Can Shop Floor Insight record and apply labor time against Business Central projects, and does project-based time card approval work the same way?
Yes, Shop Floor Insight supports time capture against Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central projects, which are referred to as Jobs in Business Central. Operators and employees can clock into a specific project and project task the same way they clock into a production order operation. The resulting time entries appear on time cards in Business Central alongside any production order time captured during the same period, and the full approval workflow applies to project time just as it does to production time.
Clocking Into Projects from the Shop Floor
From the shop floor client, employees can navigate to the Job Dispatch view to see available project tasks filtered for their station or role. They can clock in by selecting a task from the list or by scanning a job task barcode printed from the Shop Floor Job Traveler report. Once clocked in, the time card line records the project and task reference, and time accumulates until the employee clocks off. The interface supports the same concurrent clocking and auto-split capabilities available for production orders.
Project-Based Time Card Approvals
Shop Floor Insight includes a separate project-based approval layer in addition to the standard supervisor timecard approval. A project manager can review time entries recorded against their project regardless of whether those employees report to them directly in the standard supervisory hierarchy. Through the project approval workflow, the project manager can assess whether time is billable, reclassify it to a different project task if needed, and indicate approval before the time is posted. This separation of supervisory approval from project approval reflects the reality that in many organizations the person managing a project is not the same person managing the workforce.
Other Document Types Supported
Beyond projects and production orders, Shop Floor Insight also supports time capture against Business Central service orders and fixed assets. Non-productive time codes can be used to record activities such as training, meetings, or maintenance that do not post to any specific document. This makes Shop Floor Insight a comprehensive time capture solution across manufacturing, professional services, field service, and facilities management contexts.
Relevant Tools
Shop Floor Insight is the MES solution from Insight Works for Dynamics 365 Business Central, supporting structured time capture and approval workflows across production orders, projects and job tasks, service orders, fixed assets, and non-productive activity codes, all within a single integrated solution.
Shop Floor Insight captures time against Business Central projects with the same structured clock-in and clock-off workflow used for production orders. Project-based approval provides an additional review layer for project managers, independent of the standard supervisory hierarchy, before time is posted to the project ledger.