This video opens the second block of the Leadtime onboarding series, designed for teams that already have the basics running in their daily workflow. The focus is on a critical topic: how to ensure time tracking is not just introduced but consistently enforced.
Leadtime provides several interconnected tools for this. First, you can set individual billable hours targets per employee, tailored to each role. These targets become visible in daily work through the time rings: the green ring fills with every billable hour, giving employees direct feedback without anyone needing to follow up.
The team calendar serves as your central management tool. Three views – Attendance, Time Tracking, and Billable – let you see at a glance how thoroughly your team documents their hours. Color codes (green, orange, red) instantly highlight gaps. Leadtime deliberately leverages social dynamics rather than surveillance: transparency creates a shared standard.
For employees who regularly forget to clock in, there are automatic reminders and the so-called Annoying Mode – a recurring popup that appears as long as no tracker is running. Additionally, observers (typically team leads) can be assigned to automatically receive notifications about irregularities with their team members.
The employee journal completes the picture: here you can document conversations about time tracking, record goal agreements, and set reminders to check on progress. Visible and internal entries ensure sensitive topics stay protected while shared agreements remain transparent.
Welcome to the second block of the Leadtime onboarding series.
If you're watching this video, your team should already be working with Leadtime for a while. The ticket system is being used, vacation and sick leave go through the system, time tracking basically works, and your project structure is in place.
Now it's about optimization. In this block, I'll show you how to get more out of Leadtime: better data, better reports, better decisions.
And we're starting with a crucial topic: enforcing time tracking consistently.
Time tracking only delivers value when it's complete.
Imagine your team only books 70% of their working time. The remaining 30% just disappears. When you then run reports, project profitability, team utilization, capacity planning, they're all based on incomplete data. And incomplete data leads to wrong decisions.
That's why it's so important not just to introduce time tracking, but to enforce it.
But here's the thing: it's not about control. It's about creating a culture where complete time tracking is the norm. Not because someone is watching, but because everyone understands why it matters, for the company and for themselves.
Leadtime gives you the right tools for this.
The first lever is clear goals. And the most important goal is: how many hours per day should be billable?
You'll find this setting under Your Company, then Employees, select the employee, and in the Basics tab under Working hours and salary.
Here you can set the daily billable hours. That's the target for productive, value-creating work.
Important: this value isn't the same for everyone. A developer working on client projects all day might have six hours as a target. A project manager with lots of internal meetings, maybe four. Support staff, depending on their role, three to five.
Once the goal is set, the employee sees it every day in their time rings. The green ring fills up with every billable hour. When it closes, the daily target is reached.
Simple but effective feedback. The employee sees where they stand, without anyone having to ask.
The team calendar is your most important tool for keeping track. You'll find it in the main menu under Team Calendar.
Here you can see at a glance how well your team is using time tracking. There are three views you can switch between on the right.
The Attendance view shows when employees clocked in and out. You can immediately see who regularly documents their attendance, and who doesn't.
The Time Tracking view shows hours booked to projects and tickets. Here you can tell if attendance time was actually documented. Big gaps between attendance and booked time are a warning sign.
The Billable view shows only billable hours. That's the hardest productivity indicator.
In all views, color codes help you. Green means: target reached or exceeded. Orange means: there are deviations, but still acceptable. Red means: significantly below target or no entries at all.
The team calendar deliberately uses social dynamics. When everyone sees how the team is performing, positive pressure emerges. Not as surveillance, but as a shared standard. Those falling behind notice it themselves. Those ahead get visible recognition.
This works, if you communicate it right. Make clear that it's not about control, but about transparency and mutual support.
Sometimes people need a little nudge. Leadtime offers automatic reminders for that.
You can set up notifications when employees didn't clock in the previous day. Or when they forgot to clock in this morning.
You'll find these settings either workspace-wide under General Settings, or individually per employee in the Basics tab.
And then there's Annoying Mode. The name says it all. When activated, a reminder pops up regularly as long as no Time Tracker is running. Every five minutes, every ten minutes, depending on the setting.
It sounds annoying, and that's the point. It makes not tracking more uncomfortable than tracking. After a while, starting the tracker becomes habit, just to get rid of the popup.
But be careful: Annoying Mode is a strong tool. Use it deliberately. For some employees, it's exactly right. For others, it can be demotivating. Talk to your team before activating it across the board.
In larger teams, you can't keep an eye on every employee yourself. That's what the Observer function is for.
You'll find it in the employee profile under Basics. There you can assign an Observer, typically the direct team lead.
The observer automatically gets notifications when something stands out with their team member. Missing check-ins, incomplete time entries, deviations from targets.
This way you can distribute responsibility for consistent time tracking across multiple shoulders. The team lead takes care of their team, you keep the overall view.
The final building block is the employee journal. You'll find it in the employee profile under the Journal tab.
Here you can document conversations about time tracking. If you notice someone regularly has gaps, address it, and record the conversation.
You can note goal agreements: "We agreed that starting next week, you'll use the Time Tracker consistently."
And you can set reminders. In two weeks, you'll get a notification to check if things have improved.
Each entry can be visible or internal. Visible entries can be read by the employee, good for shared agreements. Internal entries stay only for you and other admins, good for sensitive observations.
The journal creates accountability. Verbal agreements get forgotten. Documented agreements carry weight.
You now have the tools to enforce time tracking consistently in your team. Clear goals with billable hours, the team calendar for overview, automatic reminders and Annoying Mode, observers for distributed responsibility, and the journal for documented conversations.
Remember: time tracking isn't an end in itself. It's about better data for better decisions. The more complete your time tracking, the clearer the picture of your productivity.
In the next video, I'll show you how to use the ticket system professionally, with saved views, filters, and dashboard integration.
