls whether hours, dates, and notes can be edited after the lock date; Can change status of date-locked time entries controls whether locked entries can be submitted, approved, rejected, or withdrawn.
Interaction with Status Lock
When status lock is enabled, Rocketlane disables Can change status of date-locked time entries for non-admin users — locked entries cannot be submitted, approved, rejected, or withdrawn by regular users. When status lock is disabled, the permission remains enabled based on the user's assigned role, and users with the required permission can change the status of locked entries.