iAttendance · Guide
TimeLog & reporting
Configure shifts and templates, run multi-level approval and export attendance to Excel.
TimeLog ✅ Before you start
- Staff already created in the User Manager module.
- Your company rules for working hours and how time is counted.
- The list of people who will approve timesheets.
🧭 Step by step
⚙️ Create a TimeLog config
TimeLog › Config
Open "TimeLog" › "Config". The page shows "List TimeLog Config" and a grid with the columns "Name", "Value" and "Type".
Press ➕ to open "Add TimeLog Config". Choose a "Type" (for example Task), give it a "Name", then list the values in the "Value" field separated by semicolons — for example: Coding; Meeting; Review.
Press "Save"; you get "Create config successfully" and the new row appears in the grid.
🧾 Create templates
TimeLog › Template
Templates let you apply a set of rules to many people or many periods without configuring from scratch each time.
If different teams follow different rules (office, factory floor, night shift), give each its own template.
The page is split into two panels. "Project Settings" defines the project itself — what work is logged against it, which gate supplies the attendance data, and which days are excluded. "Approval Flow" below it holds one card per approval step.
Set "Number of Approvers" and the Approval Flow cards are rebuilt to match. Each card is numbered ("Approval Step 1", "Approval Step 2", …) and carries an icon showing what kind of approver it needs: 🏢 for someone with a company portal account, 🌐 for an outside email approver. The icon changes as soon as you switch "Select Type Template".
Timesheets travel through the steps in order — the next group is only asked once the previous one has approved.
- Every field carries a short italic note under it explaining what that control decides, so you rarely need this guide open beside the page.
- The approval cards can be dragged to reorder them on screen and resized from the grip at the bottom-right corner. This is a viewing convenience only — it does not change the approval order, which is set by the step number, and the arrangement is not saved.
- Dragging works from the card header. Clicking into a field never starts a drag, so you can still select and edit text normally.
👤 Assign approvers
TimeLog › External Approver Management
Open "External Approver Management" to decide who approves timesheets for whom.
Several approvers are supported, which suits companies with multiple management levels or cross-team approval.
A note at the top of the list states the essentials: external approvers have no company portal account, they sign in at the external login page with the email shown in the grid and the password emailed to them, and resetting a password invalidates the old one immediately.
- The "Account Created" column shows when the approver account first existed anywhere in the system. It is not the date they joined this project — an approver is keyed by email and can be shared across companies, so on a second company the date will predate that company's use of them.
- A blank "Account Created" cell is meaningful: the template lists that email but no approver account exists yet, so that person cannot sign in.
✅ Approve timesheets
TimeLog › Approval
Open "Approval" to see the entries waiting on you, filter by period and person, then approve or send back.
Staff can also self-report time when they could not scan a code, and managers approve it here.
📊 Review and export
TimeLog › Attendance Report
Open "Attendance Report" to query by date range and person, then export to Excel.
This is the data you reconcile against when producing payslips.
🕓 Look up history
TimeLog › History
"History" keeps processed records and changes so you can settle questions from staff later.
🌐 Add an external approver to a template
TimeLog › Template
Some approvers sit outside your company — a client, an outsourcing partner or an auditor who has to sign off a timesheet but must never see the rest of your portal. iAttendance covers them with the "External" approver type, so you never have to create a paid user account for an outsider.
On "TimeLog" › "Template" fill in "Name" and set "Number of Approvers". In the approver group you want to delegate, open "Select Type Template" and choose "External". The "Select User" list disappears and an "Email Approver" field takes its place.
Type the approver as "Display Name <email>" — for example: AI Bot External <partner@example.com>. Separate several approvers with a semicolon, then press "Create".
- A bare "<partner@example.com>" — angle brackets, no display name — is accepted too.
- Creating the template registers each external address as an approver automatically, so it shows up in "External Approver Management" straight away.
- An address written without angle brackets is rejected with "Email is invalid format": "partner@example.com" fails, "<partner@example.com>" passes.
- Deleting the template later only unlinks that project from the approver — the approver record itself stays in the system.
🔑 Send the external approver their password
TimeLog › External Approver Management
External approvers have no portal account, so they sign in with a password your company issues. Open "TimeLog" › "External Approver Management", pick the project in "Select Project" and press "Query".
The "List of Approvers" grid lists every approver of that template, with an "Account Created" column and a "Reset Password" button on each row. Press it and the dialog now names the person and spells out the consequence: "Reset the timelog password for Manager (manager@email.com)?", followed by "A new password will be generated and emailed to that address" and the warning "Their current password stops working immediately, even before they open the email." Confirm and you get "Reset password successfully".
iAttendance generates a fresh random password, stores only its hash, and e-mails the approver that password together with the link to the external portal.
- You can run this again at any time — each reset simply replaces the previous password.
- The password appears only in that e-mail. Nobody in the company portal can read it back afterwards, so if the approver loses it you simply reset it again.
✅ The external approver signs in and approves
External portal — https://iattendance.co/externallogin
Your approver opens the external portal — on the live service that is https://iattendance.co/externallogin — picks a language and signs in with their e-mail and the password from the e-mail. Seven languages are offered, so an overseas partner can work in their own.
After signing in they land on the approval page, which shows their e-mail in the header and three tabs: "List Timelogs", "History" and "Information". They choose the project and the date range, press "Query", and the pending timesheets appear.
Double-clicking a row opens "Timelog Details", where they can "Approve", "Return" or "Reject" the sheet and export it to Excel or PDF. Approved sheets move to the "History" tab, and the "Information" tab lets them change their own password.
- They only ever see the projects you delegated to them — never your staff list, payroll or any other module.
- "Export TimeLogs" on the toolbar downloads the whole result grid as an .xlsx file.
- The "Resend Password" button is not self-service: it only shows "Please contact the company to reset your password". Only your company can issue a new one, from External Approver Management.
- Approving at the final station is final — the timesheet moves to History and everyone involved is notified by e-mail.
🧑💻 How employees submit a timesheet
User portal › TimeLog
This is the half of the module your staff actually use. They sign in with the "User" button, click "TimeLog", and land on the "Processing" tab with their company and project already selected and the date range set to the current month.
Pressing "Load Attendance Time" builds one editable row per day in that range. Where the template asks for times and gates are configured, "Time In", "Time Out" and "Total Time" are filled in from their QR check-ins; otherwise they type the hours themselves. Each row takes a "Project", "Job", "Task" and "Note", and a file can be attached per day. Right-clicking adds or removes a day.
"Save" keeps the month as a draft they can come back to. "Submit" sends it for approval. Either way the row appears in the "Pending Timelogs" panel, and the "History" tab holds everything already finished, with Excel and PDF export from the detail dialog.
- The whole range has to sit inside one month — a timesheet is always a single month.
- A draft sits at status "New" and can still be edited or deleted. Once submitted it becomes "Pending Approval" and can only be viewed.
- If a manager returns a timesheet it comes back as "Returned"; the employee edits it and resubmits, and it keeps its original submission date.
- "Pending Timelogs" is collapsed when the page opens. After saving, staff often think nothing happened — the row is there, the panel just needs expanding.
- A saved draft blocks a new one for the same month, and the message says the timesheet is "pending for processing" even when it is only a draft. The fix is to edit the existing draft rather than start again.
❓ Frequently asked questions
1 How can time be recorded?
Two ways: staff scan a QR code to check in and out, or they self-report their time and a manager approves it.
The second is useful for field work or travel.
2 Are multiple approvers supported?
Yes. You set approvers in "External Approver Management", and several approvers are supported including approval across companies in the same system.
3 How do I export attendance?
From "Attendance Report" — set the date range and filters, then export to Excel.
4 How is a template different from a config?
A config is the rule set currently in force. A template is a blueprint for creating new configs quickly for another team or period.
5 How long is history kept?
Three months on the free plan, 48 months on paid plans. See the pricing page.
6 🌐 What is the external login portal for?
It is a small, separate sign-in page — https://iattendance.co/externallogin — for people who have to approve timesheets but do not work for you: a client, an outsourcing partner, a project owner or an auditor.
They authenticate against their approver record rather than a company user account, so you never have to create a portal account for an outsider just to collect a signature.
Once signed in they see exactly three tabs — "List Timelogs", "History" and "Information" — and only the projects you delegated to them. Your staff list, payroll, assets and every other module stay invisible to them.
7 🔑 How does an external approver get their password?
You issue it. In the company portal open "TimeLog" › "External Approver Management", choose the project in "Select Project" and press "Query". The "List of Approvers" grid shows a "Reset Password" button on every row.
Press it and confirm the dialog, which names the approver and warns that their current password stops working immediately. iAttendance generates a fresh random password, stores only a hash of it, and e-mails the approver that password together with the link to the external portal. You get "Reset password successfully".
The password itself exists only in that e-mail — it is never displayed again anywhere in the company portal. If the approver loses it, simply reset it again; each reset replaces the previous password.
8 🚫 Can an external approver reset their own password?
No, and that is deliberate. The sign-in page does carry a "Resend Password" button, but pressing it only opens a dialog reading "Please contact the company to reset your password" with a Cancel button. There is no self-service reset and no forgot-password e-mail.
Only your company can issue a new password, from "External Approver Management", which keeps control of outside access entirely on your side.
What they can do is change a password they already know: the "Information" tab on the approval page has "Current Password", "New Password" and "Confirm New Password" fields with a "Save" button.
9 ⚠️ What do the sign-in error messages mean?
"Email is invalid format" — the e-mail box is empty or too short. Look for a typo or a stray space.
"Your account is not exist" — that address is not registered as an approver on any of your templates. Either the template never named that approver, or the address was typed differently. Check it in "External Approver Management".
"Email or Password is incorrect" — the address is a known approver but the password does not match. The usual cause is an old password from an earlier reset, so issue a new one and ask them to use the most recent e-mail.
10 🔗 Can they bookmark the approval page directly?
They should bookmark the sign-in page — https://iattendance.co/externallogin — and not the approval page behind it. The approval page only opens as part of a live sign-in session, so loading its address directly just sends them back to sign in.
The link in the password e-mail already points at the right place, so the simplest advice is to keep that e-mail or bookmark the page it opens.
Signing out returns them to the same sign-in page, ready for the next visit.
11 🌏 What languages does the external portal support?
Seven, picked from the "Language" box right on the sign-in page: English, Tiếng Việt, 日本語 (Japanese), 中文 (Chinese), 한국어 (Korean), ไทย (Thai) and ລາວ (Lao).
The approver chooses their language before signing in, independently of whatever language your company portal runs in. An overseas partner can therefore work entirely in their own language.
12 📤 What can an external approver actually do with a timesheet?
They choose a project and a date range, press "Query", and the pending timesheets appear in a grid showing project, name, e-mail, status, report month and submission time.
Double-clicking a row opens "Timelog Details", where they can "Approve", "Return" or "Reject" the sheet, and export it as Excel or PDF. The toolbar also has "Export TimeLogs", which downloads the whole result grid as an .xlsx file.
Approving at the final station is final: the timesheet moves to the "History" tab and everyone involved is notified by e-mail. "Return" sends it back for correction instead, which is the safer choice when something merely looks wrong.
13 🗑️ If I delete the template, is the external approver removed too?
No. Deleting a template only unlinks that project from the approver — the approver record itself stays in the system, along with any other projects still assigned to it.
That is normally what you want, because the same outside person often approves several projects and removing one should not cut off the rest.
It does mean an approver can linger with no projects attached. They can still sign in, but they will simply have nothing to approve.