Lock time periods

An essential aspect of time tracking from a manager’s perspective is the ability to lock past periods for editing. This feature allows managers to prevent modifications, such as adding, changing, or deleting worklogs for specific historical time periods. This is critical for ensuring accurate and consistent time reporting. Once data has been finalized, for example by generating an invoice or exporting time entries to an HR system, further changes should be restricted to maintain reliable data.

You must be an Admin to lock time periods.

Watch the video

The following video introduces the lock time period feature.

An essential aspect of time tracking from a manager's perspective is the ability to lock past periods for editing. This feature allows managers to prevent modifications, such as adding, changing, or deleting worklogs for specific historical time periods. This is critical for ensuring accurate and consistent time reporting. Once data has been finalized, for example, by generating an invoice or exporting time entries to an HR system, further changes should be restricted to maintain reliable data. Locking past periods in 7pace TimeTracker for Jira is an action that is performed and managed by admins. Use the following steps to manage and lock time periods. Click Settings > Time Periods > Create Schedule. First, define a Cadence. Here, there are three options, Weekly, Every 2 Weeks, and Monthly, Then select a Start date. In this example, the start date is July 1st. After defining the first period, subsequent periods are automatically generated. Likewise, if the Cadence is set to Monthly and the Start date is set to July 15th, the next new time period begins on August 15th. Note that for Monthly cadences, the Start date cannot be set to the 29th, 30th, or 31st of the month since these dates don't exist in every month. Save the schedule. Now, from the Time Periods link in the left-hand pane, the defined time period is visible. Note that past time periods will also be displayed, and the most recent one will be at the top of the page. Click the Lock Time button. The Lock Time window displays and alerts you that time will be locked for everyone. To proceed, click Yes, lock time. Now, the Time Periods page displays the period as locked, the date it was locked, and the admin who locked the time. And when you click the link to the Times Explorer, locked worklogs can no longer be edited. This lock applies to all views, including Monthly, Weekly, Times Explorer, and Item View. The Split Time Periods feature is beneficial to teams who require weekly time period locking, but operate on a monthly billing cycle. In this scenario, a weekly time period that begins on Monday can be automatically split at the end of the month. For example, the weekly time period would begin on Monday, July 28th, but would be automatically split on the last day of the month, a Thursday. To summarize, the ability to define time periods and lock them ensures accuracy and consistency in time reporting.

Manage time periods

Use the following steps to define a time period:

Click the Approval Periods link in the left-hand pane.
A message displays alerting you that time periods have not been defined. Click Go to App Settings.
The Manage Time Periods page displays. Click Create schedule.
Define a Cadence. There are three options:
1. Weekly
2. Every 2 weeks
3. Monthly
Select a Start date. In the example below, the Start date is July 1. After defining the first period, subsequent periods are automatically created. In this example, the next monthly period would begin on August 1.
Click Save schedule.

A monthly cadence cannot begin on the 29th, 30th, or 31st of the month, since these dates don’t exist in every month of the year.

After saving the time period, a summary is displayed.

After clicking save, a summary of the time period displays.

Lock and unlock time periods

After defining a time period using the steps above, it can be locked and unlocked from the Time Periods page. Here, past time periods will also be displayed, and the most recent one will be at the top of the page.

Lock time periods

Use the following steps to lock a time period:

Click the Lock time button.
The Lock time window displays and alerts you that time will be locked for everyone.
Click Yes, lock time.
The Time Periods page displays the period as locked, the date it was locked, and the admin who locked the time. Now, time is locked in every view, including Monthly, Weekly, Timesheet, the Times Explorer, and Item View. Worklogs can no longer be edited.

Unlock time periods

Use the following steps to unlock a time period:

From the Time Periods page, click Unlock time.
The Unlock Time window displays, alerting you that time will be unlocked for everyone.
Click Yes, unlock time.
Worklogs from the specified time period can now be edited.

Split time periods

The Split time periods feature is beneficial to teams who require weekly time period locking, but operate on a monthly billing cycle. In this scenario, a weekly time period that begins on Monday can be automatically split at the end of the month. For example, the weekly time period would begin on Monday, July 28th, but would be automatically split on the last day of the month, a Thursday.

A completed weekly time period that is automatically split on the last day of the month.