Software for Managing Timesheets?

An anonymous reader asks: "I currently work as a help desk supervisor for the IT department of a Top 30 American university. We have around 40 graduate and undergraduate students manning our support areas at different times of the day and night, and a recent augmentation of our budget has us in the position to hire more. We still do our master schedule with a moderately complex Excel file, our time sheets are submitted online using a webpage, and our workers' clock in and out with a separate webpage which gives us reports that we import into yet another spreadsheet. Needless to say, our current, time-consuming method is rather clunky and has us looking at alternatives. What existing systems are out there that might fill our needs? What systems should we avoid?"

Comments

Timesheets always the problem

[jellomizer]

Well first we don't need all this stuff to make you feel super important. About the Top 30 American University. Top 30 or Bottom 10 University, Company, Government Agency, Non-Profit organization.... All can have completely sucky IT Infrastructure. So you are not impressing us. But timesheet are always a problem. I would avoid any 3rd party canned software package Open Source or Not. They are more problem then what they are worth. The Cheap ones normally don't have features that you need. The ones that do have features on what you need are so big and hard to use that it is not worth it, over a large period. So just spend the money and get one custom written to your specs. If you don't have one consultants can help write the specs (which will cost more money). But being that you are at a Top 30 University I would expect that you would have a teams of Slave labor err... Um... Bright Eyes, Eager, and talented students. Who is willing to do the bulk of the coding for meager spending money Err... Um... Tuition Reimbursement and experience. Coming up with good specs for the product is actually a lot harder then getting good programmers to make it. You will need to discuss with the people are are entering in time, see what they like and what they don't like and as well the people who are doing something with the time, what they like and don't like. Then you will need someone to take all the considerations and balance all the requests and come up with something that is better then what it was before. But remember not all requests should be put into the program, only ones that really important or makes the process much easier. If you go down the lines of making everyone 100% happy you will create a product that sucks and noone likes.