Getting started

Set up your workspace

Setting up your TimerOS workspace takes a few minutes. You register and pick a plan, then add departments, roles and members. On Startup and up you also define shifts, which decide what counts as overtime. Work through the sections below in order.

Register and pick a plan

Registration creates your workspace. Your plan decides which features you get. You can buy Freelancer and Startup yourself. Enterprise is in early access and can’t be bought directly. To request it, press “Talk to sales” on the Subscription page of the website dashboard. You can change plans later on the same page. Upgrades charge a prorated amount right away; downgrades take effect at your next renewal.

For what each plan includes, see pricing. Time tracking, projects, clients, billing, and basic expenses and profit are on every plan. Team management, departments, shifts and approvals start at Startup. Payroll, more departments, the company-wide org chart and custom roles come with Enterprise.

Build a first structure

Start simple: departments first, then a few roles, then your people. Startup comes with ready-made roles at five levels (from the owner down to team member; the role names depend on the industry you chose at sign-up). Enterprise lets you build your own roles with a permission matrix.

  1. 1Check your departments. Startup has one department, named “Company”, created for you; on Enterprise you add your own.
  2. 2Set up roles. Pick ready-made roles on Startup, or create your own on Enterprise from the Roles page.
  3. 3On Startup and up, invite members from the Users page of the website dashboard. Enter a name, an email and a dashboard role. You can also set Position → Department → Team now, or leave the person as “Awaiting placement”. The invitee gets an email with a link to set their own password and join.
Passwords
Members can change their password later in Settings, where they can also set up their own two-factor authentication.

Configure shifts (Startup and up)

Shifts set working hours, and the desktop app uses them to label time. Inside a shift, work counts as productive. Outside a shift, the same work counts as overtime, and idle or break time becomes off-work, which is not counted. On Startup and up, a day with no assigned shift counts as overtime. Freelancer has no shifts, so the whole day counts as regular hours. Create shift patterns on the Shifts page and view them on Schedule. For details, see shifts and scheduling and time states.

Next steps

Single sign-on (SAML) and an audit log are listed in Settings but are not available yet. Both are on the roadmap.