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Implementation Guide for Admins
Implementation Guide for Admins
Admins and account owners can follow this guide to set up their Justworks Hours account
Marc Rosenberg avatar
Written by Marc Rosenberg
Updated over a week ago

Part 1 - Signing up and Setting Preferences

If you haven’t already, you can start by downloading the Justworks Hours Mobile App for iOS or Android from the respective app stores.

In this section, we’ll give a brief overview of Justworks Hours’s preferences. We’ll discuss certain features in more detail in the preferences appendix.

To access preferences, first click on the person icon in the top, left corner and then on preferences.

Screenshot showing the first step to access preferences by first click on the person icon in the top-left corner and then on preferences

Preference groups are organized on the left side of the screen. The first section is Time Tracking preferences. Here you’ll decide how employees will use Justworks Hours.

You can turn on or off manual time tracking and web dashboard access for employees. You can also set a timed check out feature and an auto-approval feature.

Screenshot showing how to turn on or off manual time tracking and web dashboard access for employees

The second section is for Break Rules. If you live in an area where employee breaks need to be marked as paid vs unpaid, or otherwise labeled, you’ll manage that here. If those rules aren’t necessary where your employees work, you can skip this section.

Screenshot showing where and how to manage Break Rules

With Break Rules, you can set breaks as paid vs unpaid, you can require a minimum duration and you can send reminders to take a break during your employee’s shift.

Screenshot showing how to set breaks as paid vs. unpaid, set minimum duration, and set reminders for employees to take a break

You can also create different break rules for different employees or departments if needed.

Screenshot showing how to create different break rules for different employees or departments, if needed

In the next section you’ll set your mobile app preferences. You can control the geofence (see below) and turn off mobile app access entirely from here.

Screenshot showing how to set your mobile app preferences like geofence control and mobile app access

Timed Check Out

Justworks Hours makes it easy for employees to check in and out of shifts no matter where they are. Unfortunately, sometimes an employee may forget to check out for leaving for the day. While you may still need to verify their time and make an edit to their shift, you can use Justworks Hours to automatically clock them out after a certain number of hours. To do this, simply turn on Timed Check Out as pictured above, and set the number of hours. Any employees still on the clock for a shift of this duration, will be automatically clocked out by Justworks Hours.

Geofence

Justworks Hours allows you to see where your employees are whenever they check in or out for a shift. As you already know, all check-ins in Justworks Hours must be assigned to a location. In addition, you can set a geofence to prevent employees from clocking in before they’ve reached their location for the day.

To do this, go to the preferences section by clicking on your name in the top right corner and then on preferences.

From there scroll to the bottom section and switch the option for Set Geofence from “Off” to “On”. Be sure to hit the save button down below. You can also specify the radius of the fence using the drop down to the right. The radius can be set to .25, .5, 1, 5, or 10 miles. If an employee tries to check into a shift but is outside the specified radius, they’ll receive the following message:

Screenshot showing error message if an employee tries to check into a shift but is outside the specified geofence radius

Part 2 - Testing the System

One of the first steps in using Justworks Hours is testing out Justworks Hours’s tools for your employees before you invite them to join your account. We’ll cover reporting and admin functions in a later section.

Tracking Time

After you have signed in successfully, the app will load to the home screen. Conveniently, this is the same screen that you will use to check in and track time. At the bottom you will see a bright green button that says 'Track Time':

Screenshot showing home screen where employees can check in and track time

Click the 'Track Time' button, you will then be prompted to select the Location where you are working. Note: You current location must be within the distance required by your company to log time at a given location when utilizing the geofence feature.

Screenshot showing the Select Location screen

After you select the location that you wish to check in to, you will be prompted to select either 'Check in to a new shift' used for a live tracked shift or 'Add shift for completed work' for a manually added shift.

Screenshot showing how to check in to a new shift or add shift for completed work

When you click the 'Check in to a new shift' feature, you will then be taken to a screen which shows you the full story of your shift.

Screenshot showing how to view the full story of your shift

If you selected the Add shift for completed work option, you will be taken to a screen where you can enter all of the details about this shift. Once all details have been . entered, click save in the top right-hand corner. Please note: Manually added shifts will show in the management dashboard and mobile application with an 'M' signifying that this is a manually added shift.

Screenshot showing how to enter and save all of the details when you choose to manually add shift

Tracking Projects

Justworks Hours also allows you to track time on projects. As a manager/admin you’ll be able to see what your team is working on in real-time. To start tracking Project Time, check in to a new shift. Once you are checked in, you will be directed to the Shift Details screen. Here, there will be a section titled "Projects" with a row below it that says 'Add Projects to Shift'. Tap this to get started.

Screenshot showing the Shift Details screen where you can add projects to a shift

You will then be provided a list of projects that have been assigned to you. To add projects to your shift, simply tap on them - when you do, the dot to the right will turn green. Once you have selected all the projects you would like to add, tap the green Save button on the bottom of the screen.

Screenshot showing how to add projects to a shift

You can also add a new project directly from this screen by tapping the very top row. By default, projects that you add from the app will only be assigned to you, but you can choose to make the project available to all other employees by moving the toggle switch at the bottom of the screen to 'Available to all employees'.

Screenshot showing the Add New Project screen

After selecting projects, you will be redirected back to Shift Details and the projects will have been added to your shift. Please note - you are not yet tracking time to a project. We’ve still got one more step. From the Shift Details screen, just tap on a project to choose how you want to track time for that project.

Screenshot showing, on the Shift Details screen, how to select which project for which you want to track time

There are two ways to add time to a project: 1) Add blocks of time by tapping the 'Add Time to Project' row or 2) Set a timer by tapping the green 'Start Timer' button at the bottom of the screen. You can start and stop the timer as often as you would like throughout your shift and the timer will automatically pause when you take breaks from your shift and will automatically restart when you return.

Screenshot showing the Project Timeline screen

All time that is tracked for projects will be attached to your shift history, even after your shift has ended. This way, you and your team always have a record of what was worked on throughout your shift.

Notes

You can communicate with your manager and your admin while you are checked in to a shift with Justworks Hours's Live Notes feature. You can also use Live Notes to attach photos to your shift.

To start using Live Notes, check in to a new shift. Once you are checked in, you will be directed to the Shift Details screen. Here, there will be a section titled "Notes" - tap on this to get started.

Screenshot showing how to access Live Notes within a shift

Once on the Notes screen, you'll be able to type a message. This message will be sent directly to the management dashboard so you admin, or any manager you’re assigned to, can read it and respond. You can also submit photos from this screen, to do this tap the camera icon on the left side of the screen.

Screenshot showing the Notes screen, where you can type out a message

When someone sends you a new note, you'll be notified by an alert within the app or if you are not currently using the app you will receive a push notification alerting you that there is an unread note. ***Make sure you’re set to allow notifications from Justworks Hours so you can always stay up to date on your shift!*** You can also see that you have unread notes when there is a red dot in the Notes row on the Shift Details screen.

Screenshot showing the in-app alert message you'll receive when someone sends you a new note

Screenshot showing a push notification when someone sends you a new note

Now that you’ve taken everything for a test run, it’s time to add your employees to your account. Here’s how:

*If your company is using Justworks for payroll, do not add your new employees in Justworks Hours. Instead, the integration will automatically sync and add your new employees once they've already been added in your Justworks account. You can manually refresh this to speed up the process.

To add a new employee, simply click the Add Employees button.

In this window, you can add multiple employees all at once. To do so, you’ll need to enter their first name, last name and email address.

You can also add supplemental information to onboard your team. You can set their role (you’ll learn more about roles in Justworks Hours later), set their pay type, and set their pay rate (for hourly employees).

Screenshot showing how to add supplemental information such as roles, pay types, and pay rates

By default employees will be sent an invitation email via email when you click ‘save’. If you’d prefer to notify them yourselves, you can uncheck the ‘Send invite now’ checkbox before clicking on ‘Save’.

Screenshot showing the default invitation email sent to employees, and how you can change notification settings

Here’s a breakdown of what we ask for:

  • First and Last Name - we're pretty sure you know this!

  • Email Address - we recommend using an email address that your employee checks often, such as a work email

  • Role - if your employee is just using Justworks Hours to track time, select Employee. If they will be approving shifts from other employees, select Manager. If you want this user to have access to your account info and payroll reports, select Admin.

  • Pay Type - set whether the employee is paid Hourly based on hours worked (most common in Justworks Hours) or if they are paid a fixed amount each pay period, select Salary

  • Pay Rate - if the employee is paid hourly, enter how much do you pay them per hour

Manage Employees

You can also use the ‘Manage->Employees’ tab to make changes to employee details in Justworks Hours. While in the ‘Employees’ tab, just click on the row for the employee you’d like to edit. This will bring up a window that looks like this:

Screenshot showing the ‘Manage->Employees’ tab where you can make changes to employee details

From here, you can edit the first or last name of the employee, and their contact info. You can also edit their role (see the section on adding employees for more information on employee roles). You can also edit Pay Type and Pay Rate here. Just make sure you hit save after making any changes!

You can also click on the account tab in the ‘Employee Details’ window. In this tab, you can send a password reset link to the employee or you can edit their PIN (see the section on Terminal Mode in the App Guide for more information on Terminal Mode).

Screenshot showing the ‘Employee Details’ window where you can send a password reset link to the employee or you can edit their PIN

Last, if the employee’s role has been set to manager, you can click on the ‘Employees’ tab to assign employees to that manager. Just click on the Department (Business tier only) or employees that they manage and then click ‘Save’.

Screenshot showing how you can assign employees to a manager

Summary Dashboard

Justworks Hours’ new Summary Dashboard gives you access to your organization's most important at a glance.

At the top of the Summary Dashboard is a welcome message and a reminder of any pending shifts awaiting approval in your account. You can click on the link embedded here to be automatically redirected to your shift approvals page. All shifts submitted by employees in Justworks Hours are pending shifts and will need to be approved by a manager or admin before they can be submitted for payroll.

The first widget is called ‘Overtime Watch’ and shows you which of your employees may be approaching or in overtime based on the overtime rules you set for your account.

The first column will list the names of any employees who are currently in, or are approaching, overtime. A green dot next to the employee’s name indicates that the employee is currently checked in to a shift.

The second column provides a status for the employee. There are three options here:

  • if an employee is checked in and currently accruing overtime pay, you’ll read “Currently tracking….of overtime”

  • if is not yet earning overtime for the current shift, but is approaching overtime, you’ll read “Approaching overtime in…”

  • and if an employee has already earned overtime but is not currently checked in to a shift, you’ll read “Not checked in”.

The third column provides an up-to-the-minute total of overtime already accrued by your employees for the current work week.

Screenshot showing the ‘Overtime Watch’ widget

To the right of the summary dashboard you’ll find important information about your account. This could include a reminder that payroll is due soon, or an important announcement from Justworks Hours HQ.

At the bottom of the summary dashboard is a list of currently open shifts on the left and a snapshot of labor for a previous day on the right. This way you can compare today’s labor totals to yesterday’s or last week’s. Simply click on the arrows to the left or right of the date to move through previous days.

Approving Shifts

All shifts submitted by employees in Justworks Hours are entered as ‘pending shifts’ by default. This means that the shift is not yet ready to be sent to payroll because it has not been reviewed and approved by a manager or admin. Shifts can be approved from either the website or the mobile app. This section will cover shifts approvals on JustworksHours.com.


You can access the shift approvals section in one of two ways. You can click on the "Shifts" tab at anytime once signed into the app. From the Summary Dashboard, you can click on the pending shift notification immediately underneath the greeting.


Pending shifts will appear here highlighted and in bold.

There are two ways to approve pending shifts. One is in the shift details section. You can access shift details by clicking on any pending shift. To approve a shift from here, simply click on the ‘Save and Approve’ button at the bottom of the pop-up window.

You can also approve multiple pending shifts at the same time. To do this, click on the box next to any shift you’d like to approve.

Screenshot showing how to approve pending shifts

You can also click on the box at the top of the table to select all the shifts on the current page.

Screenshot showing the box at the top of the table that allows you can select all the shifts on the current page

Once you’ve done this, the ‘Approve Shifts’ button becomes available. Simply click on the button and any selected shifts will be approved.

Managing Shifts

We’ve made it easy to view all of the information about the shifts in your account on our management dashboard, but you might see some symbols you don’t recognize. Here’s what they mean:

Logo indicating shift has been edited

Indicates that the shift has been edited, either by the employee (this can be turned on/off in Company Preferences) or by a user with the Manager role. If this icon is present, a change has been made to the shift after it was submitted. A change could include edits to either check in or check out time or edits to a break duration.

Logo indicating shift was submitted manually

Indicates that the shift was submitted manually. Manual shifts can be submitted by employees from the app (this can be turned on/off in Company Preferences) for a block of time without actually checking in and out for the shift. Manual shifts can also be submitted by managers on behalf of employees who may have forgotten to check in for a shift.

Logo indicating overtime was logged for this shift

Indicates that overtime has been logged for the shift. By moving your cursor over the icon, a tool tip will appear that specifies the total amount of overtime that has been calculated.

Logo indicating Live Notes are attached to this shift

Indicates that there are Live Notes attached to the shift. Live Notes allow for real-time communication and photo-sharing between employees, managers and other team members while a shift is open.

Editing Shifts

Now that you’ve added employees into the system, they might occasionally make a mistake when tracking their time. Here’s how to fix it:

Once in your account, click the Manage Shifts tab in the main menu bar. Here, you will see all shifts that have been completed and submitted by your employees. Shifts that are pending managerial approval are highlighted in bold.

Screenshot showing the Manage Shifts screen

Click on any row to see details about that specific shift. From here, you can make edits such as check in/out time, break time or the pay rate for that particular shift. Be sure to click the "Save" button after changes have been made.

Projects

Not only is Justworks Hours is an industry leader in mobile time tracking, but with Justworks Hours you can find out what your employees are doing during their shift with Projects. On the Justworks Hours web management dashboard, you can create new projects, edit existing project information, assign projects to your team, and mark a completed project as done. Finally, you can take all of the project data in your account and use Justworks Hours’s powerful reporting suite to view online, or extract as a CSV, all of you project data. Here’s how:

Creating a New Project

To add a new project to your account, click on the projects tab at the top of the page, and then click on the ‘Add Project’ button.

A new window will appear asking for details of your project. You’ll enter a name for your project, a description, and if desired, a job code.

By default, new projects are available to your entire team, so if you’d like to leave it that way, just click ‘Save’ or ‘Save and Add New’ and you’ll be all done.

If, however, you’d like this project to only be visible to some of your team, click on the ‘Employees’ tab. Under ‘Assignment’, uncheck the box that says make available to all.

From here you can make a project available to individual team members, or to departments within your organization (note that departments are only available on our Business tier subscriptions). Check whichever boxes are applicable and then click on ‘Save’.

Managing Existing Projects

From the Justworks Hours app, it’s also possible to edit, delete, or complete an existing project.

If you added a project to Justworks Hours that has since been completed, you can mark it as done so it no longer appears in your active projects list. Just click on the box next to the project(s) you wish to complete, and then click on the ‘Mark Done’ button.

If you’d like to view, or reopen a previously completed project, just switch the filter from ‘Open’ to ‘Done’, click on the project you’d like to reopen, and then click on the ‘Re-open’ button.

You can also delete a project from Justworks Hours, but doing so will remove that project from your account entirely. The project any associated data will be lost permanently.

Screenshot showing showing how to delete a project from Justworks Hours

You can also re-assign projects to individuals or entire departments within your organization (note: Justworks Hours Departments are only available on our Business Tier). To do this, see the instructions for creating a new project.

Please see the section on reporting to learn how to report on a project.

Locations

Shifts tracked in Justworks Hours are always tied to a location. There is no limit to the number of locations you can have in your account. So whether your team all works from the main office, or they are always on the go, moving back and forth between dozens, or even hundreds, of locations, Justworks Hours has you covered.

This section will cover how to add and manage your locations from the Justworks Hours website. For information on how to check-in to a location, or how to manage locations in the mobile app, please see our sections on Tracking Time or Admin Functions in the Mobile App.

To add a location, click on the ‘Locations’ tab and then ‘Add New Location’.

In the new window, you will first name your new location. You can name it anything you want but it should be something that your team will recognize and that easily differentiates it from other locations in your account.

Then select the country and enter the address, including the city, state, and ZIP for US locations. A phone number is optional. You can also set a billable rate for a location which can be used to generate an Invoice in the Reports section. Simply toggle the ‘Billing’ option from ‘No’ to ‘Yes’ and then enter the rate at which you wish to bill.

Then click either ‘Save’ to return to the ‘Locations’ tab or ‘Save and Add New’ to add additional locations.

You can also add locations to Justworks Hours without adding a physical address. You may want to do this to track the time your employees spend traveling between locations.

Reports

So far we’ve seen how Justworks Hours can track your workforce across times and locations. We’ve even seen how Justworks Hours can help tell the story of your workforce by sharing Notes and tracking Projects. Now we’d like to show you how Justworks Hours makes all of that information available to you through our easy-to-use reporting suite.

There are four types of reports you can create, review, and download in Justworks Hours.

  • Timesheets - This is a simple report that shows all approved shifts for each employee across a specified date range.

  • Projects - This report allows you to pull information on hours spent on Projects. You can view information for individual Projects or for the account as a whole, all across a custom date range.

  • Payroll - This report contains approved hours and pay rate information for all employees across a specified date range. It is a summary report that can be downloaded as a CSV and then uploaded into your payroll providers software. It supports both regular and overtime pay based on rules you set in the preferences menu.

  • Invoices - Because you can set locations in Justworks Hours as billable or non-billable, you can use this report to generate invoices for locations with billable hours. These invoices can be synced with QBO or sent directly to a customer for payment.

Timesheets Reports

To run a timesheet report, start by clicking on the ‘Reports’ tab. Now choose the date range for the timesheet report and then click run report.

This will generate timesheets with all approved shifts for all employees in your account for the specified date range. You can click on an individual row in the report to bring up timesheet details. This will include the date, location, check in and check out times, shift duration, break duration, pay rate and total pay for each approved shift during the specified range.

To download this report as a CSV, just click on the download button. You can also download multiple timesheets at once by using the multi-select tool on the main timesheets report page. Once you’ve clicked on the box next to at least one column, the download arrow in the top right of the screen will appear and you can click it to download reports.

Projects Reports

To view a report containing all of your project data, first click on the ‘Reports’ tab and then select Projects from the left hand side.

Next, specify the date range that you’d like included in the report and then select ‘Run Report’ or click on the download arrow to download the report as a CSV.

Once you’ve run the report, you can click on any row to view additional detail for a specific project.

Payroll Reports

To run a payroll report, click on the ‘Reports’ tab and then select ‘Payroll’ from the left hand side. Next, choose the date range using the datepicker and then click on ‘Run Report’. You can also click on the download button to export the report as a CSV.

The newly generated payroll report will be added to the top of the list of reports.

To view a report, simply click on the row of the report you wish to view. The payroll details will show you a breakdown of hours worked by each employee. (Note: Salary employees will display a dollar sign in all pay rate columns instead of rate information.

You can also view a detail report of each shift for the pay period by clicking on the ‘Shifts’ tab in the Payroll Details.

Invoices Reports

You can also use Justworks Hours to generate invoices for customers based on locations. So if you’re a roofing company and need to bill for a job, or a home health company that tracks hours by patient, you can use Justworks Hours to keep track of it all.

An invoice report is used to tell you how many hours your employees have spent at any location during specified date range.

If you’ll recall from the section on Locations, you can set any location as either billable (with a billable rate) or non-billable. If a rate is set as billable, we’ll multiply the billable rate by the hours spent on site for you so that you can provide your customer with an invoice.

To run an invoice report, you’ll first click on the ‘Reports’ tab and then the ‘Invoices’ button on the left side. Next, choose the date range for the Invoice Report. Then click on ‘Run Report’ or download directly.

After clicking on ‘Run Report’ you can choose whether to run the invoice report for all of your locations in Justworks Hours, or you can choose which locations to include.

Justworks Hours will generate a summary line for each location. You can click on any line to view the report in more detail.

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