My company, HMS Software, just released a brand new version of our keystone product, TimeControl. That’s great news of course and you can read all about it at HMS at: www.timecontrol.com/features/latest but what went into this development and release has our company thinking about development quite differently and so this post is more about how software development philosophies are evolving. It’s certainly a watershed moment for us. TimeControl has been a browser-based product since 1999…
We get calls at our office reasonably often that start like this: “We need a project management system,” the caller asks. “What kind of project management system do you need?” we reply. “You know,” the caller says somewhat frustrated at our questions, “the kind of system that manages projects.” There are, of course many different kinds of project management systems. Given that we spend so much of our life at HMS in the enterprise timesheet…
I’m often asked to help organizations define their charge code structure, either for their project management system or their timesheet system. While it’s true that every organization is different and different needs result in different types of charges, there are some common practices we’ve found over the years that are universal. Ask less, not more No one likes bureaucracy, so the more complex a charge code structure you make, the less likely it will be…
With the advent of TimeControl version 6.9, Administrators can now configure TimeControl to have timesheets other than a 7 day week. Of course exports from TimeControl could already be of different intervals. It has been common for years to have a weekly integration with the project management system but a bi-weekly link to payroll. Timesheets could now be 14 days long (bi-weekly) or bi-monthly or monthly or quarterly or custom length. But with all that…
HMS received a great letter recently from Sandoz, a world leading pharmaceutical firm. Six years ago, one of Sandoz’s divisions in Canada deployed TimeControl to help with R&D tax credit tracking. Marianne Raiche of Sandoz tells the story in this letter which you can read it for yourself at: www.timecontrol.com/why-timecontrol/testimonials/sandoz. A list of other testimonials is available on the new testimonial and case study area of the TimeControl website at: www.timecontrol.com/why-timecontrol/testimonials. We’ve got the best…
It’s been a busy time in the development department here at HMS since last summer. Last week we released TimeControl 6.9 which marks a major change in how TimeControl timesheets can be configured. Here are more details on the new and enhanced features available in this version: Variable Length Timesheet This is a major evolution in how timesheets are defined in TimeControl. Now, you can select from a number of different lengths of timesheet to…
It’s been a crazily busy time at HMS the last few weeks. We’ve welcome a wave of new clients, started big initiatives with some existing clients and of course there’s no stop to the regular work load. Amongst our biggest news is the release of TimeControl 6.7. I had always known that this last wave of removing ActiveX components from TimeControl would be the most challenging. There were so many things under the surface that…
We’ve just published another free solutions portal on the TimeControl.com website designed to share best practices on timesheet usage to all. The portal is free.
HMS has just released TimeControl Industrial version 6.4. This is a major upgrade to TimeControl Industrial and brings Industrial’s Field Data Collection functionality together with our great TimeControl 6 architecture..
I’ve been doing some writing and the result is an all-new white paper which is available on the TimeControl.com website. The paper is entitled The Timesheet Approvals Challenge and shows how organizations end up selecting more than one timesheet despite themselves thanks to how the approvals functionality has been purpose-designed in most timesheets.