The Hour Timesheet Dashboard

What the dashboard is

The dashboard is the first screen you see when you sign in to Hour Timesheet. It’s the home base for your account — a single view that summarizes the state of timekeeping across your organization and gives you a launchpad into the rest of the application.

For an administrator, the dashboard answers one core question every morning: what needs my attention today? Rather than clicking through every employee record or every project to find out, the dashboard surfaces the items that are time-sensitive, out of compliance, or waiting on you.

Why it matters for DCAA compliance

Hour Timesheet is built for government contractors who must meet DCAA timekeeping requirements. That means daily time entry, audit-ready edit trails, supervisor approvals, and accurate labor distribution across contracts. A lot can go wrong if these obligations slip — a missed daily entry, an unapproved timesheet at period close, or a charge code applied incorrectly can each turn into an audit finding.

The dashboard exists so those risks surface early. Instead of discovering a compliance gap at the end of a pay period, you see it the same day it happens. The dashboard’s job is to make the state of your timekeeping program legible at a glance, every day.

What kinds of information the dashboard surfaces

The dashboard is organized around categories of information rather than a single feed. The exact arrangement may evolve as the product improves; the sections below describe the kinds of information an administrator should expect to find, not the literal panel names or layout.

Timekeeping status across your organization

A roll-up view of how the current period is progressing: how many employees have entered time today, how many timesheets are in draft, how many are submitted, and how many have been approved. This is the fastest way to spot employees who are falling behind on daily entry — the most common DCAA risk.

Items awaiting your action

Anything that requires an administrator decision is grouped together so you don’t have to hunt for it. Expect this to include timesheets or leave requests awaiting approval, along with other account-level items that have queued up since your last sign-in.

Recent activity and audit signals

Because DCAA requires a documented audit trail, the dashboard also surfaces recent activity of interest: timesheet edits made after initial submission, late entries, approvals that have just been recorded, and other events worth knowing about. You don’t need to review every entry — these signals are there so unusual patterns are hard to miss.

Period and deadline awareness

Period and deadline information is in context on the dashboard so the rhythm of the pay period is always visible. This matters most near period close, when the cost of an unapproved or incomplete timesheet is highest.

Quick navigation into the rest of the app

The dashboard is also a launchpad. From it, you can move directly into the areas you visit most often — employees, timesheets, projects, reports, and settings — without working through nested menus. Treat the dashboard as the hub of a hub-and-spoke layout: it tells you what needs attention, then takes you to the right place to act on it.

How to use the dashboard day to day

The dashboard supports a simple daily and weekly cadence.

Each morning, open the dashboard first. Scan timekeeping status to confirm yesterday’s entries are in. Clear any items awaiting your action. Note anything unusual in recent activity — it’s much easier to ask a quick question the same day than to reconstruct what happened a week later.

Mid-period, use the dashboard to confirm the period is on track. Are timesheets being submitted regularly? Are approvals keeping pace with submissions? Are charge codes being used correctly? Catching drift mid-period is far less disruptive than fixing it at close.

At period close, the dashboard becomes a checklist. Every outstanding item — unsubmitted timesheets, unapproved submissions, unresolved adjustments — is visible in one place. Closing the period cleanly is largely a matter of working that list to zero.

What the dashboard is not

The dashboard is intentionally a summary, not a workspace. It points you toward what needs attention; the work itself happens on the detailed screens it links to. If you find yourself wanting to do something complex from the dashboard — bulk-edit timesheets, run an ad-hoc report, configure a new project — that’s a signal to follow the link into the area built for it.

Where to go next

Once you’re comfortable with the dashboard, the next steps for a new administrator are usually:

• Configure how your team signs in. If your organization uses Microsoft 365 or Okta, set up Single Sign-On so users authenticate with credentials they already have.
• Review your account settings. Confirm timekeeping rules, pay periods, and approval workflows match your contracts.
• Set up your company profile. Make sure organizational details, contracts, and charge codes are configured before onboarding employees.

If you get stuck at any point, contact our support team at support@hourtimesheet.com.