Timesheets & Approval

Overview

The Timesheets module lets your team submit logged hours for approval and gives managers a clear way to review and approve them. The entire workflow runs inside the WorkHub Workspace View.

Here is how the process works at a high level:

1. An admin sets up approval rules that decide who approves whose timesheets.
2. An employee picks a time period, reviews their worklogs, and submits a timesheet.
3. An approver reviews the submission and either approves or rejects it.

Approved timesheets lock the underlying worklogs so they cannot be changed. Rejected timesheets unlock them so the employee can make corrections and resubmit.

Configuring Approval Rules

Before anyone can submit a timesheet, an admin must create at least one approval rule. Rules live in Settings › Permissions › Timesheet Approval.

Rule types

There are three types of rule, listed from most specific to broadest:

How the system picks an approver

When someone submits a timesheet the system looks for a matching rule in this order:

1. Per-user rule — is there a rule for this exact person?
2. Per-team rule — is there a rule for one of this person's teams?
3. All-users rule — is there a catch-all rule?

The first match wins. If nothing matches and no admin exists, the submission fails with an error asking an admin to add a rule.

Setting up rules in the UI

The Permissions screen offers two tabs:

• Rules tab — create broad rules for teams or the whole workspace. For example, assign a team lead as the approver for the Engineering team.
• Per-User Assignments tab — assign specific approvers to specific people. You can multi-select on both sides and the system creates every combination.

Submitting Timesheets

Employees submit timesheets from the Time Tracking screen. The steps below walk through the process.

Select a period

Use the date-range picker at the top of Time Tracking to choose a full week or full month. The Submit for Approval button only appears when the selected range matches a complete period.

Review your worklogs

Before you submit, scroll through the table or stack view and make sure every worklog is correct. Once you submit, your worklogs are locked and you cannot edit them until the timesheet is rejected or reopened.

Submit for approval

Timesheet statuses

Every timesheet moves through a set of statuses:

Reviewing, Approving, and Rejecting

If you are an approver you will see an Approvals section in the Timesheets sidebar with two items: Pending Approvals and Approval History.

Pending Approvals

This view shows a list of submitted timesheets on the left and a detail panel on the right. For each submission you can see:

• Employee name and avatar
• Date range and total hours
• Number of worklogs
• Submission note (if provided)

Taking action

Select a submission to open its detail panel. From there you can:

• Review the full worklog breakdown — item names, boards, hours, and descriptions.
• Read the employee's note.
• View the status history timeline showing all past transitions.
• Click Approve to accept the timesheet.
• Click Reject and enter a reason (at least 10 characters) explaining what needs to change.

Approval History

The Approval History view lists every timesheet you have acted on. You can filter by status, employee, and date range.

Reopening an approved timesheet

If a timesheet was approved but later needs corrections, an approver or admin can reopen it:

Period Selection

The date controls at the top of the Timesheets screen let you choose which time range to view. You can switch between:

• Week — shows seven days at a time.
• Month — shows a full calendar month.
• Custom — pick any start and end date.

Use the arrow buttons to move to the previous or next period. Click Today to jump back to the current period.

Timesheet Layout

The Timesheets workspace has two main areas: a sidebar on the left for switching between views, and the main panel showing the selected view's data.

Sidebar

The sidebar organizes all timesheet views into four categories:

• User Timesheets — Summary, by Board, by Item. Person-centric views.
• Board Timesheets — Summary, by User. Project-centric views.
• Progress — Timesheet Progress, Resource Utilization, Planned vs Actual. Comparison views.
• Approvals — Pending Approvals, Approval History. Manager views for the approval workflow.

Toolbar & Filters

The toolbar at the top controls what data is shown across all views:

• Period preset — choose Current Week, Previous Week, Current Month, etc. from the dropdown.
• Date navigation — use the arrows to move forward/backward by period, or click the date range to pick a custom range.
• Team filter — filter by one or more monday.com teams. Active filters show as chips.
• Board filter — limit worklogs to specific boards (useful for project-specific timesheets).
• Clear — remove all active filters.
• Export CSV — download the current view as a CSV file (icon in the top-right corner).

User Timesheets

User Timesheets show logged hours per person in a weekly grid. Each row is a user (or a user with expandable sub-rows). Day columns show hours logged, with a progress bar and sum total. Click any cell to see the individual worklogs for that user/day.

Summary

One row per user. Each cell shows the total hours logged on that day across all boards. The Progress column shows a bar of logged hours vs required capacity. The Sum column totals the week.

Best for: Quick overview of who has logged how much this week. Ideal for managers checking team completion before the submission deadline.

by Board

Users as parent rows, boards as expandable child rows. Each child row shows hours logged on a specific board for that day. Collapse users to see totals; expand to see the per-board breakdown.

Best for: Understanding how each person splits their time across projects.

by Item

Users as parent rows, individual items as expandable child rows. The most granular view — see exactly which items each person worked on each day.

Best for: Detailed time audits, finding items with unexpectedly high or low hours.

Board Timesheets

Board Timesheets flip the perspective — rows represent boards (projects) instead of people. This helps project managers see how hours are allocated across projects.

Summary

One row per board. Each cell shows the total hours logged on that board for that day, summed across all team members. The Sum column totals the week per board.

Best for: Project-level time overview. Quickly see which projects consumed the most hours this week.

by User

Boards as parent rows, users as expandable child rows. Expand a board to see each team member's contribution. This is the inverse of "User Timesheets → by Board".

Best for: Checking per-person contribution to a specific project. Useful for client billing where you need to show who worked how many hours on a project.

Progress Reports

The Progress section in the Timesheets sidebar switches from the timeline grid to a table view. Three report modes are available, each answering a different question about your team's time.

1. Timesheet Progress

Question it answers: How much of their required capacity has each person logged?

How to use: Run this at the end of each week to check who hasn't finished logging. If someone's bar is well below 100%, they may have unrecorded work. If it's over 100%, they may be working overtime.

2. Resource Utilization

Question it answers: How does planned work compare to available capacity?

How to use: Use this during sprint planning or at the start of a period to check if the workload is balanced. If someone is over 100%, they are overbooked. If well below 100%, they have room for more work.

3. Planned vs Actual

Question it answers: How does actual logged time compare to what was planned?

How to use: Run this after a sprint or at month-end to compare estimates versus actuals. If logged hours consistently exceed planned, your team may be underestimating. If logged is much lower, work may be untracked or estimates too generous.

Common features

• Period filter — all three views respect the active date range selected in the Timesheets period picker.
• Team grouping — when teams are selected in the filter, rows are grouped by team with team-level totals.
• User filter — filter to specific people or teams to focus on a subset.
• Board filter — limit planned hours to specific boards (affects Resource Utilization and Planned vs Actual only).

Related Pages

• Time Tracking — Log work hours and manage worklogs before submitting timesheets
• Permissions & Access — Full role matrix, approver resolution chain, and view access details
• Settings — Configure approval rules, column mappings, and workspace preferences