Timecard Management Configuration
About 5% of the CIS-SPM exam — see all 10 domains.
Time Card Management captures time worked against tasks, projects, demands, problems, or other configurable targets in SPM and ITSM. Know the structure: a Time Sheet (weekly) contains Time Cards, and each time card holds hours by day. Time sheets are always weekly; the time sheet policy only sets the day the week starts. Time can be entered via the time sheet portal/UI and mobile time cards.
Approval & rollup. Time card states are Pending, Submitted, Approved, Rejected, Processed (approved with an expense line), and Recalled. Approved hours become actual effort, and processed time cards create expense lines (actual cost) that roll up to tasks and feed resource actuals and financials. Time sheet policies set the week start day, maximum hours per day and week, automatic time card creation, recall, rate types, and the Project time approver (Auto, Project Manager, User Manager, Both, None) and Non-project time approver. Each user has one policy (assigned through the policy's Users list); the default policy covers everyone else. What users log time against comes from their tasks and the time card categories (Admin, Meeting, Training, and others, plus project time categories), not from the policy.
Sample questions from this domain
Three of the 15 in this domain, with the reasoning. The full set is in the question bank.
What is the primary purpose of Time Card Management in SPM?
- A. To plan Confirmed and Allocated hours for resources against projects, demands, or other planned work
- B. To capture actual time/effort worked by resources against tasks, projects, or other categories ✓
- C. To define labor rate cards that price each resource's hours against projects and demands
- D. To track task progress with planned start and end dates against the project baseline
Why: Time Card Management records actual time and effort worked against tasks, projects, and categories such as Admin, Meeting, and Training. Confirmed and Allocated hours are planned capacity on resource plans, not actual time. Labor rate cards price hours to calculate cost and are a financials configuration. Task progress against planned dates and baselines is tracked in project planning, not in time cards.
A Time Sheet Policy primarily governs:
- A. The labor rate cards and cost rates that turn each user's approved hours into labor cost expense lines
- B. The rules for time entry, recall, and approval routing, such as week start day, maximum hours, and approvers ✓
- C. The resource plan rules for Confirmed and Allocated hours, such as the allocation spread method and capacity source
- D. The time card categories and project time categories, such as Admin, Meeting, Training, and Testing
Why: A time sheet policy sets rules such as the week start day (Week starts on), maximum hours per day and week, automatic time card creation, recall (Allow recall), rate types, and project and non-project approvers. Labor rate cards turn hours into cost and are financials configuration. Resource plan rules (allocation spread of Even, Front load, or Smart Even Load, with capacity from schedules) belong to resource management. Time card categories and project time categories define what time can be logged against, not the submission and approval rules.
Which period length is commonly configured for time sheets in SPM?
- A. Monthly, with the period end day set in the time sheet policy
- B. Per fiscal period, with periods set by the fiscal calendar
- C. Per sprint, with the dates set by the sprint on the Agile board
- D. Weekly, with the week start day set in the time sheet policy ✓
Why: Time sheets always cover a week, and the time sheet policy's Week starts on field sets the first day. There is no monthly time sheet period in the policy. Fiscal periods from the fiscal calendar structure cost plan breakdowns, not time sheets. Sprints on the Agile board plan agile work and do not define time sheet periods.