Understanding Task Reporting Tools

You will use a group of task oriented tools to define your organization's task reporting requirements:

Term	Definition
Task Entities	In Time and Labor, a task represents work assigned to a time reporter, and is represented by a combination of task entities. Task entities, also called task elements, are the specific types of task data you can capture when time is reported: customer, task, product, project, activity, company, combo code, department, business unit, job code, position number, location code, and up to five user-defined categories. Additional task entities are available if you're using Project Costing with Time and Labor.
Task Template	Task templates control the task fields that appear on the time reporting pages. They also control what task data your time collection devices (TCDs) collect from time reporters. You select the task entities you want the members of a taskgroup to report their time to—company, department, or project, for example—through the task template. You also identify whether each type of information is required or optional.
Task Profile	Task profiles enable you to select task values for the task entities defined on your task template. You select the values for each task entity that's defined on a task template. For example: Project: PS Payroll Activity: Sales Department: Marketing Business Unit: USA You also specify how reported time is to be allocated across tasks: by percentage, quantity, or equally. You can create multiple task profiles from the same task template. When time is entered or generated for a time reporter who uses task profile reporting, the system refers to the task profile to determine which task values to assign or allocate − limiting the data the time reporter needs to enter. Note: Task profiles provide one way to supply values for task entities. Time reporters can also positively report task values if they use task template reporting, rather than task profile reporting.
Taskgroup	A taskgroup identifies the valid, default time reporting templates, task template, and task profile(s) for time reporters with the same task reporting requirements. Each time reporter must be associated with one taskgroup, but the taskgroup assignment can be overridden when reporting time.

To summarize:

• Each time reporter is assigned to a taskgroup.

• Each taskgroup is linked to a task template that identifies the types of task information the taskgroup members can report.

• Each taskgroup also specifies one or more task profiles that taskgroup members can use.

• Taskgroup members can report time through the use of task profiles or can report time to the individual task entities that are defined on a task template.

This diagram represents the relationships between time reporters, taskgroups, task templates, and task profiles.