Log time on a task
Record the hours worked, for a whole crew in one go, each at their own role and rate — and fix an entry that went in wrong.
A maintenance season is told in hours. How many to reopen the trail after the flood, how many for the boardwalk, how many volunteers on the fall work party. Without that number, a grant application rests on a memory, and next year's quote is a guess.
Sentinel records that time on the task itself, and for a whole crew in a single entry. If your organization has set up work roles, every hour arrives with its rate, and the task also hands back its cost. The hours then flow on their own to the project, to each member's profile and to your exports.
Where: on a task's page — the Log Time button in the toolbar on the Web, the Timelog section of the edit screen on mobile.
Recording hours on the Web
Open a task, then Log Time.
The entry window, filled in for two members and one resource without an account.
- 1The date of the work — not the date you type it.
- 2The participants: each one arrives with their work role, the one set on their member profile.
- 3The Without an account zone: one line per resource with no Sentinel account, with its role and its own duration.
- 4The total: the hours, and what they cost.
Only the duration is required. The date defaults to today, the description is free-form, and you are already listed as a participant.
At the top, the duration applies to each member you tick; it isn't split between them. Three people who each worked six hours means you enter "6 h", not eighteen: the total at the bottom of the window does the multiplication. When people didn't all work the same hours, make one entry per duration.
The work role, and what it changes
A work role is a trade with an hourly rate attached to it: excavator operator, foreman, labourer, volunteer. It lives on the member's profile, not on the entry — so there is nothing to pick when you record hours. The role name simply appears next to each participant, so you can see the rate the day is being counted at.
The rate is frozen the moment the entry is recorded. A raise applied in July does not rewrite what May's work cost, and a member who changes role is priced at the new rate from their next entry onward only.
If your organization has not created any work roles, none of this appears: the window stays the one with a duration and participants.
People and machines without an account
The Without an account zone covers everything that worked without opening the app: a contractor, a day labourer, a rented excavator. You pick a role, you enter a duration, and the cost follows on its own since the role carries the rate. Add as many lines as you need.
These hours count towards the task total and its cost, but they appear in no per-member time report — there is nobody to attach them to. That is deliberate, and it is why a task's total can exceed the sum of the individual reports.
Recording hours in the field
On mobile, time is entered from the Timelog section of a task's edit screen, with the Add button.
The mobile entry screen: one list, each with their own duration.
- 1The default duration: the one applied to every participant you add next.
- 2The
+opens the list: your members on one side, the work roles on the other for people without an account. - 3Each row carries its role, its rate and its own duration — tap it to adjust it or to remove the person.
- 4The total updates while you type: the hours, then the cost.
That is the important difference from the Web: here, a single entry can hold different durations. Six hours for the three who stayed the day, two hours for the one who showed up late afternoon — all in the same entry. You set the default duration, tick everyone, then fix the exceptions.
Changing the default duration afterwards only touches the rows you have not already adjusted by hand.
Logging works with no network, like the rest of the field work: it is written to the phone and goes out on its own when the connection returns. Until it does, To sync appears under the total — the figure shown already includes the pending hours, so there is nothing for you to add up.
One consequence worth knowing: the role and the rate are applied when the entry reaches the server, not on the phone. An entry made on Monday and synced on Wednesday, after a role change in between, freezes on Wednesday's role and rate.
Reading a task's time
On the task page, the Time logged block gives the total and, if you are allowed to see amounts, what the task cost.
A task's Time logged block, split by role.
- 1The task total, all people combined, and its cost.
- 2The split by work role: machine hours on one side, manual hours on the other.
- 3See details opens the full list of entries.
This block answers the original question: on a day of excavator work, how many operator hours and how many labourer hours, and what each bundle represents. Roles are listed from the most expensive to the least, and hours with no role are grouped under Other.
On mobile, the same information lives in the task's Timelog section.
A task's Timelog section on mobile.
- 1The task total, all people combined.
- 2Each entry: the person, their role and the date.
- 3Its duration, and what it cost.
Fixing an entry
A duration typed too fast, yesterday's date, the wrong person: corrections happen from the full list of entries.
On the Web, open See details.
The details window, one entry per row.
- 1One block per work role, with its total, its cost and its hourly rate.
- 2At the end of each row, the pencil to edit and the bin to delete.
On mobile, tap the row in the Timelog section: the edit screen opens, with a Delete entry button at the bottom.
You can change the date, the duration and the description. You can change neither the person nor the role — an entry belongs to someone and carries the rate of the moment it was made; moving it would amount to creating another one, and rewriting its role would falsify a cost already settled. If you got it wrong, delete it and enter it again.
The task total is recalculated right away, and the project that holds it follows immediately.
One limit worth knowing: fixing an entry needs a connection, whereas the original entry works offline. The app tells you right away and keeps nothing pending — you redo the correction once you're back. That's deliberate: correcting is an end-of-day gesture, not a field one.
Where the time shows up
Once entered, the time appears in five places, with nothing more to do:
- on the task, as a total and split by role;
- on the project that holds it, against the estimated time — that's the
42h / 60hin its header; - on each member's profile, in the Time log report tab: by month, by trail and by task type;
- on the dashboard, as hours worked, labour cost and a breakdown by role over the period;
- in the Excel export of tasks, which includes a sheet dedicated to entries.
That's what lets you answer "how many hours did we put into La Coulée this year, and what did it cost us?" without reopening a single task.
Who can do it
You need the Time right in write mode. Without it, the section stays visible — seeing the time spent on a task is useful to everyone — but the Log Time button and the correction actions don't appear.
The same right covers both entering and fixing: someone who can log time can also correct other people's. That's intended, because in the field it's usually the crew lead who enters time for everyone.
Seeing amounts is a separate right. A field crew can record its hours without ever seeing an hourly rate or a cost: the roles stay visible, their prices do not. The Cost right in read mode is what makes the amounts appear.
The feature also requires a plan that includes time tracking.