How to Choose a Microsoft 365 Timesheet Solution for Project Teams
If your organization already uses Microsoft 365, choosing a timesheet solution may seem straightforward.
Employees need to enter their hours. Managers need to approve them. Leadership needs reports.
But once a project team grows, the requirements become more complicated.
You may need to track hours against projects and tasks, identify missing timesheets, manage approvals, separate billable and non-billable time, and connect the resulting information to reporting tools such as Power BI.
So the question shouldn’t simply be:
“Does this software have a timesheet?”
A better question is:
“Can this solution support our entire project time-tracking workflow?”
This guide explains what project-based organizations should evaluate when choosing Microsoft 365 timesheet software.
What Is Microsoft 365 Timesheet Software?
Microsoft 365 timesheet software helps organizations collect and manage employee time information within the Microsoft ecosystem.
For project-based organizations, the solution should do more than record total working hours.
It should help connect:
Employee → Project → Task → Hours → Approval → Reporting
This creates structured information that can be used beyond the timesheet itself.
1. Start With Project and Task Tracking
One of the first questions to ask is:
Can employees record time against the work they actually performed?
A project-based organization may need to track:
- Projects
- Tasks
- Employees
- Dates
- Hours
- Billable/non-billable time
For example, an employee might record:
Project: Office Construction
Task: Electrical Installation
Hours: 7.5
That is considerably more useful for project reporting than simply recording:
Employee: John
Hours: 7.5
When evaluating a timesheet solution, make sure the project and task structure matches the way your organization manages work.
2. Evaluate the Employee Timesheet Experience
Employees are the people entering the data.
If the process is unnecessarily complicated, the quality and consistency of the information can suffer.
Look for a timesheet experience that makes it straightforward to:
- Select projects
- Select tasks
- Enter hours
- Review entries
- Submit timesheets
- Check timesheet status
The objective should be a process employees can follow consistently without requiring extensive training.
3. Look at the Approval Workflow
Recording time is only one part of the process.
Many project organizations also need managers to review and approve submitted timesheets.
Ask:
- Who approves the timesheet?
- Can managers see pending submissions?
- Can a timesheet be rejected?
- Can employees resubmit it?
- Can the organization track approval status?
A structured approval workflow can reduce dependence on emails and manual follow-ups.
4. Don’t Forget Missing Timesheets
One of the most practical questions for a manager is:
Who hasn’t submitted their timesheet yet?
A timesheet solution should make this information easy to identify.
This matters because project reporting often operates on deadlines.
If several employees haven’t submitted their hours, the resulting project report may not provide a complete picture.
Missing-timesheet visibility should therefore be considered a core part of the evaluation—not an optional extra.
5. Evaluate the Reporting Capabilities
A timesheet application should ultimately help you understand the data being collected.
Depending on your requirements, you may need reports showing:
- Employee hours
- Project hours
- Task hours
- Billable hours
- Non-billable hours
- Missing timesheets
- Approval/rejection status
- Hours across a selected date range
Also consider how users interact with the reports.
Can they filter the information by project, employee, manager, status, task, or date?
Can they view the information as a grid?
Can they use charts when a visual summary is more useful?
These details can make a significant difference to day-to-day project management.
6. Consider Power BI Integration
If your organization already uses Power BI, this should be part of your evaluation.
Timesheet information can become a valuable source of project reporting when it is structured correctly.
Power BI can help organizations create dashboards and analyze information across different dimensions.
For example:
- Project effort
- Employee effort
- Billable/non-billable hours
- Time trends
- Project-level information
The key question is:
Can the timesheet data become part of the organization’s existing reporting environment?
For Microsoft-centric organizations, this can be an important consideration.
7. Check Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Compatibility
If your organization already works extensively with Microsoft 365, the timesheet solution should fit into that environment.
Look at:
- SharePoint compatibility
- Microsoft 365 deployment
- User access
- Permissions
- Data location
- Existing Microsoft ecosystem workflows
A SharePoint-based solution can be particularly relevant for organizations that want their timesheet process to remain within their existing Microsoft 365 environment.
8. Think About Compliance and Timesheet Rules
Different organizations have different rules around working hours.
Depending on your requirements, you may need to consider:
- Minimum working hours
- Maximum working hours
- Weekend entries
- Holiday calendars
- Required timesheet submissions
- Role-based access
A timesheet solution should support the rules that matter to your organization rather than forcing managers to validate everything manually.
9. Consider Reporting Before You Choose the Timesheet
This is an important point that is often overlooked.
Many organizations start by asking:
“What should our employees use to enter time?”
Instead, start with:
“What information will leadership need at the end of the reporting period?”
For example, if leadership needs to know project effort by employee and task, the timesheet process should collect that information from the beginning.
This creates a simple principle:
Start with the report. Work backward to the data you need.
That approach can help prevent organizations from collecting time that cannot later be used effectively.
10. Microsoft 365 Timesheet Software vs. Excel
Excel is familiar, flexible, and inexpensive.
For small teams with straightforward requirements, it can be a reasonable starting point.
But as project complexity increases, organizations may begin to encounter challenges around:
- Multiple spreadsheet versions
- Manual consolidation
- Approval follow-ups
- Missing entries
- Reporting preparation
- Maintaining project/task structures
- Data consistency
A dedicated timesheet application is not automatically better for every organization.
The right question is whether your current process can reliably provide the information your project and leadership teams need.
What Should a Good Microsoft 365 Timesheet Solution Provide?
Before purchasing, create an evaluation checklist.
| Capability | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Project tracking | Connect hours to projects |
| Task tracking | Understand where project effort is spent |
| Timesheet entry | Provide structured employee time capture |
| Submission workflow | Establish a consistent reporting cycle |
| Manager approvals | Validate submitted hours |
| Missing timesheets | Identify incomplete submissions |
| Reporting | Turn time entries into useful information |
| Filters | Analyze relevant project and employee data |
| Microsoft 365/SharePoint | Fit the existing technology environment |
| Power BI | Extend reporting and analytics |
| Rules and controls | Support organizational policies |
This checklist can help separate a basic time-entry tool from a solution designed around project time management.
Where Timesheet Pro 365 Fits
Timesheet Pro 365 is a Microsoft 365 and SharePoint-based timesheet solution designed around project time tracking, timesheet management, approvals, and reporting.
It supports a workflow where:
Employees
Record hours against projects and tasks.
↓
Managers
Review submitted timesheets.
↓
Timesheets
Move through the approval process.
↓
Project Teams
Use structured time information for reporting.
↓
Leadership
Gets better visibility into project effort.
The product also supports reporting capabilities and Power BI integration for organizations that want to use their timesheet information for broader analysis.
Questions to Ask Before Buying Timesheet Software
Before making a decision, ask your team these questions:
About employees
- Is entering time simple enough for daily use?
- Can employees easily select their projects and tasks?
About managers
- Can managers quickly see pending submissions?
- Can they approve or reject timesheets?
- Can they identify missing timesheets?
About project teams
- Can project hours be analyzed by project and task?
- Can billable and non-billable hours be separated?
About leadership
- Can the information support project reporting?
- Can the data be analyzed in Power BI?
About IT
- Does the solution fit our Microsoft 365 and SharePoint environment?
- How is access managed?
- Where is the data stored?
The answers will tell you much more than a feature checklist alone.
When Should You Consider a Dedicated Timesheet Solution?
There is no universal number of employees at which an organization should move away from spreadsheets.
The decision is usually driven by process complexity.
A dedicated solution may become worth considering when:
- Multiple projects are being tracked simultaneously
- Managers spend significant time chasing submissions
- Timesheets require formal approval
- Reporting requires manual consolidation
- Project/task-level information is important
- Leadership needs recurring project reports
- The organization already relies heavily on Microsoft 365
- Power BI reporting is part of the broader analytics strategy
The goal isn’t to replace Excel simply because software exists.
The goal is to determine whether your current process is still appropriate for the way your organization operates.
Conclusion
Choosing Microsoft 365 timesheet software should not begin with the question:
“Which application has the most features?”
Instead, start with your actual workflow.
How do employees record time?
How do managers approve it?
How do you identify missing submissions?
How do project teams report the information?
How does leadership use the resulting data?
A good timesheet solution should connect these stages rather than treating time entry as an isolated activity.
For organizations already working with Microsoft 365 and SharePoint, Timesheet Pro 365 provides a structured approach to project time tracking, timesheet approvals, reporting, and Power BI integration.