Why TimeLog is the best time registration system for Chalmers

The IT department at Chalmers University of Technology employs close to 90 people and is what is known as a “result department”.

“This means that we function as an in-house consultancy company, where the other departments at Chalmers pay us for our work hours. We, therefore, have to keep track of how many hours we put in on the various tasks and assignments, even though we only work for Chalmers teachers and students,” explains Maral Alaghi.

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Huge savings in time – from two days to two hours

Before the IT department switched to TimeLog in 2018, the organisation used another well-known time registration system.

“But the system was difficult to use, and generating reports was a real pain. Three times a year I have to send invoicing documentation to our financial department, and this took almost two days using the old system because there was so much manual work involved. With TimeLog, it takes less than two hours.”

The decision to switch systems was taken jointly by Maral Alaghi and the other members of the IT department’s management team.

TimeLog is more cost-effective and user-friendly

“Our previous system was becoming harder and harder to work with at the same time as it was becoming increasingly expensive. We are funded through taxes, so it’s important to keep tight control of our costs, and as we weren’t all that happy with the system either, we started shopping around for a replacement.”

Following a rigorous decision-making process, the vote finally went to TimeLog.

“It was the user-friendliness that finally tipped the balance. TimeLog is extremely straightforward and logical – and you don’t have to click 100 times every time you want to get something done. And it doesn’t hurt that the interface is attractive, too. We talk about UX all the time in our sector – it’s so important.”

The staff love the mobile app, too, says Maral Alaghi.

“They can now register their hours on the bus on the way home if they want to. Previously, there was a lot of worrying and moaning about time registration, but everyone’s really happy now.”

Maral Alaghi also appreciates the fact that staff can add themselves to projects, thus saving the administrators from having to do this extra task.

“And I love the authorisation management feature as well. The only two options in our old system were ‘administrator’ and ‘user’, but in TimeLog, you can grant more authorisations to employees so that, for example, they can generate project reports without being administrators. Whereas we only have a couple of people who are full-on administrators today, we previously had to give administrator authorisation to a lot more people. If everyone is sitting around doing things their way, it’s no surprise if everything ends up being a huge mess.”

Quick and easy to generate a variety of reports

Other aspects of TimeLog that Maral Alaghi appreciates are that it is simple to create new projects and quick and easy to generate various reports.

“A lot of hours slipped through the cracks previously because it was so difficult to generate accurate reports. It’s much better and easier with TimeLog,” says Maral Alaghi.

The best advice she can give to others is to start by specifying the organisation's needs and wishes and then choose the system that best matches them.

“That’s what we did when we wanted to switch our time registration system, and we ended up with an excellent system that we love working with", concludes Maral Alaghi.