Review time entries created by the Time Entry Agent (preview)

Applies To: Project Operations Integrated with ERP, Project Operations Core.

After a team member sets up their agent preferences as described in Start using the Time Entry Agent as a team member, the experience of logging time entries is as follows:

1. At the beginning of a week, the agent creates draft time entries for the user.
2. The user receives an alert from the agent in Microsoft Teams (if Teams app has been set up and shared with users). This alert summarizes the time entries that were created.
3. The user reviews the time entries in either Teams or the Dynamics 365 Project Operations web app.
4. The user modifies the time entries as required and submits them for approval.
5. On the last working day of the week, the agent sends the user a reminder to submit any missing hours (within the Teams app).

The following sections explain these steps and the behavior of the Time Entry Agent.

Agent behavior during time entry creation

The Time Entry Agent creates time entries based on the user's preferences.

Sources of time entries

Options for the sources of time entries include Project task assignments, Booked Capacity, and Previous week's entries.

• If a user selects only one source, the agent considers only the hours that come from that source on each day of a working week.
• If a user selects more than one source, the agent prioritizes information from project task assignments first, because task-level details are available. It then considers information from booked capacity. It considers the previous week's entries only as a fallback source, in cases where no information is available for assignments or bookings during that week.

Frequency of time entry creation

Currently, the agent creates all time entries for a week together, at the beginning of the week. The beginning of the week is defined at the organization level. For example, if an organization defines it as Sunday (that is, the week is from Sunday through Saturday), the agent creates time entries for the entire upcoming week on Sunday.

External comments for time entries

If a user asks the agent to create external comments for all time entries, the behavior varies, depending on whether the Outlook calendar must be used to enhance comments:

• If the Outlook calendar doesn't have to be used: The agent generates external comments when it creates time entries at the beginning of the week. It uses time entry details such as the project, task, and role.

• If the Outlook calendar must be used: Because Outlook meetings might be created later in the week, the agent doesn't generate external comments when it creates time entries at the beginning of the week. Instead, it generates them on the last working day of the week.

  Note

  The last working day of the week is based on the resource's working hours calendar. For example, if the organization's week is from Sunday through Saturday, and the user's working days are Monday through Friday, external comments are generated Friday morning.

Get Teams alerts from the agent

If the Teams app was shared with and added by end users, the agent sends an alert at the following times:

• As soon as it creates time entries for the week (at the beginning of a week).
• When it generates external comments for the week (on the last working day of the week).
• If it must remind the user to submit missing hours (on the last working day of the week).

Review time entries created by the agent

Users can review time entries created by the agent by navigating to the Time Entry Grid at the start of their work week. If the Teams app has been enabled and shared with users, continue reading to know more about reviewing Teams alerts.

For alerts that are related to created time entries or external comments, the user receives an alert in Teams. The alert provides a summary of the user's time entries for the current working week. The following illustration shows an example.

Here's an explanation of key elements of the adaptive card:

• Daily summary – The card highlights the total hours for each day of the current week and the number of those hours that need review because they were created by the agent.

  An asterisk (*) to the left of a day indicates that the agent created time entries for that day.

• Submit all – Select this button to submit all draft hours for the current week.

• Open in Web – Select this link to open a new browser window or tab where the Time Entry module in Project Operations is filtered to the current week.

• View Day – Select this button next to each day of the current week to load a new adaptive card that shows details of the individual time entries that were created for that day.

  • For each entry, the card shows the source and the creator. The creator can be either Copilot (= the agent) or User.
  • Use the date selector at the bottom of the card to view the entries for other days in the week.

  

Modify time entries created by the agent

Time entries that the agent created can be modified in two ways:

• In the Project Operations web app – Use the Open in Web link on an adaptive card to go to the Time Entry module in the Project Operations web app.

  Use this method to make more significant changes to time entries. For example, the changes might involve deleting or changing fields such as Task and Project.

  Note

  A sparkle symbol indicates time entries that the agent created, or that the agent generated external comments for.

• Directly in Teams – Use the View Day buttons on the weekly summary adaptive card to open the time entry details adaptive card for specific days.

  In this case, the only two fields that can be modified are Duration and External Comments. After you make the required changes, you can select either Save changes or Submit all. The Submit all button submits all entries for that day only.

Missing time entry alert

The Time Entry Agent sends users an alert at the end of each work week if it determines that they have any missing hours.

A day is said to have missing hours for a user if the total number of hours in a Submitted, Approved, or Recall Requested state (that is, nondraft hours) is less than the user's working hours for that day.

The alert shows a summary of all days in the current week that have missing hours. It also includes the following details:

• The number of hours that are missing
• Draft hours that can be submitted for those days

Users can either submit all suggested draft hours that the agent shared in the alert or use the Project Operations web app to create and submit new time entries.