Harvest

Logging your time is an important part of your day at Make Do. All team members need to track time spent on client projects and personal time to ensure we can evidence our work.

How do we log time?

We use Harvest to track time. You can do this directly in the browser or use the mobile or desktop app.

Basic Time Tracking Guide

1. Do NOT use the Harvest Timer for any time tracking
2. Track your hours manually for each task you perform
3. ALWAYS leave a note on the task explaining what the hours relate to, be as descriptive as possible when doing this, failure to leave a task note will result in a log being invalidated and further requests for information slowing down our weekly reporting process
4. Ensure you log time in the correct Project in Harvest, if you are unsure ask a question in the relevant Slack channel
5. Ensure you log all time by the end-of-the day, each day (between 5-6pm) or at very least before the next day’s morning Standup (9:30am)
6. A reminder to track time will be brought up as part of Daily Standup and the ‘Team’ view in Harvest will be used to gauge who is behind
7. Any team members who require assistance tracking time will be offered a 1:1 session to assist in tracking useful and correct data
8. When tracking time aim to use a mixture of actual time spent and the estimated time for delivery to give a good representation of the time you log
9. Do NOT use the ‘approval’ system in Harvest, it does not function within our system
10. Weekly time logs will be reviewed at the end of each week during the Friday Retro and Kick Off meetings
11. Failure to track time for more than 3 days will result in management intervention
12. Do not track any annual leave or travel time but continue to add the relevant non-billed ‘Admin’ time for internal meetings etc.

Never use the Harvest Timer

The automatic timer in Harvest should never be used, as it can lead to unrealistic and incorrect records being added to your log.

You must track your time to reflect the entire duration spent on the task. For example, using a timer to simply record when you started and finished a fix for a client likely excludes time spent communicating with them on the support desk, preparing for the fix, or conducting any additional investigation into related tasks.

Therefore, you should always account for the actual time spent and log it manually in Harvest with clear notes.

What should you log?

Everything that you work on! All client work should be logged as well as time spent on any R&D or ‘internal’ projects. Always remember to log time in meetings, and time travelling to events etc.

Why is this so important to track time?

A large percentage of our customers use our Flexible Package product which is a retainer-style service where hours are bought in bulk. It is essential that time is logged against these client projects to ensure reliable data for reporting time used.

What about non-client work etc?

The setup that we have in Harvest allows for any ‘admin’ or ‘general’ work to be added to the ‘Make Do’ client. This is our ‘fallback’ state for things like internal meetings, general admin, whatever!

See ‘Logging Non-Client Work’ further down in this guide for more info on when tracking ‘Make Do’ time…

Tracking Client Work

In Harvest, everything is called a ‘Project’ this can be confusing – to make things easier all client work is broken down into the following structure…

Projects, SLAs, Retainers and Non-Billible

There are 4 definitions to all client work in Harvest:

1. Projects

These have the word ‘Project’ followed by the client name and then the specific project name in the title, for example:

2. Retainers

These are our flexible packages / retainers and the most common way to work with clients when needing to track time. These are named as follows:

With a retainer package all time is tracked under a single ‘retainer’ per-client like this. This makes it very important that when tracking work you use the ‘Notes’ feature in Harvest to explain what you worked on.

3. SLAs

These are Service Level Agreements, basically, support contracts which renew monthly and have a fixed amount of hours. Time dedicated to general support, maintenance and unplanned work should be tracked against these. They are named similar to retainers:

4. Non-Billable

An important part of time tracking is to log time spent that may not be billed to the client. There are many examples of this and it may be that tasks logged in SLAs or Retainers would be ‘moved’ into this by the account or project manager on the account.

In general only use Non-Billable when you make a mistake or are doing a clear ‘favour’ for a client. If unsure, ask your manager or the project manager. In Harvest look for:

Important: If you are still unsure about which Project to track time against for work you have done then simply track the time against what you feel is the most relevant project – this can easily be edited later by the Project Manager.

If in doubt…

Look at the ‘Starfleet Academy’ client – this is an example client in Harvest to provide a guide.

Defining Your Task

Each project will have a pre-defined list of Tasks that you must select before you can log time. Think of these as ‘Categories’ for your work and try to select the most relevant option.

Some tasks such as ‘QA & Testing’ or ‘Development’ are obvious but others, for example ‘Consultancy and Advice’ are not. If you are unsure then consult with your Manager or a Senior Engineer.

Adding Notes

Notes are the most important part of time tracking and you must add notes to all of your logged time. Notes to not have to be detailed or even more than a couple of words but you MUST always add notes to your time log.

Example of ‘Client’ logging 'Billed' time:

Logging Non-Client Work (Make Do)

Once you are done with client work it is important to add in any ‘gaps’ in your day that was spent on things like internal meetings, training, etc.

If you are working on non-client tasks such as admin work, learning, R&D or anything else then you need to log your time using the ‘Make Do’ client which is listed in Harvest:

When should you log your time?

Track your time throughout the working day and have the Harvest app or website open and ready to log time as-and-when the work is done.

If you prefer to keep a manual log of what you did throughout the day and then add this to Harvest at the end of the day this is also fine but you must aim to log your time either at the end of each day or at the latest by the next morning.