Enable Time Tracking for Employees

How do I enable Time Tracking for my employees?

Purpose: This guide explains how to enable BambooHR Time Tracking for the employees who need to track their hours worked. This guide explains how to enable Time Tracking for individual employees and multiple employees in bulk.

Table of Contents

Are you using a BambooHR Time Clock? If so, you must enable Time Tracking for your employee before adding them to your time tracking device. If you are using a BambooHR Time Kiosk, the employees will automatically sync to your device.

Criteria for adding an employee to BambooHR Time Tracking

To add an employee to BambooHR Time Tracking, they must meet all of the following four conditions:

  1. The employee must have access to BambooHR.
  2. The employee must have a pay schedule assigned.
  3. The employee must have a hire date in BambooHR.
  4. The employee must have an active Employment Status in BambooHR.

Enable Time Tracking from the employee profile

To enable BambooHR Time Tracking for an individual employee through their employee profile, navigate to the action menu in the top right corner of their profile, hover your cursor over Time Tracking, and select Enable Time Tracking.

In the pop-up box, select whether you would like to enable Time Tracking for this employee immediately* or wait until the start date of one of the next three pay periods. Once you make your selection, click Save.

If you enable Time Tracking immediately, the employee can automatically start tracking hours worked for all days in the current pay period, including any previous days in the pay period. 

*If an employee has a future hire date that matches their compensation effective date, you will see their hire date instead. The three pay period start dates correspond to the three pay periods starting after the employee's hire date.

If you schedule the start date as a future pay period, you can see when Time Tracking will start through the action menu.

Once you enable Time Tracking for the employee, the Timesheet tab will show on their employee profile.

Enable Time Tracking for multiple employees from the Employees tab

To enable Time Tracking for multiple employees at once, navigate to Settings and select Time Tracking. Then click Add Employees to choose which employee(s) you would like to enable Time Tracking for.

Step 1

  1. Filter: If you want to enable time tracking for all employees within a specific department, location, pay type, etc., use the filter to select a subset of employees.
  2. No Pay Schedule: If an employee does not have an assigned pay schedule, you cannot enable Time Tracking for them until you add them to an active pay schedule.
  3. Select Employees: Click on an employee's name and use Shift or Command to select multiple employees at a time. Then, click on the arrow to move the employees into the selected section.

If you do not see the employee in the Add Employees list, make sure they meet the necessary criteria to have Time Tracking enabled.

Step 2

Once you have selected employees, you can decide to enable Time Tracking for them immediately or as of a future date.

  1. Immediately: This option will immediately give them access to track hours worked.
    • If an employee shows with a future hire date and you click Immediately, Time Tracking will be enabled for them as of their future hire date. This is only true if the employee's hire date and compensation effective date are the same.
  2. Schedule Start Date: Clicking Schedule Start Date will enable Time Tracking for the selected employees as of a future date. If you choose this option, determine when Time Tracking should start for each pay schedule. You can select a pay period start date from one of the next three pay periods.
    • If an employee has a future hire date that matches their compensation effective date, you can select their hire date to schedule Time Tracking.

Step 3

The last step is to verify the enablement of Time Tracking for the employees you have selected.

Once you have enabled Time Tracking for your employees, you will see a list of all employees with Time Tracking enabled. If an employee has a scheduled start date, you will see that date right below the employee's name.

If you need to edit the start date, hover your cursor over the employee's name and click on the calendar icon. Or, click Change All Start Dates at the top to change all employees' scheduled Time Tracking start dates. 

You will only see Hire Date as an option if all employees with a future start date have the same hire date. Otherwise, you will need to go to the specific employee's profile to update their start date to their hire date.

The Overtime State or Province determines the overtime rules applied to a specific employee's timesheet. If an employee is exempt, the system will not calculate overtime for the employee.

Enable Time Tracking for multiple employees in a group

To add employees to Time Tracking group-by-group, navigate to the group and select Add Employees. Then, follow the modal to determine who to add and when they can start tracking hours worked. If you have not created additional Time Tracking groups, all your employees will be added to the default group.

Did you know we have a BambooHR Learning course about setting up Time Tracking and rolling it out to employees? Click here to learn more about what is included in this course. 

The following links will take you to one-page downloads you can share with your employees on how to add hours in BambooHR.

Additionally, click here to access a presentation you can use for rolling out Time Tracking to your employees.