3 Ways to Enter Time in Anvil
⬜ Intro
There are three ways to enter your time in Anvil. Click on Work List from the app home page to get started.
🟩 1 - Clock Icon
When you click on Work List from the home screen, in the next screen you will see a clock icon at the top-right (screenshot, below). This is one way to open the Time Entry window.
🔵 Entry Date
If you open the Time Entry window using this method, today’s date will show up at the top-right. All of your time entries for that date are listed in this window / Time Entry List. In the example below, no time entries have yet been made for this date.
If you want to enter time or view time entries for a different date, simply click on the date and adjust.
🔵 Entering Time for Direct Reports
It’s also worth noting that Supervisors (and in many cases, Lead Technicians and Coordinators) can also enter time on behalf Direct Reports, by clicking on their name at the top-left, and selecting from the list that pops up. The My Time List option is for entering time on the user’s own behalf.
Next, to add time, click on either Add Entry or Add Leave Entry (screenshot below).
If you’re a Supervisor, you can also Approve or Reject time entries for Direct Reports. Coordinators and Lead Technicians may also have this capability. These options are not available to the user if they are grayed out, like in the screenshot, below.
All of these options are found at the bottom of this Time Entry screen.
🔵 Add Leave Entry
If you want to enter Leave Time, we can do that from this Time Entry screen.
After you made sure the date (top-right) for the time entry is correct, click on Add Leave Entry at the bottom-left.
Clicking on Add Leave Entry will bring up the Leave Time Entry window.
If you didn’t change the date in the previous screen, you can do it in this screen by clicking in the date field and scrolling to the correct Month / Day / Year.
Next, click on the drop-down arrow for the Leave Code field and select the correct type of leave.
In the example below, I select HOLIDAY as the Leave Code and enter 8 Hours. I also add an optional Time Description. Hit Save to add the entry to your timecard, or Cancel or Close to back out of this screen without making the entry.
You may have noticed the Copy to Phase Note link. This feature doesn’t apply to Leave Time Entries since these entries are not tied to a Phase (because it’s not time worked). The idea is if you enter an optional Time Description for time worked on a specific Work Order / Phase, clicking Copy to Phase Notes is a quick and easy way to copy the description to the Phase Notes Log.
If you hit Save (after entering the Leave Code, Hours worked and optional Time Description), your time will be saved, and the Leave Time Entry screen will also reset for you to make another time entry. This process repeats until you are done making time entries and hit Close.
In this case, I only made the one Holiday time entry of 8 hours, and entered “Test” in the optional Time Description field. When I close out of the Leave Time Entry screen, we are back at the main Time Entry List window. The time entry we just created is now listed at the top, showing 8 Hours for Tuesday 1/21/25.
If you want to add more time, you can click on Add Entry for time worked or Add Leave Entry for more leave time. When you’re finished, click Close.
If you see the time entry listed as we do in this example (Holiday, 8 Hours), that means the time has been saved to your timecard. The Timecard Status of Not Posted simply means whoever is in charge of approving your timecard for this date has not approved it yet, but it is in their queue.
🔵 Add Entry
To add time worked, click on Add Entry at the bottom-left.
After clicking on Add Entry, the Time Entry screen for that will pop up. To enter time worked, you first need the Work Order (aka Proposal) and Phase numbers to enter into the respective fields at the top, before clicking Search to find the phase you want to enter time for.
Another way to enter time worked is by first opening the phase you want to enter time for, instead of clicking on the clock icon at the top-right (continued in the next section, Clock Icon - From Phase Details Screen)
🟩 2 - Clock Icon (from Phase Details Screen)
We will continue to cover regular time entries (Add Entry), but first let’s make a slight pivot to another way to open a Time Entry screen, because the process is the same, no matter where you access the time entry screen from.
If you’ve been following along, Close out of the Time Entry window and then the Time Entry List to back up to a Work List screen that lists your phases.
Next, click on a phase you want to enter time worked under, to open its Phase Details screen.
Clicking on a phase will open the Phase Details window. Click on the clock icon at the very bottom.
When you click on the clock icon, a window opens up with a list of time entries you’ve entered so far for this specific phase.
How the time entry screen from the Phase Details screen differs from the previous, general time entry screen
This Time Entry list is now for a specific work order (aka Proposal) and phase, instead of for a specific date. Next to the header (screenshot, below), “Time Entry,” is the work order / proposal number (25167866) followed by the phase (012).
This time entry screen is for the user entering their own time, and not time on behalf of Direct Reports. Approve and Reject time features are also not accessible from this screen.
You don’t enter Leave Time here, because time entered from the Phase Details should only be for work done on that specific Phase.
Towards the bottom of the Time Entry screen is the Add New Entry section. The Time Type defaults to Regular. Click on the drop-down arrow for the field to view the other available options.
Examples of other Time Type options include on-call, inclement weather (IWCH) and overtime (OT). Click on your selection.
The Labor Class field auto-populates according to your profile, and you won’t need to change that once it’s set up correctly. But if you click on the drop-down arrow, you can view all of the other values under this field.
Click on the Work Date field, directly on the date, to adjust it. Be sure you’re entering time under the correct date.
When you click in the Work Date field, you can Select the Work Date you’re entering time for, by scrolling to the correct month, day and year. Notice the day of the week appears in light gray at the bottom-center of the pop up screen, depending on the date you choose. Click Done to make your date selection, or click on Cancel to back out of this pop up.
🔵 Optional Time Description
The Time Description is optional, meaning you are able to make time entries while leaving this blank (check with your manager to see what they prefer).
Click on the drop-down arrow next to the Action Taken field. If nothing happens, that means there are no options. You may also notice when that’s the case, the field is also slightly grayed out compared with the other fields.
🔵 Optional Phase Notes
You can also add a note to the Phase Notes Log. This is also optional. Click on the Note Type drop-down arrow to help describe the type of note you’re adding to the phase Note Log. When the Phase Note is filled out, it gets copied to the Notes Log for the phase you’re entering time for.
Click on a Note Type from the drop-down menu.
🔵 Copy to Phase Notes
If you entered a Time Description and want to copy it over to the Phase Note field instead of entering something different in that field, you can click Copy to Phase Note. This will copy what you entered into Time Description into the Phase Note field.
Again, when the Phase Note is filled out, it gets copied to the Notes Log for the phase you’re entering time for.
🔵 Differentials
If the work you performed for this time entry falls under one of the four categories listed under Differentials, click on the check box under the correct option. In many cases, for regular work, you won’t check any of these.
If the type of work performed falls under one of these categories, you are entitled to additional hourly pay. Check with your manager for a full description of differentials.
🔵 Time Entry Values
Lastly, don’t forget to enter the time worked in the Hours field.
In this example, I entered 4 hours. When you are finished, click Save to add your time entry.
Once you hit Save, you will see your entry added to the top portion of the Time Entry screen. Because I clicked on Essential under Differentials, there is one line with 4 hours at the regular rate, and an additional line with the same 4 hours entered at the Essential rate that’s added on.
If I didn’t select a Differential rate, only the Regular time entry would be listed.
Repeat the steps above to create additional entries, or hit Close to return to the Phase Details window.
🔵 Notes Log & WO Notes
When we were creating the time entry earlier, we opted to enter notes in the optional Phase Notes field. That note is added to the Notes Log, and can be viewed by clicking on Notes Log in the Phase Details screen.
When you click on the Notes Log link, the Phase Notes window opens up. The last listed note in the screenshot below is what we entered via the Time Entry feature, earlier. Click Close when done viewing the Phase Notes.
That same note is automatically added to the WO Notes, for the work order this phase is attached to.
When you click on WO Notes, a window called Header Notes pops up. Anything added to the phase Notes Log is also added here, because it’s relevant to the work order under which the phase is linked.
🟩 3 - Add Time by Left-Swiping on a Phase
Outside of the Phase Details screen, another way to access the Time Entries feature is by left-swiping a listed phase from a phase listing screen, and then clicking on Add Time on the right.
When you click on Add Time, the exact same Time Entry screen pops up. You can add time with all the same options we had when entering time by clicking on the clock icon at the bottom of the Phase Details screen as we did earlier.
⬜ Conclusion
If you carefully read through the material above, you now know how to navigate Anvil’s Work List module to use both the Add Leave Entry and Add Entry features for adding time to your timesheet, including what Differentials are.
We also learned about the option for adding time entries on behalf of Direct Reports and the Approve / Reject feature for the Supervisor / Lead Technician / Coordinator role.
We very briefly touched on the Phase Notes Log and WO Notes features and how those notes can be added to when making a time
entry.
We also covered the 3 ways to enter time in Anvil, and the differences between them (see table summary, below).
3 Ways to Enter Time in Anvil (Summary) | ||
|---|---|---|
🟩 1 - Clock Icon (Top-Right of Screen) | 🟩 2 - Clock Icon (Phase Details Screen) | 🟩 3 - Left-Swipe on a Phase |
Enter time by specific date | Enter Time by the Work Order/Phase | Same as method 2 |
Manually enter Proposal/Work Order and Phase number. | Don’t need to enter Proposal/Work Order and Phase numbers, because the entry is created from the phase. | |
Enter leave time | Leave time isn’t entered on a Phase-specific time entry screen. | |
Enter time on behalf of Direct Reports and Approve/Reject time | Enter time on the user’s behalf only. | |