Microsoft project time tracking: Top 6 tools & best practices

Microsoft Project (MSP) is a project management software that offers features like easy task assignments, project planning, resource management, Gantt chart views, etc.

While this makes project management hassle-free, you need to track and analyze time spent on project tasks to maximize your team’s productivity.

But how do you track time in MS Project?

In this article, we’ll explain why Microsoft Project time tracking is essential and introduce you to a few popular software for the job. We’ll also share three practical tips to implement time tracking for Microsoft Project management software seamlessly.

This article includes:

(Click on the link to go to a particular section)

Why is Microsoft Project Time Tracking Important?
Top 6 Tools for Microsoft Project Time Tracking
3 Best Practices for a Smooth Implementation of Time Tracking Tool

Let’s get started.

Why is Microsoft project time tracking important?

Microsoft Project offers three versions: MS Project desktop app, MS Project web app, and MS Project Server.

To track time on the desktop app, you’ll need to use an Excel spreadsheet or upgrade to the advanced plan, i.e., Project Professional (Project Pro).

On the other hand, Microsoft Project Server and Project Online versions allow users to track time using timesheets.

Here’s how you can do that:

From the Quick Launch dropdown, select Timesheet.
Find the task you worked on and fill in your Actual Hours across the top row (date).

However, this is prone to errors and time theft because it’s a manual process.

Instead, you can use a dedicated time tracking software for benefits like:

Better project management: Helps you with project plan development, project list creation, project status estimation, and project schedule adherence.
Increased focus: Discourages multitasking and enhances concentration among employees.
Efficient team management: Helps you track employee efficiency, based on which you can assign tasks to the right people
Increased profitability: Allows you to reduce overall project cost with project work duration estimation and smart resource allocation.
Track hidden tasks: Helps employees account for the hidden tasks, like phone calls, chat messages, or team video calls.
Plan days better: Empowers employees to manage multiple projects efficiently by planning the day with an estimated time to complete project tasks.
Track payments easily: Paying hourly workers can be easy and accurate when you track the task duration.

Now, let’s look at a few software that will help you with Microsoft Project time tracking.

Top 6 tools for Microsoft project time tracking

Here are six excellent tools that you can use to track time in this project management tool:

1. Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a robust employee time tracking and productivity management software solution that lets employees track the time they spend on tasks and projects.

Used by small businesses, like Thrive Market, and large enterprises like Ericsson, this time tracking tool helps enhance team productivity with ease.

Time Doctor has a Chrome extension that integrates with MS Project for free. All your employees need to do is:

Download the extension from the Chrome Web Store and the desktop app from the Time Doctor website.
Set up your Time Doctor account.
Start tracking time!

Apart from integrating with MS Project, Time Doctor can simplify work in several ways with its features. Let’s take a detailed look at Time Doctor’s features.

Key features

Some of its powerful features are:

A. Time tracking

Time Doctor enables manual time tracking to record an employee’s work activity.

All they have to do is create a task and Stop and Start the timer to track the hours. This gives employees more control over the time they track.

Time Doctor also offers a silent or automatic time tracker. It doesn’t have a user interface and runs in the background without interrupting your employees’ daily routines while providing productivity data to boost performance.

Moreover, it’s flexible, and you can configure it to run during particular time frames.

B. Task and project management

Time Doctor lets you create new projects and tasks easily with a few clicks. You can also assign tasks or projects to all employees or specific groups.

C. Idle time tracking and distraction management

Time Doctor lets you track the idle time of employees in minutes or seconds.

Here’s how the feature works:

With the tool, project managers can set the minimum time an employee can be idle. It assumes the employee isn’t working when it doesn’t detect any keystrokes or mouse movements for the set time limit.

It’ll then display an idle time pop-up to prompt the employee to continue work if they were simply distracted.

Note: Time Doctor isn’t a keylogger. It simply detects if any keys were pressed.

Time Doctor also tracks web and application usage while it’s running. It detects when an employee spends too much time on non-work-related platforms and alerts them with a pop-up.

Additionally, it generates a poor time use report which shows the unproductive websites an employee has visited for more than 10 minutes.

D. Productivity reports

Time Doctor generates several reports to give you a detailed insight into employee productivity.

Here are some of them:

Activity summary report: Shows the active seconds and minutes, unproductive time, manually tracked time, mobile app time, etc.
Hours tracked report: View total hours an employee has tracked during a specific date range.
Attendance report: Know the attendance status of an employee, i.e., present, absent, partially present, or late arrival.
Timeline report: See how much time an employee spends on tasks and breaks per day or week.
Projects and tasks report: Shows the time spent on projects and individual tasks.
Web and app usage report: See the time an employee spends on each app and website from this report.

Also, you can customize a report to include what’s relevant. This way, you don’t have to download or send multiple reports.

E. Productivity ratings

With Time Doctor, you can classify websites and applications depending on how productive they are.

This feature allows you to rate them as:

Productive: If the website or app is relevant to work.
Unproductive: A website or app that isn’t needed to work.
Neutral: Platforms that are relevant yet not very useful for work.
Unrated: Websites or apps whose relevance is variable.

Based on the productivity rating, Time Doctor alerts your employees when they’re visiting non-work-related websites or apps.

Moreover, you can customize the feature for different employees depending on the nature of their work.

For example, you can set Facebook as ‘Unproductive’ for a Programmer and ‘Productive’ for a social media marketer.

F. Payroll management

Time Doctor simplifies invoicing by integrating with apps like PayPal, Wise, Gusto, and ADP.

You can customize this feature by setting the pay period, payment methods, payment currencies, and pay rates. This way, you can manage your billable hours easily.

Pricing

Time Doctor offers a 14-day free trial. Its basic plan starts at $7 per user/month and offers time tracking, unlimited screenshots, activity tracking, and much more.

Customer ratings

Capterra: 4.5/5 (350+ reviews)
G2: 4.4/5 (200+ reviews)

2. Desktime

Desktime is an automatic time tracking tool for freelancers and teams of all sizes. Its desktop and mobile app enable efficient time and attendance tracking and workflow management.

The software integrates Zapier, which can connect it with MS Project. Consequently, your employees can easily track time while they work.