Tasks vs. Checklist Items

A question our customer support representatives commonly receive is "What is the difference between Tasks and Checklist Items?"  This article should clear up any confusion about the difference between Tasks (or Services) and Checklists in Timesheet Mobile.

Tasks

Tasks are work items for which detailed completion time information is needed and are chosen when an employee punches in to start the clock.  Tasks can be common for all Sites or customized for each Site (See Assigning-Jobs-and-Tasks-and-Services).  In conjunction with a payroll integration or Timesheet Mobile job costing (See Job-Costing-Report), tasks can also be used to indicate and calculate the worker pay rate and billable hour rate associated with the work item.  

For example, John Doe arrives at Site ABC Company and selects the task "Housecleaning" when punching in to start the day at 8:00 AM.  At 10:30 AM, John receives a message from his manager that there is some maintenance to do at that Site and uses the Switch option on his smartphone app to switch from the "Housecleaning" task to the "Maintenance" task and finishes that task by punching out at 1 PM.  The timesheet report by tasks will show 1 hr 30 minutes on the Housecleaning task and 2 hrs 30 minutes on the Maintenance task (See Task-or-Service-Report).

If you don't see Tasks in your account, here is how to enable tasks for your account: Turn on Tasks.

Checklist Items

Checklists are lists created for a Site that can be presented to workers when punching out. Checklist items are quite simply a list of items that a worker checks off when punching out of a Site. Aside from the timestamp of the punch out, no detailed time information is kept for completed checklist items that are visible and archived in the Activity Log for administrators and managers to review.

For example, Marie Smith works for a home health provider who requires that workers complete a checklist with the following items:

• Clean Bathroom
• Bathing
• Check Weight
• Check Blood Pressure

When punching out at the Site, Marie is presented with this list on her smartphone app and can check off the items completed. Her administrator or manager can review these items for the shift and a record of these are kept in the system.

For more information about using checklists see Global Checklists and Individual Job Checklist.

For more flexibility, checklists can also be created for a project or group of projects associated with a customer:job using Timesheet Mobile Project+.  See Project+ for more details.