Time tracking at NML

Purpose

Time tracking is the lifeblood of our business and one of the most important things for you to get done on a daily basis. At NML we track time using a tool called Harvest.

We bill our clients by the hour which makes time tracking at NML, essential. It’s the only way we know how much to bill our clients.

It’s essential that you track your time as accurately as possible, and do not guess - this may have a financial impact on the business and/or the client. An example would be, overcharging a client which could be damaging to our relationship.

We have put together some guidelines to help you better understand how to track time at NML.

Billable:

• As far as possible link time logs to a work item, i.e. make use of the time tracker on DevOps

Development:

• There will be no differentiation in tasks with regards to “Front-end”, Back-end” “Junior”, “Intermediate” and “Senior” development going forward. Should they need to, Project Managers will filter by name for billing purposes.
• Code Review, Pull Requests, E-mails, “New Developer / Environment Set-up”, “Assistance to Team”, “Technical Debt”, “Bug Fixing” and “Debugging” will all fall under development. Employees are encouraged to make notes in the comments section.
• Research for a certain task.

Deployments:

• This is applicable to all environments and includes debugging during deployments.

Meetings:

• This includes all work-related meetings.
• A note about the type of meeting should be made in the comment section: “Stand-up”, “Sprint Planning and Retro”, “Client Meetings”, “Conference Calls” and “Demos”.

Business Analysis:

• This will be used by the Business Analyst and Team Leads and replaces tasks such as “document creation”, “document review” and “architectural work”

Project Management:

• This is for the use of employees who are appointed as Project Managers.
• This includes time Project Managers spent on e-mails and client calls.

Design:

• This is for the use of employees who are appointed as Designers.

Testing:

• This is for the use of employees who are appointed as Testers.
• Developers should log their testing time to their relevant development ticket.

Non Billable

• Log "non-billable" time to NML

Leave:

• Leave taken will all fall under "Leave" in Internal. Employees are to make a note in the comments section.
• Public Holiday still has its own task.

Team building:

• Teambuilding outings during the year.
• Team lunch organised by your Project Manager

Admin:

• Timesheets, completing leave forms.

Training:

• Skills development or research not related to a specific task.

Working hours:

• 40-hour work week needs to be maintained (8-hour day) on your timesheets.
• Time spent on internal items needs to be logged (see non-billable items above). Your 8 hours might thus not be actual client billable time.
• Core office hours are between 09:00 and 16:00. An 8-hour day still applies. You can learn more about our working hours here.
• Lunch is excluded from your 8-hour work day and is NOT to be logged on your timesheets