The Time dashboard (Calendar view)

todo.vu’s Time dashboard (or calendar view) makes it easy to visualize and manage your work, meet your deadlines, and bill accurately for your services.

You can use the calendar view to quickly record billable and non-billable time, set reminders and due dates, create new tasks on the fly, and see at a glance where all your time is spent.

Here’s everything you need to know about todo.vu’s Time dashboard.

Quick todo.vu glossary

Click the links below to learn more about each todo.vu term.

• Client  – a person/organisation to which you are billing time.
• Project  – a grouping of todo.vu tasks.
• Task – an action item in todo.vu represented as individual elements or ‘containers’ with task titles, descriptions and more.
• Assignee – the todo.vu user in charge of the task.
• Follower – todo.vu users who get notifications about that task.
• Calendar entry – an entry on todo.vu’s calendar; can be a time entry, a task due date, or a task reminder.
• Time entry – a detailed record of time that has been logged in todo.vu.
• Floating time entry – a record of time that has been logged in todo.vu but not yet connected to a task.
• Time modal – a modal that enables users to update details on an existing or to create a new time entry.
• Tasks modal – a modal that enables users to connect a time entry to a task.

Navigating the calendar

todo.vu’s calendar is located on the Time dashboard, which you can navigate to by selecting the calendar icon on the left-hand side of your workspace.

The layout on this page will depend on your last session’s view; different layout options are available and discussed shortly below. You can change your view by using the symbols at the top right-hand side of the calendar, with your current view indicated in red.

If you are an Admin user, you will see a hamburger icon at the top left corner of the calendar. When you select this icon, a side menu will expand, where you can select and view individual team member’s calendars. If you are not an Admin user, you will only see your own calendar.

To quickly navigate backwards or forwards through days, weeks, months or years in different calendar views, simply click on the arrows next to the hamburger icon. Clicking the dot in the middle of the arrows will take you back to the current day.

Depending on your view and activity in todo.vu, you might also see a variety of coloured blocks on the calendar; these are collectively referred to as ‘calendar entries‘. We explain these in more detail below.

Calendar view options:

There are several different calendar view options available to you in todo.vu. You can choose from these views with the icons at the top right-hand side of the calendar.

The options are:

See total time logged across calendar views

You can see the total time tracked and logged in todo.vu at a glance on the calendar. If you’re an Admin user, you can see this information for any todo.vu user, too, while on their calendar.

You can see time totals:

For any day: Daily totals are displayed in all weekly calendar views at the top right-hand corner of each day’s column.

Admin users can see this information for any user by clicking on the hamburger menu to the left of the calendar, and selecting the relevant user from the drop-down list of avatars.

Calendar entries

Depending on your activity in todo.vu, you might see a variety of coloured blocks on your calendar. Some of these are what we refer to as time entries, some are due dates and some are task reminders.

Collectively, they are called ‘calendar entries‘.

Here’s what each calendar entry means:

Who sees what?

Every staff user in todo.vu will see on their own calendar: time entries, due dates, and reminders for tasks they’re either in charge of as a task Assignee, or that they follow as a task Follower.

Administrator users in todo.vu will also be able to see this information as it relates to each of their staff in their separate calendar views. Only private tasks are kept hidden from users other than the task’s assignee.

You can also see due tasks that are assigned to other users if you created the task.

Create a new calendar entry

In this section, we explain how to create calendar entries, as detailed above, in your own todo.vu calendar.

Calendar entries you will create in todo.vu include:

• Time entries
• Task reminders
• Due dates.

It is important to note that some time entries update in todo.vu automatically. For instance, when you first create an unbilled time entry and connect it to a task, you will see a blue block on the calendar. As soon as you bill for that time, that same blue block will automatically update to green to reflect a billed time entry.

If you are an Admin user and want to add calendar entries to a staff user’s calendar, there are a few differences that you will need to know about – more on this later.

Create a new calendar entry (time entry)

To create a new time entry in your own todo.vu calendar:

Create a new calendar entry (task reminder / due date)

You can create a task reminder or due date using the same methods 2) or 3) above.

That is:

• click anywhere on the calendar
• use the Agenda view (Select ‘Task due’ or ‘Reminder’ options).

Both options will open todo.vu’s Time modal for you to create/edit the entry. We’ll go through the Time modal next.

TIP: You will need to navigate to the appropriate tab at the top of the Time modal (either the ‘Task is due’ or ‘Set reminder’ tab) to create or update a task reminder or due date.

What is a task reminder?

When you set a reminder in your calendar for an existing OR new task, you ensure that task appears in the ‘Snoozed’ workflow state of your Task dashboard (regardless of it’s existing state!).

You will receive a notification as soon as the reminder date and time is reached, and that task will automatically move from ‘Snoozed’ to the ‘To do’ workflow state.

Using the Time modal to create calendar entries

When you use any of the methods above to create a calendar entry, todo.vu’s pop-up ‘Time’ modal will appear.

This modal provides options to create and edit time entries, as well as task reminders and due dates.

However, not all of these options will be available to you at all times on the modal; it depends on your workflow.

You will see which options are available to you by looking at the tabs at the top of the modal. You may see a ‘New time entry’ tab first on the left, followed by two ‘Task is due’ and ‘Set reminder’ tabs. Or, you may see a ‘New time Entry’/’Edit time entry’ tab only.

Time modal options

Use either of the three tabs to create or edit your calendar entry.

Time modal options: adjust time entry data

This option is available on the ‘New time entry’ tab only. (Or ‘Edit time entry’ when editing with the modal.)

It allows you to specify the duration of your time entry.

You can do this by:

• selecting the plus and minus signs on either side of the hours and minutes.
• selecting any number on the Time modal and inserting real numbers from your keypad OR using the up/down arrows to increase or decrease the time.
• selecting the time disks underneath the time duration.

Mouse-less time modal editing

You can edit any detail on the Time modal by navigating the data fields with your tab key and left and right arrow keys, and adjusting values with your up and down arrow keys.

If you’d like to see your updates to the Time modal made in real time on the calendar, be sure to move the modal by using the 12-dot ‘grabber’ at its top left-hand corner; just click the dots and drag the modal anywhere on your screen with your mouse.

Your edits won’t save until you select ‘Log / Save [time]’ at the bottom right-hand side of the modal.

Time modal options: add a time entry note

This option is available on the ‘New time entry’ tab only. (Or ‘Edit time entry’ when editing with the modal.)

You can create and edit time entry annotations in the ‘Time entry note’ field of the modal. These notes are attached to the time entry data in your reporting and can appear in the billing reports you provide your clients.

Time modal options: connect calendar entries to tasks

This option is available on all tabs of the Time modal.

You can connect a calendar entry to an existing or new task; we go through both options just below.

Why connect entries to tasks?

Time entries should be connected to tasks for detailed reporting in todo.vu. Additionally, only time entries connected to tasks can appear in billing reports you provide to clients. That’s because billing reports are built on tasks, so it’s easy to see in detail where time was spent (as well as at what cost). Learn more here.

For obvious reasons, task reminders and due dates cannot exist separate to tasks.

Connect a calendar entry to an existing task

On the ‘New time entry’ tab, you will see a field that says: ‘No client – Not linked to a task’ if the time entry is not connected to a task.

On the ‘Set reminder/Task is due’ tabs, you will see a field that says: ‘No task selected’ if the entry is not connected to a task.

Select this field on either of the tabs. If the entry is already connected to a task, that task will displayed here instead. However, you can still click the field to change the task (follow the same details as below).

Note

You will not be able to set a due task or task reminder on any date in the past.

Connect a calendar entry to a new task

To connect a calendar entry to a new task, follow the same instructions as above. However, when the pop-up Tasks modal appears, you will want to create a new task here, instead of searching for an existing one.

This is easily done:

A note on unlinking

You can unlink a time entry from a task at any time by selecting that time entry to open the Time modal, then selecting the link icon at the bottom right of the time modal.

Admin-only

Creating calendar entries on another user’s calendar

If you are an Admin user, you can create calendar entries on a team member’s calendar. Simply select that team member’s avatar from the hamburger menu at the top left of the calendar, and open their calendar view.

When you create time entries on a team member’s calendar, that time is recorded as logged by that team member.

When you create a task due date or reminder on a team member’s calendar, todo.vu will prompt you to add that team member as a Follower to the task, if they are not already a Follower or Assignee on that task. This way, they will receive notifications relating to the task.

Note

Calendar views are persistent; once you select a team member’s calendar view, you will remain on that team member’s calendar until you update the view to either your own or another team member’s calendar.

This includes when you close the browser on your workspace entirely, and then reopen it later.

Modify calendar entries

If you click on any time entry on the calendar, todo.vu’s pop-up Time modal will appear, and you are free to use the edit options on the modal to update the calendar entry, as detailed above.

If you click on a due date/reminder on the calendar, you are presented with several options to modify it.

You can use a simple drag and drop to move calendar entries on your (or your team members’) calendar. You can use a drag and drop on the top or bottom of an existing time entry only to extend or minimize its duration (excluding already billed time entries).

You can also use a right click of your mouse on a calendar entry from within any calendar view, or with a right click on a day from within your weekly or monthly calendar views, for quick edit options, as detailed below:

A right click on a day within the Month or Year calendar views will allow you to:

• add a new time entry to the day
• add a task due date to the day
• add a task reminder
• navigate to that day’s hourly view

Digital calendar sync

You can sync your todo.vu calendar with any external digital calendar that supports iCal feeds.

This way, you can easily see past and upcoming activities and due dates combined with the events of whichever calendar you want. Simply hit the three-dot menu next to your calendar view symbols on the top right-hand side of your calendar.

Select ‘Sync with an external calendar app’ and then ‘Generate’ in the pop-up window to generate an iCal URL. You will have to follow the instructions and advice from your desired calendar app to complete the integration.

Here are some of our tips for calendar syncing.

READ NEXT:

5 tips for easy time billing in todo.vu! Read here >>