Clock Clerk
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Troubleshooting

Common questions

The questions people ask when Clock Clerk does not do what they expected. When the app refuses something, it says why in a sentence of its own; every one of those sentences is listed, with what to do about it, in Messages and what they mean.

Why can't I edit this week?

Locked days are shaded on My Week, and hovering over one says why in a few words, such as on invoice …. A day can be held by more than one thing at once. The app asks about them in this order and names the first one that holds, because that is the one that has to be undone first:

  1. The hours are on an invoice, a draft included: These hours are on invoice … Void it before changing them. Only Finance or an administrator releases them, by removing their line from a draft, discarding the draft or voiding the invoice. See Why billed hours are locked.
  2. The hours are on a contractor's acceptance protocol: These hours are on acceptance protocol … Ask for it to be returned before changing them. The contractor withdraws the month, or a reviewer sends it back. Once the protocol is approved for payment or paid, the hours are final and nothing releases them. See What the contractor lock freezes.
  3. The week is submitted: This week has been submitted for approval. Reopen it before changing anything on it. You can reopen it yourself if you have the Can reopen a submitted week permission and it is not yet approved; otherwise ask the person who reviews your time to send it back. See Reopening a week yourself.
  4. The week is approved. Only a reviewer who can approve it reopens it, and it goes back to them as submitted, so they still have to send it back before you can change it. See Changing your mind.

So to change an hour that is billed, on a protocol and approved, the steps go in the same order: void the invoice, have the protocol returned, then reopen the week. Reopening first is refused with a message that names the invoice or the protocol.

Two more things stop every change, not just this week's: the organization being read-only after a trial or an unpaid subscription (see Our trial ended), and the locks following the days rather than the week. On a week that runs into a new month, one month can be locked while the other is still open. All of it is set out in Why a week cannot be edited.

If what is missing is a project on the New line dialog, the week is not locked: you are not on that project's team. Ask an administrator, or whoever runs the project, to add you (Grants and project teams).

I don't see a menu item or a button

Clock Clerk shows only what you can use, and refuses what it does not show, so a missing button is never a fault of your browser. One of these is the reason:

Only an administrator changes roles, grants, permissions and the plan, under Settings → People and on the Plans page.

Our trial ended

Nothing is deleted. When a trial ends without a plan being chosen, the organization becomes read-only for everyone, and every page says Your free trial has ended. A paid subscription that has ended does the same, under Your subscription has ended: either its last payment was never made, or it was canceled and has run out.

Only an administrator can open it again. They choose a plan from the Plans page, or, once, ask for more days: in a trial's last seven days, or after it has ended, the Plans page offers to extend it, and an organization that had gone read-only opens straight away. A subscription whose last payment was never made opens again once the open invoice is paid, through Manage billing or Pay now on the Plans page, which lead to the Plan & billing card on the Organization tab; a plan can't be chosen while it is still open. A subscription that was canceled and has run out has nothing left to pay: they choose a plan to start a new one. The extra days are for trials only. If you are not an administrator, ask one. See When the trial ends, Choosing a plan and More time.

I can't sign in

Start the way your organization signs in: enter your work email on the sign-in page and it offers the right way in, whether that is Microsoft, Okta or a password. The page's own messages are explained in When it does not work. The usual causes:

My invitation link doesn't work

It depends on how your organization signs in. See Accepting an invitation.

Administrators can see what became of an invitation, and send or copy a new one, on the person's page under Settings → People. See The invitation.

I'm not getting emails

Check your spam or junk folder first. Then, one of these is usually the reason:

Some email cannot be turned off because somebody pressed a button to send it or it is about your account: an invitation, a password reset link, a reviewer's reminder, and a week sent back with its reason. If one of those does not arrive, the bounce and deployment reasons above are the ones to check.

The app said no

Every refusal the app can show is listed in Messages and what they mean, grouped by the screen it comes from, with what causes it and what to do. Search that page for a few words of the message you saw. Each one has a short code beside it, which is what to quote if you ask your administrator or Clock Clerk's support for help.

Contacting Clock Clerk

For a question about your hours, your projects or your access, ask your organization's administrator first: they decide who can see and do what, and Clock Clerk cannot change that for them. For anything else, use the contact form at /contact. It is linked as Contact us from the footer of the app's screens, from the Help page and from a client guest's screen, and Ctrl + K finds it by name. Anyone can use it, signed in or not. The live demo cannot send messages, so there the page links to the real form instead, keeping the reason you came for.

Where Clock Clerk is run by your own company rather than at clockclerk.com and the form cannot take messages, it says who to write to instead.