All About the Laurel Web App

The Laurel Web App is your central hub for managing time entries, reviewing work activities, and releasing time to your firm's practice management system (PMS). Understanding how to navigate and use the Laurel Web App effectively helps you streamline your time tracking workflow and ensures accurate billing. This article will walk you through every component of the Laurel Web App interface, from the Timesheet Header to the detailed Calendar view, so you can take full advantage of all available features and tools.

The Laurel Web App is a browser-based interface that serves as your primary workspace for time entry management. It's organized into three main panels: the Calendar view on the left, your Timesheet in the middle, and the Work Activity panel on the right. This layout gives you everything you need to review captured activities, create time entries, and submit time entries to your firm's billing system.

The Laurel Web App is where all your time tracking efforts come together. While the Laurel Desktop Assistant silently captures your work activities in the background, the Laurel Web App is where you review, organize, and finalize those activities into accurate billing entries. It provides transparency into your work patterns, helps you meet billing targets, and ensures nothing falls through the cracks when it's time to submit your hours.

The middle panel of the Laurel Web App is your Timesheet. This is where you will manage your time entries. When you log into the Laurel Web App, your Timesheet will default to the current day. If you want to navigate to a different day, you can do this in the app's Calendar view. You can access the Calendar view as follows:

If you want to navigate quickly to the day prior or the day ahead, use the forward and backward arrows in the Timesheet Header.

When your Timesheet does not yet have any time entries for a particular day, you will see an empty state with time totals for your tracked activities for the day.

Once you've started to add entries for the day, this view will disappear.

The Timesheet Header offers an at-a-glance view of several important metrics, as well as quick links to helpful tools in the Laurel Web App.

Moving from left to right in the Timesheet Header, here's an explanation of each button:

Navigation Controls: The hamburger icon (the button that contains three horizontal lines) to the left of the date allows you to quickly collapse and reopen the Calendar panel to the left of your Timesheet.

The Calendar icon to the right of the date allows you to quickly access a new date on the Calendar. It also offers a quick view of days with released and unreleased time entries:

The forward and backward carets to the right of the Calendar icon allow you to navigate quickly to your Timesheet on the day prior (back caret) or the day ahead (forward caret).

Time Tracking Views: The Week view is to the right of the forward caret in your Timesheet Header. This view allows you to see how much time you've prepared on your daily timesheets for the week you're viewing. You can see billable and non-billable time for the week you're viewing at a glance; the number on the right in the Week view represents your billable time, and the number on the left in the Week view represents non-billable time.

When you hover your cursor over the values in your Week view, you'll see your Weekly Breakdown. This allows you to see:

The Day view is to the right of the Week view in your Timesheet Header. This view allows you to see how much time you've prepared on the Timesheet for the day you're viewing.

You can see billable and non-billable time for the day you're viewing at a glance; the number on the right in the Day view represents your billable time, and the number on the left in the Day view represents non-billable time.

When you hover your cursor over the values in your Day view, you'll see your Daily Breakdown. This allows you to see:

Action Tools: The "More Options" button is to the right of the Day view in your header. This is the gray button with three dots arranged in a vertical line. Clicking on this button opens three options:

Release: Finally, the green "Release" button is to the right of the "More Options" button in your Timesheet Header. Clicking this button opens the Release modal, which contains entries for the day you're viewing that are ready to release. In this modal, you can click "Confirm Release" to release these entries to your firm's billing system.

If all of your entries for the day you're viewing are ready to release, the "Release" button in your Timesheet Header will say "Release Day," with the number of entries for the day in parentheses.

If only some of your entries for the day you're viewing are ready to release, the "Release" button in your Timesheet Header will show, in parentheses, the total number of entries that are ready for release over the total number of entries you've prepared for that day. For example, if you have five entries for the day you're viewing, but only two are ready for release, the "Release" button in your header will show "Release (2 / 5)."

If all of your entries for the day you're viewing have already been released, the "Release" button in your header will be muted and not clickable. This is because there is no further release action to take for that day.

The body of your Timesheet is the middle panel of the Laurel Web App. When you prepare a time entry, it will be listed in this panel.

If you want to edit one of your unreleased time entries, you can click on it to open the Edit Entry modal and make the changes you need to make. Released entries cannot be edited or copied unless your firm has enabled post-release editing.

In the body of your Timesheet, above your time entries, you have several options for sorting, filtering, and finding a particular entry.

From left to right above your time entries:

Filtering Options: You can filter your time entries by their release status using the "Filter Entries" button, which is marked with a funnel icon. You can filter entries by:

Sorting Options: To the right of the "Filter Entries" button, you can sort your entries and timesheet by using the "Sort Matters and their Entries" button, which is represented with three horizontal lines and a downward-pointing arrow.

You can sort your entries by:

You can also sort your Timesheet by:

Search and Creation: To the right of the "Sort Matters and their Entries" button, you'll find a Search bar, marked with a magnifying glass icon. You can use the Search bar to search your entries by keyword.

Finally, to the right of the Search bar, you'll see the "Create Entry" button. Click this button to open the Create Entry modal and begin creating a manual time entry.

The Calendar view of the Laurel Web App is in the left-hand panel, to the left of the Timesheet view. Your Calendar view offers an at-a-glance view of your month, and a more detailed view upon click.

The at-a-glance view of your Calendar is visible when the Calendar view is populated next to your Timesheet. This view gives you a quick look at your month, and where you have released, unreleased, and missing time. To make this view visible, click on the button with the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) in the upper left of your Timesheet Header.

When you see a green circle around a day on the Calendar in this view, that means that all of the entries you've prepared for that day have been released.

When you see a dotted yellow circle around a day on the Calendar in this view, that means that some entries for that day have not yet been released.

When you see no circle around a day on the Calendar in this view, that means that no entries have been prepared for that day.

A closed white circle around a day on the Calendar in this view indicates the day that you're currently viewing in your Timesheet.

An open white circle around a day on the Calendar in this view indicates the current date.

Directly below the at-a-glance view of your Calendar are your Starred Matters and Recent Matters.

Recent Matters (may also be called Recent Projects or Recent Initiatives): The initiatives listed in your Recent Matters view are matters or projects you've released time to recently. Recent matters stay in this view for four days. If they have not been used in the past four days, they will be removed from this list.

You can quickly create an entry from your Recent Matters by clicking on the "+" (plus sign) button to the left of a matter in this list. This will open the Create Entry modal and automatically populate the Matter (or Project/Initiative) field with the recent matter you clicked on.

Starred Matters (may also be called Starred Projects or Starred Initiatives): The Starred Matters view allows you to manually pin select initiatives for easy access.

To add an initiative to your Starred Matters, hover over the matter where it appears in your Recent Matters view. A star icon will appear at right. Click on the star icon to add the matter to your Starred Matters.

An initiative you've starred will remain in your Starred Matters until you remove it. To remove a matter from your Starred Matters list, hover over the matter with your cursor and click the star icon that appears.

You can quickly create an entry from your Starred Matters by clicking on the "+" (plus sign) button to the left of any matter in the Starred Matters list. This will open the Create Entry modal and automatically add the selected matter to the Matter (or Project/Initiative) field.

You can get a more detailed view of your month by clicking on the Calendar icon in the left-hand panel of the Laurel Web App.

When you click the Calendar icon, you'll be taken to a page with a fuller view of the current month. The left-hand panel will now show the following:

Your Monthly Totals, including:

Below your Monthly Totals, you'll see your Monthly Matters list (this may also be called Monthly Projects or Monthly Initiatives). This is a list of matters you've prepared entries for in the month you're viewing, with the total amount of time billed to each matter shown at right.

To the right of the Totals panel, you'll see a calendar grid that includes a tile for each day in the month you're viewing.

On each day's tile, you'll see a yellow number in the lower left that indicates unreleased time for that day, and a green number in the lower right that represents released time. If either value is blank, three dashes (---) will be displayed instead of a numerical value.

Each day's tile will also be marked with a colored band along the bottom of the tile. A green band indicates that all time has been released for that date. A yellow band indicates that there are unreleased time entries for that date. A gray band indicates that no time entries have been prepared for that date.

You can click on any day in the Calendar page and be taken to the Timesheet view for the selected date. From this view, you can prepare, edit, and release time entries as needed.

Timer Access: In the far left-hand panel of the Laurel Web App, underneath the "Calendar" button, you'll find the "Timers" button. Clicking this button will take you to your Timer Board.

Connection Status: In the upper lefthand corner of the web app, you'll see the Laurel icon with a dot on it. This dot is an indicator light that shows whether the Laurel Desktop Assistant is logged in or not.

If the dot is green, the Laurel Desktop Assistant is logged in and tracking your time. If you see a yellow dot over the Laurel logo, work activity tracking has been paused or interrupted. Often, this means you need to log in to the Laurel Desktop Assistant.

Account Access: In the lower lefthand corner of the Laurel Web App, you'll see the "Settings" button, which appears as a circle that contains your initials. When you click on the "Settings" button, you'll be able to navigate to your Account Settings and Time Control.

Things to Keep in Mind: