Wrike Time Tracking Features & Alternative Methods Explained

If Wrike is your project management tool of choice, you need to know about its time tracking features because project management and time tracking go hand in hand. It’s no wonder every project management tool comes with its own default solutions for time tracking. The question is, are those good enough to yield reliable project data?

This question is precisely what we’re tackling in this article. We’ll take a critical look at Wrike’s native time tracking features and review 6 alternatives – all to save you time on research and help you figure out the best time tracking setup for your use case.

Let’s dive right in.

Time tracking in Wrike: do you need it?

You may have noticed that project time tracking features in Wrike are not part of all subscription plans. In fact, it’s common practice among project management software providers to only include time tracking as part of bigger packages. Why is that and do you really need the time tracking capabilities in Wrike?

In Wrike, time tracking is available with the Business subscription and above. We’re talking 5+ users and solutions beyond basic team management. The reason time tracking is considered a premium feature for teams is because of its vital role in calculating project margins.

Crash course in project margins

As a service business, how do you know which projects are your most profitable? Anyone who’s ever done project work will tell you it’s not as simple as comparing revenue generated from different projects. Revenue is unreliable because projects may cost you more than they yield if they require more resources from you than what’s compensated for.

What’s a service provider’s most valuable and costly resource? Time. Whether it’s purchased from salaried employees in bulk at the beginning of each month or calculated on an hourly basis. Depending on how long it took you to deliver a project, its actual profitability will vary.

There’s no project margins without reliable time tracking data. And if you don’t know your project margins you’re making decisions blindfolded.

We explain this in more detail and offer a ready-to-use template for profitability reporting in our free course for service businesses. Watch now and use the template to input your data and compare your project margins.

Back to the initial question of whether you need the time tracking features in Wrike. If you’re a team of 5+ people who deliver professional services to clients and want to calculate accurate project margins to optimize profitability, then the answer is a definite YES. There’s no better insight and lever for growing net profit than project hours. Time tracking is your best friend here.

How to track time in Wrike?

There are two ways to track time in Wrike. One is by using the task timer and the other is by manually adding time entries. Let’s first take a look at the former method.

The running start/stop timer is one of the most widely used methods of manual time tracking. It’s extremely well-adopted across project management tools and comes with pros and cons. The main advantage being its straightforwardness, and the main disadvantage – a high risk of project hours not being tracked because people forget about the running timer as soon as they really focus.

There are 2 things to know about the task timer in Wrike:

1. It will keep running in the background indefinitely if you forget to pause it.
2. You can only have 1 task timer running at a time.

As soon as you’ve started a task timer in Wrike, an entry is added to Activity Streams (a task section for comments, updates, and attachments). Since you can only use the task timer for one task at a time, whatever timer is already running will be paused automatically. You can also check which task your running timer is tracking at the top of your screen.

How to add time on task in Wrike?

Setting a task timer is a way to track work hours in real time as you go. Alternatively, you can track time retrospectively by manually adding time entries to your tasks.

In Wrike, adding a time entry manually is no different than in other project management tools.

1. Navigate to your task.
2. Locate and click on the 0:00 timer.
3. Enter the hours and minutes you worked on the task.
4. Choose your date, time tracking category, and add a description.

If you’ve ever added time entries to tasks retrospectively, you already know the challenges and risks associated with this method of project hour logging.

The result is extremely unreliable project data. Which defies the point of project time tracking and does more harm than good. Not to mention the unnecessary stress put on the team. Whether it’s starting and stopping the timer on each task or adding time entries manually, these are countless micro-decisions that need to be made every week. Instead of delivering value to clients, project resources are wasted on admin.

Wrike timesheets and reports

Timesheets in Wrike provide a weekly view of one’s time tracked on tasks. This is also where you can manually add time entries, including for other users (available to account admins and owners by default, and to regular users granted this permission).

In addition to adding new time entries to other people’s timesheets, you can edit or delete existing time entries. In Wrike, there’s even a designated Time Manager user with permissions to view and edit other team members’ timesheets. Unlike regular Manager users, Time Managers don’t have access to financial data.

It’s also possible to lock project dates once reviewed. Wrike gives this option to managers who wish to prevent timesheet fraud (editing time entries with the intention to inflate project hours or distort payroll data), which is a form of time theft.

Another thing managers can do in Wrike is add time tracking categories for their teams. These categories are custom and reflect the types of project work carried out in your organization specifically. Using categories helps PMs organize time reporting and team members log project hours efficiently.

Time reports in Wrike

These are the types of reports on project hours available in Wrike.

• Time Spent Report – displays the total time a team has spent on a project.
• Team Utilization Report – displays the amount of time spent on billable work against the total capacity.

The Team Utilization Report in Wrike calculates billable utilization of each employee for you, which is a useful feature for any PM. Of course, this insight is only as good as the time tracking data provided by the team members.

6 time tracking alternatives for Wrike

The default time tracking features in Wrike are not bad. In fact, they’re perfectly usable, provided you can make the adjustments and ensure that the timer is set for every small task and timesheets are always filled out on the same day.

However, the reality of project teams is a lot of context switching and subsequent multitasking. Not to mention the ADHD crowd that finds it virtually impossible to use the running timer and manual time tracking at large. This is why there exists a variety of enhancements for Wrike time tracking. We’re talking integrations and plugins that build up on Wrike’s native time tracking features.

Let’s review some of these alternatives and determine which one brings the most value to your Wrike setup.

1. Memtime: timer-free tracking & 2-way sync of time entries

It’s fair to say that in order to truly enhance the default time tracking in Wrike, any alternative would need to offer a solution without a running timer. But Memtime goes beyond that, as it’s not only automated but also completely forgettable. As in, you install it once and then never again have to think about tracking time on Wrike tasks.

Memtime is a desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux that tracks time for you while you work. Being a desktop app, it’s able to work in the background and capture every activity, however short. For example, you can close Memtime and it will still capture every minute of your day in a chronological timeline. The timeline itself is offline and visible only to you.

Memtime is integrated with Wrike (and 100+ other tools) out of the box. It means that you don’t have to configure anything – simply select Wrike from the list of Connected Apps and authenticate your account once. Here’s what’s going to happen then.

• Your projects and tasks from Wrike are imported into Memtime.
• You look at what Memtime recorded for you and create time entries.
• You assign time entries to your Wrike tasks in Memtime.
• Times are synced automatically into Wrike under the right tasks.
• If you manually add a time entry in Wrike, it appears in Memtime.

The beauty of Memtime is that you can go back to any day in the past and see your day minute by minute. As you were switching between projects, tasks, and clients, Memtime kept track of everything to help you quickly and accurately log time on Wrike tasks. The 2-way sync of time entries ensures that you never lose track of what you logged and when.

Free trial: You can use Memtime for free for 14 days (all features included) with no credit card required. If you wish to start a team trial (10 users at once), book a call and request yours – it doesn’t cost you anything.

2. Clockify: browser extension & mobile timer

Clockify is a popular project time tracking solution in the form of an embeddable timer. You install a browser extension and a Clockify timer appears inside Wrike tasks. In this way, Clockify is integrated with 80+ web applications.

The rationale behind having yet another running timer to replace Wrike’s own task timer is that Clockify will pick up the name of the task and allow you to stop the timer on your other devices, e.g. on mobile. Since you can have Clockify timer inside your other tools like Gmail and Hubspot, you get all of your time tracking data in one place.

You can then run and export reports, edit past time entries (including overlapping time entries from several projects), review timesheets, and manage projects. This is how Wrike time tracking works with Clockify.

• A Clockily timer is added to your Wrike tasks.
• Clockify picks up task names.
• You start and stop the timer on desktop or mobile.
• Via Clockily’s web version, you can manage all time data.

‍Free trial: You can use the free version of Clockify indefinitely with limited features.

3. Hubstaff: desktop timer & screenshots

Hubstaff is a time tracking solution with employee monitoring features for Wrike. In addition to tracking time on Wrike tasks using a timer, your employees can be additionally monitored with random screenshots. This is possible with Hubstaff’s desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Similar to Clockify, Hubstaff’s time tracking solutions for Wrike still involve using a manual start/stop timer. The advantage of adding Clockify or Hubstaff to your Wrike toolkit is that you can connect multiple work tools to your time tracking app and run all timers in one place.

We at Memtime condemn employee monitoring but recognize that other time tracking software providers include it as part of their solutions.

Here’s how you can track time on Wrike tasks using Hubstaff.

• Wrike tasks are automatically synced into Hubstaff.
• Users track time using a manual timer.
• Screenshots can be taken while a Wrike timer is running.
• Time entries can also be added manually.
• Time logged in Hubstaff appears in Wrike as native time entries.

All of your team’s time data and screenshots are uploaded to the cloud for your easy access. As a manager, you can then customize and filter time reports and share them with clients. Hubstaff also streamlines invoicing and record keeping.

‍Free trial: You can try Hubstaff for free for 14 days (all features, no credit card info required).

4. Time Doctor: semi-automated time tracking & screenshots

Time Doctor is an app that allows you to track time on desktop (Windows, macOS, and Linux) or mobile (Android only). It uses a Chrome extension to add a running timer to 50+ third-party apps, including Wrike.

Once your Time Doctor and Wrike accounts are synced, you can start and stop the Time Doctor timer inside your Wrike tasks. This data is then aggregated in reports, including insights into idle time when no activity is registered. Similar to Hubstaff, Time Doctor also allows screenshots for employee monitoring.

Here’s a step-by-step process of how Wrike time tracking works with Time Doctor.

• A Time Doctor timer is added to your Wrike tasks.
• You start and stop the timer to track time on task.
• All tracked data is pulled into productivity reports.

In addition to manual tracking time using a start/stop timer, Time Doctor offers semi-automated time tracking. It’s configured by Admins and prompts the timer to start automatically as soon as your computer is started.

‍Free trial: You can use Time Doctor for free for 14 days after sharing your phone number.

5. TimeCamp: embeddable Chrome timer & desktop app

TimeCamp uses an embeddable timer to pull the time you’ve tracked in Wrike into time tracking reports. You can get insight into your projects’ profitability, time spent on tasks, costs, revenue, margins, and more.

Alternatively, you can use TimeCamp’s desktop app to track time on Wrike tasks without logging into Wrike. Once you’ve connected your TimeCamp and Wrike accounts, you can view Wrike tasks inside TimeCamp and see in one place the time logged on Wrike tasks vs other apps and tools.

Here’s how Wrike time tracking works with TimeCamp.

• You either embed a TimeCamp timer into Wrike or use TimeCamp’s desktop app.
• You start and stop the timer on each task.
• Your time data populates reports and invoices.

With TimeCamp’s automatic time tracking, managers can see what websites employees visited outside of working on Wrike tasks. This won’t win you any sympathy points as a manager but will provide insight into productivity.

‍Free trial: You can use TimeCamp’s free version with limited features or you can test any of TimeCamp’s paid plans for 14 days without sharing your credit card information.

Everhour: upcoming integration with Wrike

Everhour is a timesheet app integrated with popular project management tools. Everhour is still working on its Wrike integration but you can sign up to be notified when it goes live. Then you can decide if it’s really the best Wrike time tracking integration on the market as advertised 🙂

Everhour is planning to improve Wrike’s native time tracking by embedding their own running timer inside Wrike tasks. By displaying estimated vs actual time on Wrike tasks, Everhour will facilitate employee accountability. Any changes to Wrike tasks and projects will besynced into Everhour to make sure you have up-to-date data.

Below are the steps to tracking time on Wrike tasks using Everhour.

• You use Everhour’s embeddable timer inside Wrike.
• Alternatively, you can use the start/stop timer in Everhour’s browser extension (no logging into Wrike or Everhour needed).
• You make custom reports using time data from Wrike tasks.

To amplify Wrike’s native time tracking features, Everhour will allow logging time on behalf of other team members. In addition to that, managers will also be able to approve time submitted by other users. You will also be able to pull the data on tracked billable time into invoices.

‍Free trial: You can’t test the Wrike integration yet as it’s being built, but you can get notified as soon as it’s released by sharing your email address.

Recap

In this blog post, we reviewed Wrike’s default time tracking features and took a critical look at the setup as it is. We then went over the alternatives and enhancements you can make to your time tracking process in Wrike to get the most out of project time tracking data.

Check out the 6 alternatives to Wrike time tracking to decide which one makes the most sense for your operations. Depending on the level of automation and privacy you require, choose your fighter and build the best Wrike time tracking workflow your team has seen.