For Admins: Setting up Team Timesheets

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Team Setup

1. Invite your team and assign roles 2. Configure your preferences 3. Update activity categories for your team

Build Your Project Structure

4. Create clients 5. Create tasks 6. Create projects

Reference

This guide walks owners and admins through setting up Timesheets for Teams.

Follow these steps in order. Members won't be able to log time against projects until those projects exist, so getting the structure in place before inviting people to start tracking makes onboarding much smoother.

Team Setup

Invite your team and assign roles

Before setting up projects, invite your members and assign roles. Timesheets for Teams uses the same organization structure as Focus for Teams: owners and admins manage members, and the manager role can be assigned to give team leads project and reporting access.

For a full walkthrough of inviting members, creating teams, and assigning roles, see the Setting up Focus for Teams guide.

💡 Assign managers before creating projects. When you create a team project, you'll assign it to teams and members. Having your organization's structure in place first means you can set those assignments correctly from the start.

Configure your preferences

Go to Timesheets → Preferences to configure your personal Timesheets settings. These preferences are per-user, so each member of your team will set their own. Configure yours first so you understand what members will need to do when they get started.

Project Autocompletion Method

This controls how RescueTime suggests which project to assign to each block of activity on your timeline. There are three options:

History: RescueTime looks at your past project assignments and suggests based on patterns it recognizes. This is the default setting.
History & AI: History is checked first. For any activity that doesn't match a known pattern, the AI assistant generates a suggestion.
Off: No suggestions are made. You add all time blocks to projects manually. This also disables scheduled autocompletion.

AI suggestions and data privacy: Enabling History & AI means activity data (apps and websites used) may be transmitted to OpenAI's API for processing. Data is used only to match activities to projects and is handled per OpenAI's privacy standards. If this is a concern for your organization, use history only.

Scheduled Autocompletion Delivery

This sets when RescueTime automatically runs the suggestion process and prompts you to review your timesheet. Options:

End of my work day: processes today's activity 1 hour before the end of your work day.
The next morning: processes the prior day's activity 1 hour before your work day starts the following morning.
Off: no automatic processing. You must manually assign time to projects each day.

Timesheet Completion Schedule modal showing three options: End of my work day, The next morning, and Off, with timing descriptions for each

Scheduled delivery must be on for AI to work. If you choose History & AI as your autocompletion method, Scheduled Autocompletion Delivery must also be enabled. Setting it to Off disables AI suggestions even if History & AI is selected. You can also manually trigger the suggestion job at any time; the settings page shows how many suggestion jobs remain for the day.

Suggestion block size minimum

This sets the shortest activity block RescueTime will consider when generating project suggestions. Options are 5, 10, or 15 minutes, and the default is 15. Smaller minimums produce more granular suggestions but may add noise. For most teams, 15 minutes is the right starting point.

Settings page showing Suggestion block size minimum set to 15 minutes, and the Reporting section with Default billing rate and currency unset and Default rounding at 0.01 hrs

Default billing rate and currency

This is your default hourly rate used in the billing column of reports. RescueTime applies rates in this order of precedence: the first one that is set is used.

Task rate
Project rate
Client rate
User rate (this setting)

Billing rate for reports and invoices modal showing a rate input field, currency dropdown set to unset, and the rate precedence order: task, project, client, user

Default rounding

This controls how time totals are rounded in reports. Each row is calculated in seconds, converted to hours, then rounded using the selected strategy. The default is 0.01 hrs (nearest hundredth of an hour). Precision-based options (0.1, 0.01, 0.001) round to the nearest value; hour and fraction-based options round up. Set this to match your invoicing conventions before running reports.

Automatically add self to new team projects, tasks, and clients

When this toggle is on, you're automatically assigned to any new team project, task, or client you create, in addition to any other assignments you set. Projects that aren't assigned to you via a team or direct assignment are hidden from your timeline. Turn this off if you want to control assignments manually and avoid being added to every project you create.

Settings toggle for Automatically add self to new team projects, tasks, and clients, shown in the on position

Update activity categories for your team

RescueTime comes with default activity categorizations that work well for most teams, but adjusting them to match how your organization actually works makes reports significantly more accurate. As an admin or manager, you can push your category settings to one or all of your teams.

The workflow is:

Go to Activities → Categorize Activities
Review how your activities are categorized across Focus Work, Other Work, Neutral, and Personal or Distracting
Hover over any activity card and click More Details to change its category, or use the arrows on either side of the card to adjust its productivity level
Once your categories are set the way you want, click Update for teams
In the modal, choose a specific team or Copy to all teams, then click Update Team Profiles

Categorize Activities page showing activities organized into four columns — Focus Work, Other Work, Neutral, and Personal or Distracting — with Sort uncategorized, Manage categories, and Update for teams buttons at the top

Manage Categories for Teams modal with a team selection dropdown showing Customer Support, Marketing and Analytics, Development and Operations, and Copy to all teams options, alongside an Update Team Profiles button

💡 Do this before members start tracking. Category settings affect how activity time is shown in team reports. Pushing your categories to teams early means everyone's data uses the same framework from day one. You can update categories at any time.

Build Your Project Structure

Create clients

Clients group projects together for billing and reporting purposes. If your team works on multiple accounts, internal departments, or distinct work streams, creating clients first makes it easy to assign projects to them during setup.

Go to Timesheets → Clients and click + New Client. Clients are listed as either Team Clients (shared across the organization) or Personal Clients (private to you). For team billing and reporting, create team clients. You can also import clients in bulk using the Import button, or archive clients that are no longer active.

Timesheets Clients page showing Team Clients with RescueTime listed at 27 active projects, and Personal Clients section below with individual client entries

Create tasks

Tasks represent the type of work being done within a project, things like Design, Development, Meetings, QA, or Account Management. They give your reports a second layer of granularity beyond the project itself, so you can see not just how much time went into a project, but what kind of work was involved.

Go to Timesheets → Tasks and click + New Task. Like clients, tasks are split into Team Tasks and Personal Tasks. Each task shows how many active projects it's associated with. Tasks can also be imported in bulk or archived when no longer needed.

Timesheets Tasks page showing Team Tasks including Billing, Blog, Content Creation, Copywriting, and CS Monthly Report with their active project counts, and a Personal Tasks section below

Create projects

Projects are the backbone of Timesheets. Members log their time against projects, and all team reports are built from that logged time. Team reports will not show data until projects exist and time has been logged against them. Raw activity on a member's timeline does not automatically appear in reports.

Go to Timesheets → Projects and click + New Project. The New Project modal has several fields. Here's what each one does:

New Project modal showing Personal and Team toggle, Name, Color, Assign to Client, Available Tasks, Billable toggle, Rate field with currency selector, Assign to Teams, Assign to Specific Members, Hints for Autocompletion, and Optional Target with Start and End Date fields

Field reference

Personal / Team

Choose Team to make the project visible to other members via team or direct assignment. Choose Personal for projects that are private to you and won't appear in team reports. For any project that should show up in team reporting, always select Team.

Name and Color

Give the project a clear, recognizable name. The color appears on the timeline and in the projects panel, making it easy to visually identify which project a time block belongs to.

Assign to Client

Links the project to a client for billing and report grouping. This dropdown will be populated with the clients you created in Step 4. Assigning a client here means this project's time will appear under that client in reports.

Available Tasks

Associates task types with this project. The dropdown is populated from the tasks you created in Step 5. Members logging time to this project will be able to select from these tasks to categorize their work.

Billable and Rate

Toggle Billable on if this project's time should be tracked as billable. When on, you can optionally set a project-level hourly rate and currency. If you leave the rate unset here, RescueTime falls back to the client rate, then the user default rate set in Preferences.

Rate precedence: task > project > client > user. The first rate that is set in that order is the one used in the billing column of reports.

Assign to Team(s)

Makes the project available to all members of the selected team(s). This is the most efficient way to assign a project. Select a team, and every member of that team can see and log time to the project on their timeline. You don't need to add members individually if you assign via team.

Assign to Specific Member(s)

Assigns the project directly to individual members, independent of team membership. Use this for projects that span multiple teams or that only specific people should see. Note: if the project is already assigned via a team, individual member assignment isn't required, but you can use it to add people who aren't part of the assigned team.

Hints for Autocompletion

Add keywords that help RescueTime recognize which time blocks belong to this project. For example, if your team uses a specific tool or URL for this project, adding it here improves suggestion accuracy. Click Add hint to add multiple hints. This is especially useful for projects that cover specific tools or websites with distinctive names.

Optional Target

Set a target number of hours for this project, with optional start and end dates as boundaries. Once set, progress toward the target appears in Timesheets → Target Summary. Leave at 0.0 if you don't need to track against a specific hour goal.

Projects must be assigned to show on timelines. A project that isn't assigned to at least one team or member is hidden from everyone's timeline. Members cannot log time to a project they can't see. Double-check the assignment before saving, especially for new projects.

Setup Checklist

Before your team starts tracking, confirm you've completed:

Invited members and assigned roles (Owner, Admin, Manager, Member)
Configured your own Preferences & Connections settings
Updated activity categories and pushed them to your team(s)
Created team clients (if applicable)
Created team tasks (if applicable)
Created team projects with correct team and member assignments
Shared the member start guide with your team so everyone knows how to log and review time

💡 Reports won't populate until members log time. Once your team is set up and starts tracking, give it at least a full workday before checking team reports. Time must be assigned to projects on each member's timeline before it appears in reporting.

For Admins: Setting up Team Timesheets

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