Formatting Profiles

Time cockpit's graphical calendar is designed to provide you with an instant overview about how you spent your time. With formatting profiles you can define conditional formatting rules that control how time sheet entries are displayed in the graphical calendar. You can configure the text that time cockpit displays in the header and footer of time sheet entries in the calendar. Additionally, you can define the background color of time sheet entries. Here are some examples for situation in which conditional formatting might be useful:

  • Display billable and non-billable time sheet entries in two different colors to get a quick visual feedback about the ratio of billable time.
  • Display incomplete time sheet entries (e.g. entries without project assignment) in red. You will easily discover them at the end of the month when you have to complete your time sheet.
  • Display all time sheets with the word "travel" in the description in a specific color. When you create your travel expense reports, you will easily find time sheet entries related to travels.

While conditional formatting for individual time sheet entries provides instant feedback about the status of each single entry, you might also need an overview about the structure of your work for an entire day, week, or month. Time cockpit provides this in the navigation pane of the calendar. Based on the conditional formatting rule used for background colors, you will get a bar chart showing you the allocation of your work. The KPI (key performance indicator) used in the bar chart is customizable. You can use any numeric field in time sheet records (e.g. duration in hours, revenue) when defining the formula for the KPI. Here are some examples for situation in which you might want to use the bar charts:

  • You need to know on which projects you spent most of your time in a certain week? Time cockpit can display a bar chart with the total working hours per project.
  • You need to know the number of billable hours vs. non-billable hours? Time cockpit can show you a bar chart with two data bars: billable hours and non-billable hours.
  • You need to get an overview on how much money you have earned with each customer in a certain month? Time cockpit can display a bar chart with the revenue per customer.

Formatting Profiles in the Time Sheet Calendar

Formatting profiles influence three areas in the time sheet calendar:

  • In the navigation pane (left) you see the bar charts mentioned above, you configure the formatting profiles, and select the currently active profile.
  • In the main area of the calendar the active formatting profile specifies how time cockpit generates caption and footer texts as well as background color of time sheet entries.
  • Template bookings in the navigation pane are also colored based on the currently active formatting profile.

Billable formatting profile

Formatting Profile Settings

Edit Formatting Profiles

You configure the settings for formatting profiles in the navigation pane in the left area of the time sheet calendar. Select a formatting profile you want to edit and click the ✏️ icon.

Edit formatting profile

The configuration dialog for formatting profiles consists of three areas:

  • General settings
  • Key figure (used for bar charts)
  • Color settings

Edit formatting profile dialogue"

General Settings

In the general settings for formatting profiles you can specify the following settings:

Name

Note that the name field can contain an expression. In this case it has to start with an equal sign ("=") to indicate that the value is not a constant string but an expression. Typically you will enter a constant string in the name field. The only exception is the need for a name that is different for each language. In this case you could use the :Translate function in the name expression.

Enter an expression that is used to get the caption and footer texts for a time sheet entry in the calendar. Use Current to access the displayed time sheet entry. You can access all properties and relations of APP_Timesheet.

Examples:

  • Current.Description display the description of the time sheet entry in the calendar
  • Current.Description + ' (' + Current.Project.Description + ')' display the description of the time sheet entry concatenated with the description of the associated project
Note

Note that the description could contain a constant string, too. However, in practice you will mostly use a formula.

Expression for Grouping Time Sheet Entries (Optional)

Enter an expression that returns a string. Time cockpit will generate a row for each distinct value and calculate the aggregated key figure for it.

Examples:

  • :Iif(Current.Billable=True, 'Billable', 'Not Billable')
  • :Current.Project.Description
  • :Iif(Current.Billable=True, :Translate('FormattingProfile.Billable.Billable'), :Translate('FormattingProfile.Billable.NotBillable'))
Note

Do not return a color code or the name of a color. The color is assigned later in the configuration (see below). In this step we only need the caption for the bar chart row. Note that you can use the :Translate function if you need to support different languages.

Display Formatting Profile for

Select a specific user (e.g. yourself) if you want the formatting profile to be only displayed for that user. If you select no user, the formatting profile is available to all users in the account.

Key Figure Section

The key figure section allows you to specify which key figure should be used in the bar chart.

Expression For Key Figure

Enter an expression for the key figure that should be used to generate the bar chart. Use Current to access the displayed time sheet entry. You can access all properties and relations of APP_Timesheet.

The key figure will be aggregated for all distinct values of the grouping expression (see above). In our example (see screenshots), time sheet entries are grouped into two distinct groups: billable entries and non-billable entries. The specified key figure is APP_DurationInHours. Therefore you will get two bars in the chart that show the number of billable and non-billable hours.

Examples:

  • Current.APP_DurationInHours
  • Current.APP_Revenue

Format Pattern For Key Figure

Enter a format pattern used to display the aggregated key figure.

Examples:

  • #,##0.00 h
  • #,##0 EUR

Show Key Figure in Percent

If you check this checkbox, you will not see the absolute value of the aggregated key figure besides the bars but the percentage. In the tooltip you will always see both the value in percent and the absolute value. The format pattern (see above) is only used for the absolute value.

Use Planned Hours of Work as Base For Percentage

You can only check this checkbox if you have chosen to show the key figure in percent. It specifies that the base value of the percentage is not the sum of all key figures values but the planned hours of work for the selected month, week, or year. If you have worked 27 hours on the third workday of a month and 24 of them are billable, you have 100% billable hours assuming that you plan to work eight hours per day. If you do not use the planned hours of work as base, you only have 88% billable hours out of 27 hours. This option only makes sense if you use a key figure that returns hours. For key figures like APP_Revenue that return an amount of money, the calculated percentage would not make sense.

Formatting profile key figures

Color Settings

The colors section allows you to assign colors to the distinct values of the grouping expression. You do not need to specify a color for each value. Time cockpit will automatically pick a color for each value whenever it needs one for the calendar. The automatically assigned colors may change each time you start time cockpit. If you always want to get the same color for a specific value, you have to assign it manually.

Formatting profile colors