The Laurel Web App for Delegates

The Laurel Web Application 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 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, the 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 delegator's time tracking efforts come together. While the Laurel Desktop Assistant silently captures their work activities in the background, the Laurel Web App is where they (and you, as their delegate) review, organize, and finalize those activities into accurate billing entries. It's designed to help you ensure that 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 delegator's Timesheet. This is where you will assist them to create, edit, and submit time entries. When you log into the Laurel 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 by:

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 delegator's Timesheet does not yet have any time entries for a particular day, you will see an empty state, with a summary of your delegator's tracked activities displayed in the central panel.

Once you or your delegator has created one or more time entries for the day, this view will disappear.

Your delegator's 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 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 arrows to the right of the Calendar icon allow you to navigate quickly to your delegator's Timesheet on the day prior ("back" arrow) or the day ahead ("forward" arrow).

Time Tracking Views: Your delegator's Week view is to the right of the forward arrow in the Timesheet 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; in the Week view, the number on the right represents your delegator's billable time, and the number on the left represents non-billable time.

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

Your delegator's Day view is to the right of the Week view in the Timesheet 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; in the Day view, the number on the right represents your delegator's billable time, and the number on the left represents non-billable time.

When you hover over your delegator's Day view, 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 Timesheet Header. The "See More" button contains 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 "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 Timesheet 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 the Timesheet Header will show, in parentheses, the total number of entries that are ready for release over the total number of entries prepared for your delegator for that day. For example, if there are five entries prepared 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 or your delegator prepares a time entry, it will appear in this panel.

If you want to edit one of your delegator's 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 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 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 entries on the Timesheet by using the "Sort Matters and their Entries" button, which looks like three horizontal lines with a downward-pointing arrow.

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, which is marked with a magnifying glass icon. 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 Create Entry modal and begin creating a manual entry.

The Calendar view of the Laurel Web App is in the left-hand 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 open next to the 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 button with three horizontal 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 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 the Timesheet panel.

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 (some firms may use "Projects" or "Initiatives" rather than "Matters").

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 any of these Recent Matters (or Recent Projects/Initiatives) by clicking on the "Plus" (+) button 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 matter/project/initiative you clicked on.

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

To star a matter/project/initiative, hover your cursor over a matter/project/initiative on the Recent Matters (or Recent Projects/Initiatives) list and click the star icon that appears.

Matters/projects/initiatives stay pinned to your Starred Matters list until you manually remove them. To remove a matter/project/initiative from your Starred Matters list, hover your cursor 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" (+) button 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 matter you clicked on.

Detailed Calendar View

You can get a more detailed view of your delegator's month by clicking on the "Calendar" button in the far left-hand panel of the Laurel Web App.

When you click on the "Calendar" button, you be taken to the Calendar page in the Laurel Web App. The left-hand panel will now show the following:

Monthly totals of:

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

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 grid format.

On the tile for each day, you'll see a yellow number in the lower left corner that indicates unreleased time for that day, and a green number in the lower right corner that represents released time. If your delegator does not have any released or unreleased time on a particular day, the corresponding part of that day's tile (lower right or lower left) will show three dashes: ---

Days for which all of your delegator's time entries have been released will be marked with a green band across the bottom edge of the tile.

Days for which your delegator has one or more unreleased entries will be marked with a yellow band across the bottom edge of the tile.

Days for which no time entries have been prepared will be marked with a gray band across the bottom edge of the tile.

You can click on any date in this view to navigate to the Timesheet view for that day. From the Timesheet 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 the Timer Board.

Connection Status: In the upper left-hand corner of the Laurel 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, this means that the Laurel Desktop Assistant is logged in and tracking time for the delegator you currently have selected. If you see any color other than green, this means that your delegator is logged out of the Laurel Desktop Assistant and should log back in.

Things to Keep in Mind: