How to Collaborate with Your Team on Shared Projects

Solo time tracking answers "where did my hours go?" Team time tracking answers a different set of questions: who's working on what right now, where does the team's capacity sit this week, and which projects are tracking against estimate? You need the same primitives (projects, tasks, tags) plus a few new ones: teams, roles, and permissions.

Team features live on the Pro plan, which includes a 30-day free trial (no credit card). Up to 50 team members on Pro; Enterprise extends that to 200.

#Teams and Roles

#What a Team Is

A group of users who share projects and (with the right permissions) see each other's tracked work. Useful structures:

• The whole company or a department
• A single client engagement
• A specific project group
• An office or location

#Three Roles

Pick the role per person based on how much trust the work needs, not how much trust the person has.

#Creating Your First Team

#Step 1: Open Team Management

1. Sign in to my.timesheet.io
2. Open Teams in the navigation
3. Click Create Team

#Step 2: Configure

• Team name: descriptive (the company, the department, the client)
• Description: optional, but helps when there are multiple teams
• Settings: defaults the team inherits

#Step 3: Save

The team exists. You're the Owner.

#Inviting Members

#Sending the Invitation

1. Open the team
2. Go to Members
3. Enter emails (one or many)
4. Set a role per invitee
5. Send

#What the Invitee Sees

An email with a link to accept. If they don't have a Timesheet account, the link walks them through creating one. After acceptance they show up in the Members list and can be assigned projects.

#Invitation Statuses

• Pending: sent, not accepted
• Accepted: joined
• Expired: timed out, resend if needed

#Shared Projects

#Creating a Team Project

1. Inside the team, open Projects
2. Click Create Project
3. Fill in name, description, hourly rate, defaults
4. Assign the members who should have access
5. Save

#Converting a Personal Project Into a Shared One

1. Open the project settings
2. Find Team or Sharing
3. Pick the team to share with
4. Configure member access
5. Save

The historical entries stay; from this point onward the project is shared.

#Project Access Levels

Per project, decide:

• Who can view: see entries and reports
• Who can track: add their own entries on this project
• Who can manage: edit settings, see all entries

#Permissions

#Per Member

For each team member:

• Project access: which projects they can see and track
• Data visibility: only own, all team data, or scoped to specific projects

#Salary Visibility

Control who can see rate and earnings:

Configure at team level or override per project.

#What Each Setting Is For

• Hidden: contractors who shouldn't see each other's rates
• Managers only: the standard business default
• All members: deliberately transparent cultures

#Live View

What the team is doing right now.

#Where It Lives

Inside the team, open Live View (or Team Status). Active members appear with current task, project, running duration, start time.

#List View

For office or remote teams:

• Member name and avatar
• Current project
• Current task description
• Running duration
• Start time

#Map View

For field teams:

• Members shown on a map
• Location updated from the task's location data
• Useful for dispatch, coordination, and "is anyone close to the client site?"

#When It Pays Off

• A morning glance instead of a check-in meeting
• Coordinating field workers across job sites
• Real-time capacity sense before promising a client deadline
• Quick "who's available?" without interrupting anyone

#Team Reports

#Aggregated

• Total team hours per period
• Hours per project across the team
• Hours per member
• Time-series comparison

#Per Member

As Manager or Owner:

• Individual allocation
• Project contributions
• Trends across weeks and months

#Exporting Team Data

CSV and Excel exports with filters for date, project, member. The Pro plan also supports API access, which is how you wire team data into a larger BI stack if you have one.

#Onboarding a Team Member Well

#Before You Send the Invite

1. Set up the projects they'll work on first
2. Decide their role: Manager or Member
3. Configure the visibility settings

#The Invite and First Day

1. Send the invitation with role and project context
2. Tell them which projects they'll work on and why
3. Five-minute walkthrough:
   • Start, pause, stop the timer
   • Switch projects on a running task
   • Add description and tags
4. Set expectations: how often to track, what level of detail

#A One-Page Team Guide

Write it once, keep it short:

• Project naming convention
• What goes in a task description
• Which tags to use and when
• Break and billable defaults
• Where to ask questions

#Permission Mistakes That Bite

#Too Much Access

All Members see all projects and earnings. Fix: keep Member role, assign per-project access, set salary visibility to Hidden or Managers only.

#Too Little Access

Members can't see projects they actually need. Fix: review project assignments. Five minutes per new project.

#Inconsistent Tracking

Some people log detailed entries, others log "worked on Acme". Fix: the one-page guide, plus a review by Manager once a quarter.

#Manager Overload

One Manager handling everyone. Fix: promote trusted Members to Manager for specific areas. Pro supports up to 50 users; you don't need one Manager for all of them.

#Troubleshooting

#"I can't see a project"

The Member needs to be assigned to it.

1. Owner or Manager opens the project
2. Adds the Member to the project access list
3. Member refreshes (or signs out and back in)

#"Member can't track time"

Check:

• Did they accept the invitation?
• Are they assigned to at least one project?
• Do they have "track time" permission on that project?

#"Invitation never arrived"

• Check spam and junk folders
• Verify the email is correct
• Resend
• Check the user doesn't already have an account on a different email

#"Can't see a team member's time"

• Verify your role (Manager or Owner)
• Check the project's permission settings
• Confirm the member has actually tracked time

#Summary

The team layer adds:

• Teams: shared groups with shared projects
• Roles: Owner, Manager, Member, with the right blast radius for each
• Shared projects: collaborative tracking, with per-project access
• Permissions: who sees what, including salary
• Live View: real-time status without a meeting
• Team reports: aggregated for management, granular for billing

Get the setup right once and the team's tracking becomes the same as one person's, just at a different scale. Pro plan, 30-day free trial.

#Where to Go Next

• Generate PDF invoices from team-wide tracked hours
• Connect to QuickBooks for team billing
• Connect to Zapier to automate team-level workflows