2020

Managing Contractor Timesheet Approvals with Form Workflow Plus and G Merge Plus

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The global reach of the Internet has allowed for a paradigm shift in the way people work. Service contractors thrive in freelance works as they enjoy the perks of flexible hours and freedom from the four corners of an office cubicle. Dubbed digital nomads, they belong to a pool of multi-talented individuals who can easily adapt to the ever-changing technological landscape.

Managers who supervise these service contractors also face novel challenges. Consider Tom, who founded a company for an online marketplace based in New York. He has outsourced a majority of the development work and website management to John, a service contractor based in Thailand. Besides dealing with the physical distance, Tom has to keep track of timely service delivery. More importantly, Toms needs an accurate means of keeping track of the hours John has put in and invoiced each month.

This is where a workflow app such as Form Workflow Plus can help Tom provide a transparent and automated validation process for John’s timesheet approvals. After installing the add-on from the G Suite marketplace, Tom was able to focus his time and efforts on company growth knowing John is properly compensated. Businesswise, Tom cut costs as there’s no longer a need to buy expensive time management tools. With G Suite, everything can be automated.

Using Form Workflow Plus, here are important tips on how Tom was able to achieve success:

1. Prepare a worksheet for contractors to log the number of hours worked

In line with digitizing processes, managers can use online tools such as Google Sheets for this purpose. This promotes a relationship built on transparency and sets the stage for quick resolution should any dispute arise.

Create a worksheet template which contractors can modify. Here’s a sample:

At the very least, the worksheet should have:

  • Sheet title set to contractor name
  • Use the same template for each month and place in individual sheets
  • Daily logs of hours worked broken down into specific projects
  • Tally of total hours worked with hourly rate factored in

2. Create a Google Form to collect timesheet approval requests

At the end of each month, John submits this timesheet for approval. Create a validation process to ensure accuracy which can include the team leader, area manager, and finance department as reviewers.

An effective form should capture:

  • The contractor name and/or number
  • The inclusive month for the timesheet
  • Email address
  • Link to the digital timesheet
  • Quick overview of total hours worked

3. Setup an approval process to check for accuracy and establish an audit trail

Form Workflow Plus can automate the validation process on your behalf. The following features make the product great at managing workflows:

  • Easy one-time setup
  • Handles multi-step approvals
  • Conditional approvals for routing requests based on specific criteria
  • Web application for managing workflows, users, and billing

Form Workflow Plus has a 14-day free trial. Sign up here.

The form responses above can be collected on a Google Sheet where, in turn, Form Workflow Plus is activated as an add-on. Here’s a sample sheet collecting the above information:

Setting up a workflow is easy! We prepared a guide for you:

4. Use a document and mail merge app to automate invoice creation for approved requests

WIzy’s G Merge Plus is also a Google Sheets add-on that can create personalized invoices based on a template. On top of this, each created document can be emailed out as part of its mail merge feature. This is useful in case the Finance Team or Accounting Department needs to be notified. Here are some of the reasons G Merge Plus would be a perfect complement to timesheet approvals:

  • Works on Google Sheet so it can be activated on the same Form Workflow Plus worksheet
  • Can be set with filters to process rows of data marked “Approved”
  • Automates the merge process by using an invoice template
  • Can be set to send the merged documents as attachments using the mail merge feature
  • Has a drag-n-drop email editor for creating content-rich email templates
  • Try for free! Sign up here.

Read more about G Merge Plus’s features here:

For questions, Form Workflow Plus and G Merge Plus both come with a dedicated support team at support@wizy.io. Set a demo via this link:

Marko ArcegaManaging Contractor Timesheet Approvals with Form Workflow Plus and G Merge Plus
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Managing Teaching Loads with Form Workflow Plus

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Schools and universities are among the early adopters of cloud-based solutions. This proves important as these institutions move towards remote collaboration and holding classes online. Easing into digital processes may prove daunting for school administrators. With Form Workflow Plus, this doesn’t have to be the case. Wizy has designed this app to help automate validation processes.

Let’s take a look at Jane, a supervisor managing teaching loads in a university. They have a teaching program where post-grad students need to teach a particular subject per term. Jane oversees the approval process and keeps track of the subject assignments. They have recently moved towards reducing their carbon footprint by adapting paperless technologies for their workflows. This proved prescient as the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic forced educational institutions to fast track their transition into the cloud.

For Jane, an email-based approval process simply can’t cope with the number of requests. Also, manually tracking approved requests also means countless hours of manual and repetitive data entry tasks. Jane realized the benefits of using a workflow app when she found Form Workflow Plus in the G Suite Marketplace.

Here we explore how Form Workflow Plus can help manage teaching load requests. School administrators can greatly benefit from using this workflow app by easily keeping track of subject assignments for the upcoming term. For universities that have teaching programs similar to Jane’s this guide comes in handy. Here are tips to ensure success:

Capture the essentials via Google Form and Sheet

Make sure reviewers have the necessary details to make informed decisions. Your request form can include the following:

  • Teacher details – Name, email address, student/employee number
  • Course description – Course title, course code, brief description of the subject
  • Inclusive term – This could include the specific semester or term
  • Department details – This includes the specific department the teacher belongs to, department head contact information
  • Supporting documentation

Google Forms collect responses on a Google Sheet. Form Workflow Plus, as a Google Sheet add-on, facilitates automation of the approval process. Did I mention we offer free trial and 40% discount for schools? Head over here to learn more.

Let Form Workflow Plus do its magic

Our workflow application works with G Suite and can easily accommodate single to multi-step approval processes. Admins set it up once and requests are routed automatically upon form submission.

  • Take advantage of conditional approvals

Wouldn’t it be great if requests can be automatically sorted depending on the originating department, course number, or via admin-set criteria? With Form Workflow Plus, you can! This greatly speeds up the approval process and more importantly, takes the burden of manual tasks off of school admins.

Requesters can even specify their preferred reviewer and Form Workflow Plus will take care of the rest.

  • Easily track request status

Workflow admins gain a quick oversight via the worksheet or on the web app. A Reports view is included to easily be on top of your request stats.

  • Work with a versatile web application

Form Workflow Plus comes with a web app for managing workflows, billing, and setting user roles. It’s a one-stop repository of the team’s Forms as well. Approvals view allows reviewers quick access to pending requests.

Getting Started

Dive deeper into the workflow creation process:

Learn more about conditional approvals in these guides:

Help is just a click away should things get too complicated

Form Workflow Plus is a complete solution package and comes with a comprehensive Help Center. Tap into detailed how-to articles and specific FAQs to fully maximize the add-on’s features. For everything else, support@wizy.io is just an email away. Feel free to book a demo here:

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Marko ArcegaManaging Teaching Loads with Form Workflow Plus
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How to Manage Payment Approvals With Form Workflow Plus

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No matter the company size, managing purchase approvals is a big responsibility. Whether you’re a school, media firm, advertising company, or provider of co-working spaces, the task requires meticulous organization skills. Attention to detail is a must in strictly accounting for expenses.

At Wizy, we understand the crucial role of having an efficient validation process for payment approvals. We created Form Workflow Plus as a solution package to bring outdated processes to the digital frontier. Organizations gain freedom from hours of manual data entry tasks, lost email-based approvals, and hard to read paper-based purchase orders.

Here are key features managers look for in a payment approval app:

1. Easy setup and a quick oversight on request status

Our add-on is designed to work with G Suite and only needs to be set up once. Install the add-on here.

Once activated, you can easily track request status through technical columns on your worksheet. These columns also provide a footprint of the approval process by indicating the reviewer’s email address and comment at each step.

Dive deeper into the process via a quick overview of creating workflows:

2. Run parallel approvals by routing requests based on criteria such as budget amount, payment type, requesting department, etc.

A workflow app should take the load off of manual and repetitive tasks. Form Workflow Plus has a wide range of conditional approval options to automate this routing process. To learn more about this exciting feature, here’s a handy guide:

3. Mistakes do happen. Take advantage of “Send back to requester” when working on requests.

We’ve anticipated the need for certain requests to require some edits prior to approval. The “Send back to requester” feature is handy for those situations when a simple information update is needed for a request to be approved. Here are tips on how to effectively use this feature on Form Workflow Plus:

4. Not all requests are created equal. Form Workflow Plus can fast track some requests via “Definitely approve” option.

We understand the urgency for some requests. This can be reserved for specific department requests and easily accommodated by the add-on via the “Final approval” option. Once set, the request skips the rest of the approval steps ending up with an “Approved” status.

Learn more and activate this feature through these steps:

5. I need all the help I can get.

Form Workflow Plus is a capable tool in automating approval processes. We’ve collected customer use cases in our comprehensive Help Center. Here you can find FAQs and solutions making use of the features highlighted above and more. For cases not covered by our Help Center, feel free to reach out to support@wizy.io or book a demo:

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Marko ArcegaHow to Manage Payment Approvals With Form Workflow Plus
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