Lock time or expense entries

When you lock time entries, it prevents people from making unnecessary edits to project hours.

Who can use this?

Plans:

  • Resource Management

Permissions:

Resourcing Administrators and Portfolio Editors can lock and unlock time reports for any projects. All other permissions can lock and unlock time reports for projects that they own.

Find out if this capability is included in Smartsheet Regions or Smartsheet Gov.

In Resource Management, you can do the following:

  • Lock all time or expense entries for a project
  • Automatically lock time or expense entries after a set number of days
  • Lock all time or expense entries upon approval 

You have to review and approve time entries before you lock them, especially when you choose to lock them after a specific period automatically.

Set hours to lock automatically

  1. Go to the project page and select Project Settings in the time entry locking section. 
  2. Select the option you want to use.

time locking settings for resource management projects

Communicate with your team when you plan to lock hours for projects so they can confirm their time beforehand. Once a time report is locked, only a Resourcing Admin or Portfolio Editor can unlock it.

Set time or expenses to lock automatically

  1. Open Account Settings.
    1. If you're working in Resource Management in Smartsheet, select the kebab menu in the top right corner, then select Account Settings.
    2. If you're working in standalone Resource Management, select Settings > Account Settings.
  2. Navigate to the Approvals Workflow section.
  3. Select the option to Lock time and expense entries upon approval.
lock timesheets

Activating this setting means that users can't edit their approved time or expense entries.

If you don't enable this setting, users can add additional time or expenses to approved and locked entries.