The Laurel Web App for Delegates

The Laurel web application ("web app") is your central hub for managing your delegator's time entries, reviewing work activities, and releasing your delegator's time to your firm's practice management system (PMS). Understanding how to navigate and use the web app effectively helps you streamline your time tracking workflow and ensures accurate billing. This article will walk you through every component of the 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 billable hours to your firm's billing system.

The web app is where all your time tracking efforts come together. While the desktop assistant silently captures your work activities in the background, the web app is where you review, organize, and finalize those activities into accurate billing entries for your delegator. It ensures nothing falls through the cracks when it's time to submit your delegator's hours.

The middle panel of the Laurel web app is your delgator's timesheet. This is where you will log their time entries. When you log into the web app, your delegator's 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 by:

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

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

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

The header of your delegator's timesheet 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 header, here's an explanation of each button:

Navigation Controls: The hamburger icon (the button with three horizontal lines) to the left of the date allows you to quickly collapse and reopen the calendar view to the left of your delegator's 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 delegator's timesheet on the day prior ("back" caret) or the day ahead ("forward" caret).

Time Tracking Views: The view titled "Week" is to the right of the forward caret in the header. This view allows you to see how much time you've prepared on your delegator's 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 under "Week" represents your delegator's billable time, and the number on the left under "Week" represents non-billable time.

When you hover over the numbers under "Week", you'll see your delegator's "Weekly Breakdown." This allows you to see:

The view titled "Day" is to the right of the weekly view in the header. This view allows you to see how much time you've prepared for your delegator 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 under "Day" represents your delegator's billable time, and the number on the left under "Day" represents non-billable time.

When you hover over the numbers under "Day", you'll see the "Daily Breakdown." This allows you to see:

Action Tools: The "see more" button is to the right of the "Day" view in the header. It's a button with three vertical dots. Click on this button opens three options:

Release: Finally, the green "Release" button is to the right of the "see more" button. 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 PMS.

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

If only some of the entries for the day you're viewing are ready to release, the "Release" button in your 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 your delegator for that day. So if you have five entries for the day you're viewing but only two are ready for release, the "Release" button in the header will show "Release (2 / 5)."

If all of your delegator's entries for the day you're viewing have already been released, the "Release" button in the 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 delegator's timesheet is the middle panel of the Laurel web app. When you prepare a time entry, it is listed in this panel.

If you want to edit one of your delegator's unreleased time entries, you can click on it and make the changes you need to make. Released entries cannot be edited or copied unless your firm has an enabled post-release editing. Right now, this is only available to firms that use Aderant as their PMS.

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

From left to right above the time entries:

Filtering Options: You can filter time entries by their release status using the "Filter" button. It looks like a funnel with up and down carets on it. You can filter entries by:

Sorting Options: To the right of the filter button, you can sort entries and the timesheet by using the "Sort" button. It looks like three lines with an arrow through them, and also has up and down carets.

You can sort entries by:

You can also sort the timesheet by:

Search and Creation: To the right of the "Sort" button, you'll find a "Search" bar. It has a magnifying glass on it. You can use the "Search" bar to search entries by keyword.

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

The Calendar view of the Laurel web app is in the lefthand panel, to the left of the Timesheet view. The Calendar view offers an at-a-glance view of your delegator's month, and a more detailed view upon click.

The at-a-glance view of your delegator's Calendar is visible when the Calendar view is populated next to your timesheet. This view gives you a quick look at your delegator's month, and where there is released, unreleased, and missing time. To make this view visible, click on the hamburger icon (it looks like three lines) in the upper left of the 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 successfully 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.

Starred and Recent Matters (or Projects/Initiatives)

Directly below the at-a-glance view of the calendar are starred and recent matters (or projects/initiatives).

Recent matters (or recent projects/initiatives): The matters/projects/initiatives listed under "Recent Matters" (or "Recent Projects/Initiatives") are matters/projects/initiatives you've released time to recently for your delegator. Recent matters/projects/initiatives 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 "Recent Matters" (or "Recent Project/sInitiatives") by clicking on the "plus" sign to the left of a matter/initiative in this list. This will open the Edit Entry modal and automatically populate the matter/project/initiative field with the recent matter/project/initiative you created the entry from.

Starred matters (or starred projects/initiatives): The matters/projects/initiatives on this list are those that have been manually "starred" by you or your delegator. Most users "star" a matter/project/initiative that they use frequently.

To "star" a matter/project/initiative, you just need to hover over a matter/proeject/initiative on the "Recent Matters" (or "Recent Projects/Initiatives") list and click the star icon that appears.

Starred matters/projects/initiatives stay on the "starred" list until you manually remove them. To remove a matter/project/initiative from your "starred" list, hover over the matter/project/initiative and click the star icon that appears.

You can quickly create an entry from your "Starred Matters" (or "Starred Projects/Initiatives") by clicking on the "plus" sign to the left of a matter/initiative in this list. This will open the time Edit Entry modal and automatically populate the matter/project/initiative field with the starred matter/project/initiative you navigated from.

Detailed Calendar View

You can get a more detailed view of your delegator's month by clicking on the calendar icon in the far lefthand panel of the Laurel web app.

When you click on this icon, you'll see the full month pop out. The lefthand panel will now show the following:

Monthly totals of:

Below your delegator's monthly time totals, you'll see a list called "Monthly Matters" (or "Monthly Initiatives"). This is a list of matters/projects/initiatives you've prepared entries for your delegator for in the month you're viewing, with the total amount of time allocated to each matter/project/initiative for the month you're viewing.

To the right of the "Totals" panel, you'll see each day of the week in the month you're viewing, laid out in a calendar-like format.

On each day, you'll see a yellow number in the lower left of the day that indicates unreleased time for that day, and a green number in the lower right of the day that represents released time. If you do not have any released or unreleased time for your delegator for a particular day, that part of the day (lower right or lower left) will have a dash in it.

For days where you have only released time for your delegator, there will be a band across the bottom of the day that is green.

For days where you have any unreleased time for your delegator, there will be a band across the bottom of the day that is yellow. For days where you do not have any time entries prepared for your delegator, there will be a band across the bottom of the day that is gray.

You can click on any day in this view and be taken to the timesheet view for that day. From this view, you can prepare, edit, and release time entries.

Timer Access: In the far lefthand panel of the web app, underneath the "Calendar" button, you'll find the "Timers" button. Clicking this button will take you to the 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, that means that the Laurel desktop assistant is logged in and tracking your delegator's time. If you see any color other than green, that means that your delegator is logged out of the desktop assistant and should log back in.

Things to Keep in Mind: