Production Report

Overview

The Production Report is a workforce productivity and utilization tracking tool that provides a comprehensive breakdown of employee time allocation across different categories on a weekly basis. This report aggregates finalized time entries and categorizes them into Client work, internal company work (deZinnia), Paid Time Off (PTO), Bereavement Leave, Holiday time, and Star project contributions—offering a complete picture of how employee time is distributed.

A distinctive feature of this report is the "Star" metric, which tracks hours logged by team members on projects where another employee serves as the primary resource. This provides visibility into team leadership and supervision workload, showing how much work is being generated or overseen by project leads even when they are not directly logging time.

The report supports year-over-year comparison, allowing managers to analyze productivity trends by displaying the current period alongside the same period from the previous two years. This comparison capability is essential for identifying seasonal patterns, measuring year-over-year growth in client work, and tracking changes in time-off utilization.

Location: Navigate to Reports from the main navigation menu, then click Production Report in the GENERAL section.

URL: /reports/productionreport.aspx

Access Level:

• Regular Staff: Can view only their own production data
• Administrators: Can view all employees individually or as an aggregate summary

Business Value

For Company Leadership

The Production Report provides executives with critical workforce utilization insights:

• Billable vs. Non-Billable Ratio - Understand what percentage of employee time goes to revenue-generating client work versus internal activities and time off
• Workforce Capacity Planning - See average weekly hours across the team to identify capacity for new work or signs of overload
• Utilization Benchmarking - Compare current year utilization against prior years to track whether the organization is becoming more or less efficient
• Time-Off Impact Assessment - Quantify how PTO, holidays, and bereavement affect available productive capacity

For Department Managers

Operations and department managers benefit from:

• Team Performance Monitoring - Review weekly time summaries for team members to ensure consistent productivity
• Resource Allocation Decisions - Identify employees with high client hours who may need support versus those with capacity for additional work
• Individual Employee Coaching - Use personal production data in one-on-ones to discuss workload balance and utilization goals
• Leadership Activity Tracking - The Star metric reveals which employees are managing projects where others do the work, indicating supervisory load

For Project Managers

Project managers gain insights into:

• Team Contribution Patterns - See how team members allocate time between client and internal projects
• Project Leadership Recognition - Star hours validate the invisible work of overseeing projects without directly logging execution time
• Availability Forecasting - Understand when key team members have high time-off usage that may affect project timelines

For Individual Staff Members

Regular employees benefit from:

• Personal Productivity Tracking - Review their own time allocation patterns over selected periods
• Career Development Insights - Higher Star hours indicate growing project leadership responsibilities
• Historical Comparison - Compare current year performance against previous years to track personal growth

Business Benefits

1. Complete Time Visibility - Every hour employees work or take off is categorized and visible, eliminating gaps in understanding how workforce capacity is utilized.
2. Year-Over-Year Trend Analysis - The comparison feature shows the same date range across three consecutive years, enabling trend identification without manual data manipulation.
3. Multi-Level Aggregation - View data at individual employee level or aggregated across all employees, supporting both micro-management needs and macro-level strategic analysis.
4. Leadership Contribution Recognition - The Star metric captures a typically invisible form of contribution—supervising and enabling others' work—which is essential for fair performance assessment.
5. Finalization Status Awareness - The report highlights employees who haven't finalized their time sheets, ensuring data quality awareness before making decisions based on the numbers.
6. Flexible Date Ranges - Select any week-based date range up to one year, allowing analysis of specific quarters, seasons, or custom periods.
7. Inactive Employee Inclusion Option - Toggle inactive employees on or off to include historical data from departed team members when analyzing past periods.
8. Dual View Modes - Single employee view for detailed weekly breakdown, all-employees view for team-wide comparison in a single screen.

Usage Scenarios

Scenario 1: Quarterly Utilization Review

Role: Operations Director

At the end of each quarter, the operations director builds the Production Report with the quarter's date range and selects "All employees." They review the aggregate showing each employee's total and average hours by category. Employees with significantly higher Client hours are recognized for strong billable utilization. Those with high deZinnia (internal) hours may warrant discussion about project assignments. The comparison columns reveal whether utilization improved or declined versus the same quarter last year.

Scenario 2: Personal Performance Check

Role: Production Artist

A production artist wants to understand their own time allocation trends. Since they are not an administrator, they only see their own data. They set the date range to year-to-date and build the report. The weekly breakdown shows their Client hours (highlighted in yellow) alongside internal hours, PTO usage, and holidays. The averages at the bottom help them understand their typical weekly output and how it compares to previous years.

Scenario 3: Project Lead Recognition

Role: Creative Director

A creative director manages several projects where junior designers execute the work while they provide direction and quality oversight. Although they don't log many hours directly, their Star column shows substantial hours—representing time logged by team members on projects where they are the primary resource. This validates their supervisory contribution during performance reviews, even when their direct billable hours appear lower.

Scenario 4: Time-Off Planning Impact

Role: Resource Manager

Before committing to new project timelines, a resource manager reviews the Production Report for the upcoming quarter's historical equivalent (same period last year). They notice that PTO and Holiday hours spike during certain weeks. This pattern helps them avoid over-committing capacity during periods when staff historically take significant time off.

Scenario 5: New Employee Ramp-Up Tracking

Role: Team Lead

A team lead wants to track how a recently hired team member is ramping up their productivity. They select that employee from the dropdown and build a report spanning their employment period. The weekly breakdown shows whether Client hours are increasing over time, indicating successful onboarding. They also enable the comparison toggle to see how this ramp-up compares to typical patterns (even though the comparison years show no data for this new employee, the report handles this gracefully).

Scenario 6: Historical Analysis Including Departed Staff

Role: Finance Manager

A finance manager needs to analyze productivity for a period that includes employees who have since left the company. They check "Include Inactive" to add former employees to the dropdown and overall summaries. This ensures the historical analysis accurately represents the workforce composition at that time, not just current active staff.

Scenario 7: Team-Wide Finalization Compliance Check

Role: Administrator

Before running month-end billing, an administrator generates the Production Report for all employees covering the billing period. Names displayed in red indicate employees whose time entries are not fully finalized for the selected range. The administrator follows up with those individuals to ensure complete data before finalizing invoices.

Industry Context

Standard Practice in Professional Services

Production and utilization reporting is fundamental to professional services management:

Utilization Rate Tracking
Professional services firms universally track utilization—the percentage of available time spent on billable client work. Industry benchmarks typically target 70-85% utilization for production staff. This report enables utilization calculation by providing both total hours and client hours, allowing managers to derive utilization rates (Client Hours / Total Hours).

Time Category Allocation
Best practices in workforce management require understanding where non-billable time goes:

• Internal Projects: Investment in processes, tools, training
• Time Off Categories: PTO, holidays, bereavement, sick leave
• Administrative Time: Non-project activities

Breaking down non-billable time by category enables targeted optimization.

Year-Over-Year Analysis
Mature professional services organizations analyze performance trends over time:

• Seasonal utilization patterns
• Growth in client work year-over-year
• Changes in time-off utilization
• Workforce productivity improvements

The comparison feature directly supports this analysis pattern.

The Concept of "Star" Hours

The Star metric addresses a common challenge in agency and studio environments:

Invisible Leadership Work
Senior staff and project leads often contribute significantly to projects without logging substantial direct hours:

• Reviewing and directing others' work
• Client communication and relationship management
• Quality oversight and approval
• Strategic guidance and creative direction

Traditional time tracking undervalues these contributions because the hours appear under junior team members' names. The Star metric attributes these team hours back to the primary resource—the person ultimately responsible for the project—providing a more complete picture of their productivity.

Primary Resource Attribution
In many professional services contexts, projects have a designated "primary" resource who owns the project relationship and outcome, even when execution involves multiple team members. Tracking hours by primary resource (Star hours) alongside direct hours enables:

• Fair workload assessment for project leads
• Recognition of supervisory contributions
• Understanding of actual project oversight burden
• Better resource planning for management roles

Competitive Differentiation

Agencies with strong utilization tracking demonstrate operational excellence:

• Profitability Management: Utilization directly impacts profitability in fixed-price and hourly engagements
• Resource Optimization: Understanding capacity enables better project scheduling
• Performance Culture: Transparent metrics support accountability and improvement
• Client Value: Higher utilization often correlates with better client service through dedicated focus

Business Logic Details

Time Category Definitions

The report categorizes time entries into seven distinct categories:

Total Hours
All finalized hours logged by the employee within the selected date range, regardless of project or activity type. This represents total work capacity utilized.

Client Hours (highlighted in yellow)
Hours logged to projects belonging to external clients—any client that is not the internal company (deZinnia). This is the primary billable work category and is visually highlighted due to its importance.

deZinnia Hours (dZ)
Hours logged to internal company projects. This includes training, process improvement, internal tools development, business development, and other non-client activities. These hours are important investment but not directly billable.

PTO Hours
Hours logged as Paid Time Off. These entries use a specific PTO activity type and represent approved vacation and personal time.

Bereavement Hours (Ber)
Hours logged as Bereavement Leave for family emergencies or loss. These use a specific bereavement activity type.

Holiday Hours (Hol)
Hours logged as company holidays. These are typically entered by the system or administrators for recognized holiday dates.

Star Hours
Hours logged by any team member on projects where the selected employee is designated as the Primary Resource, excluding hours the employee logged themselves. This metric captures supervisory and leadership workload—representing work happening on your projects but performed by others.

Data Filtering Rules

The report applies specific filters to ensure data quality:

1. Finalized Time Only: Only time entries with "Finalized" or "Billed" status are included, ensuring completeness and approval
2. Date Range Filtering: Time entries must fall within the selected start and end weeks
3. Excluded Activities: Unpaid Time Off is excluded from totals
4. Excluded System Employees: System entries for Adjustments, Budget, and Artwork are excluded
5. Activity Category Filter: Fixed Costs activities are excluded from hour calculations
6. Star Client Filter: Star hours exclude internal company clients and pending client records—only external client work counts as Star

Comparison Period Calculation

When comparison mode is enabled:

Current Period: The selected start and end dates
Comparison Period 1: Same date range shifted back exactly one year
Comparison Period 2: Same date range shifted back exactly two years

This provides three years of data side-by-side for trend analysis.

Employee Finalization Tracking

The report tracks the last finalized week for each employee:

• Finalized Through: The most recent week where the employee has finalized their time
• Red Highlighting: Employees whose finalization date is earlier than the report end date are flagged in red, indicating incomplete data
• Admin Exception: Administrator accounts are excluded from the non-finalized warnings

This ensures users are aware when report data may be incomplete due to pending time entry finalization.

Aggregation Calculations

Weekly Breakdown
For individual employee view, the report shows one row per week with that week's hours in each category.

Totals Row
Sum of all weekly hours for each category across the entire date range.

Averages Row
Average weekly hours for each category (Total hours / Number of weeks). This provides a normalized comparison when date ranges differ in length.

Key Features

Filter Controls

Report Columns (Individual Employee View)

Report Columns (All Employees View)

Footer Summaries

Both individual and all-employee views include:

• TOTAL Row: Sum of all hours by category for the selected period
• AVERAGE Row: Average weekly hours by category

Comparison Mode

When enabled, the report displays three side-by-side data sets:

• Current period (leftmost columns)
• Same period one year ago (middle columns)
• Same period two years ago (rightmost columns)

This allows immediate visual comparison of year-over-year trends.

Functional Components

Employee Selection Panel (Admin Only)

Administrators see a dropdown to select employees:

• Defaults to "All employees" for aggregate view
• Lists all active employees alphabetically by last name
• "Include Inactive" checkbox adds former employees to the list
• Selection triggers automatic date initialization based on employee's last finalized week

Current Employee Display (Non-Admin)

Regular users see their name displayed without selection capability:

• Shows the current user's full name
• Report automatically filters to their data only
• Same functionality as selecting oneself from the dropdown

Calendar Week Selection

Both date inputs feature special week-oriented calendar pickers:

• Highlights week boundaries rather than individual days
• Selecting any day within a week snaps to that week's Monday
• Ensures date ranges always align to complete weeks
• Maximum range validation prevents more than one year

Single Employee Report View

When viewing an individual employee:

• Shows weekly breakdown table with one row per week
• Grayed-out rows indicate weeks with no recorded time entries
• Footer shows period totals and averages
• Comparison mode adds two additional tables showing prior years
• Clickable Star totals open a dialog listing specific projects

All Employees Report View

When "All employees" is selected:

• Shows one section per employee with their summary
• Employees with incomplete finalization shown in red
• "Show inactive" link appears to toggle inactive employees
• Warning message displays when not all time has been finalized
• Each employee section shows Total, Average, and breakdown by category
• Grand totals at bottom sum across all employees (excluding specific system accounts)

Star Projects Dialog

Clicking on any Star total opens a popup dialog:

• Lists all projects contributing to the Star hours
• Shows Project ID and Project Name
• Each project name links to the project detail page
• Allows investigation of which projects generated the Star hours

Relationship to Other System Components

Integration with Time Tracking

The Production Report draws directly from the time tracking system:

• Uses finalized time entries as the primary data source
• Respects the time finalization workflow (only approved time appears)
• Aggregates by week-of-entry dates
• Applies activity-based categorization for PTO, Holiday, Bereavement
• Identifies project client association for Client vs. deZinnia split

Integration with Project Management

Project data enables the Star metric:

• Primary Resource assignment on projects identifies leadership
• Project-to-Employee mapping determines Star hour attribution
• Client assignment on projects drives Client vs. internal categorization

Integration with Employee Registry

Employee data supports:

• Employee dropdown population
• Active/Inactive status filtering
• Name display throughout the report
• Administrator role determination for access control

Relationship to Other Reports

The Production Report complements other workforce and financial reports:

Timesheet Finalization Workflow

The report depends on the finalization workflow:

1. Employees enter weekly time entries
2. Time entries are submitted for finalization
3. Finalized entries become available to this report
4. The report tracks finalization status per employee
5. Non-finalized weeks show as warnings in the all-employees view

Summary

The Production Report is a comprehensive workforce productivity analysis tool that transforms finalized time entry data into actionable utilization insights organized by time allocation category. By aggregating employee hours into Client work, internal projects, time off, and the distinctive Star metric for project leadership, the report provides a complete picture of how workforce capacity is distributed.

Key Capabilities:

• Complete Time Categorization: Every hour categorized into Client, Internal, PTO, Bereavement, Holiday, or Star
• Dual View Modes: Individual employee weekly detail or all-employees summary comparison
• Year-Over-Year Comparison: Three-year side-by-side view for trend analysis
• Star Metric: Unique visibility into supervisory and project leadership contributions
• Finalization Tracking: Highlights incomplete data for quality awareness
• Flexible Date Ranges: Week-based selection for any period up to one year
• Role-Based Access: Administrators see all employees; staff see only themselves

Business Impact:

• Enables utilization rate calculation and benchmarking for professional services management
• Supports performance conversations with objective productivity data
• Recognizes invisible leadership work through Star hour attribution
• Facilitates capacity planning with historical trend comparison
• Ensures data quality awareness through finalization status visibility
• Provides individual accountability for time allocation and productivity

The Production Report serves as the primary utilization tracking tool, connecting time tracking data to workforce productivity metrics and enabling data-driven decisions about resource allocation, performance management, and operational efficiency improvement.