1. Log in to Employment Hero.
2. Click Workflows.
3. Click Workflow Template Hub.
4. Click Timesheets in the left-hand navigation, or click + Create New and select Timesheets from the module list.

Each timesheet workflow appears as a card. The card shows the workflow name, its status (Active or Inactive), and the date it was last edited or published.

Timesheet settings that affect workflows live in Settings > Timesheets.

Choose who receives approval request notifications in Settings > Notifications. You can turn on notifications for Owners, Admins, the primary manager and the work site rostering manager. If you turn on none of these, the notification goes to the primary manager by default. These recipients are informed of the request. They are separate from the approvers set in the workflow, who can take action on it.

These are the three timesheet triggers.

• Timesheet submitted: starts when an employee submits a timesheet for approval. It also starts when a manager or admin creates a timesheet for an employee. In that case, the person who created the timesheet is the submitter. When someone edits a timesheet, the edit resets it to pending, cancels any open approval, and starts this trigger again with the editor as the submitter for that run.
• Timesheet approved: starts when an approver approves a timesheet. This includes timesheets that the Automatically approve timesheet setting approves.
• Timesheet declined: starts when an approver declines a timesheet.

Conditions work the same way they do in other workflows. These are the timesheet conditions:

• Affected employee: the employee the timesheet belongs to.
• Hours worked: the total hours on the timesheet. For weekly submissions, this counts one day, not the whole week. If rounding is turned on for timesheets, the condition checks the rounded values.
• Submission date: the date the timesheet was submitted, not the date the work took place.
• Timesheet submitter: who submitted the timesheet. This covers whether the submitter is an admin or owner, the affected employee, or a manager of the affected employee, and whether the submitter has managers above them.
• Timesheet approver: who approved or declined the timesheet. Role-based options, such as the primary manager of the affected employee, appear only when this condition comes after a Request approval step. On a trigger with no earlier Request approval step, choose a specific employee, a specific group, or set. Set matches any timesheet that someone has approved or declined. This condition works on the Timesheet approved and Timesheet declined triggers. On other triggers, the approver value is empty and the condition is not met.

The Request approval action sends the timesheet for approval in sequence, in parallel, or to any one approver. You can choose primary and backup approvers from these options:

• The primary manager of the affected employee
• The secondary manager of the affected employee
• The group leaders of the affected employee
• The work site rostering manager of the affected employee
• Security Role Users
• A specific employee or group
• Any admin or owner
• All admins and owners

The workflow notifies a backup approver only when every primary approver is on leave or cannot be found.

• Send email notification: you can send the email to the submitter, the primary manager, the secondary manager or the group leaders of the affected employee, a specific employee, a specific group, any admin or owner, or all admins and owners.
• Create task: you can assign the task to a specific employee or team. You can set the due date relative to the submission date.
• For both actions, use the basic settings only.
• Automatically approve sets the timesheet to Approved, and no one needs to act.
• Automatically decline sets the timesheet to Declined, and no one needs to act.

• WHEN the trigger happens, such as when a timesheet is submitted.
• IF every condition you set is met. A workflow only runs when all of its conditions are met.
• THEN the workflow carries out the actions you added, such as requesting approval or automatically approving the timesheet.

Each time a timesheet workflow runs, the execution history logs the trigger event, the actions taken and the outcome. HR Admins can use the execution history as an audit trail.

A default workflow named Timesheets Approval - Default Workflow appears in the Timesheets section of the Workflow Template Hub with a Default label. When the default workflow is on, it handles timesheets in these ways:

• A CSV (comma-separated values) import: the workflow sends the timesheet for approval.
• An admin, owner or manager submits a timesheet for another employee: the workflow auto-approves it.
• An employee submits a timesheet, the Automatically approve timesheet setting is on, and the timesheet matches a rostered shift: the workflow auto-approves it.
• An admin or owner submits their own timesheet and has no managers above them: the workflow auto-approves it.
• An employee's timesheet that does not match an auto-approve rule, and an admin's or owner's own timesheet when managers are above them: the workflow requests approval from the primary approvers. These are the primary manager of the affected employee, the work site rostering manager and Security Role Users. All admins and owners are backup approvers.

Any one of the approvers, including admins and owners, can approve the timesheet. This matches the legacy approval flow.

The default workflow does not auto-approve timesheets from an employee with no primary manager. The request goes to whichever other approvers can be found for that employee, such as a secondary or indirect manager, the work site rostering manager or a Security Role User. If none can be found, the request goes to all admins and owners.

If the workflow cannot find roster data for a timesheet when it is submitted, the timesheet does not match a rostered shift and the request goes for approval.

Changes to the Automatically approve timesheet setting take effect on the next timesheet submission.

The default workflow is read-only. An HR Admin can unpublish it but cannot edit or delete it.

The default workflow sends no emails of its own. Approval and decline emails to the submitter come from the existing timesheet emails.

While the default workflow is on, the CSV import flow does not show the Approved or Pending status step. Every imported timesheet lands as Pending, and the workflow routes it for approval. This applies to organisations where the legacy approval process is turned off.

If the default workflow is unpublished, the status step returns. A warning banner appears above the status field: "Your organisation's default approval workflow has been unpublished. Timesheets imported with 'Approved' status will be immediately approved without going through any approval workflow and may affect payroll processing."

If a custom approval workflow is also published, the default workflow still runs. Both workflows run independently, so two separate approval requests can go out for the same timesheet. Unpublish the default workflow before you publish a custom approval workflow.

1. Click Unpublish on the Timesheets Approval - Default Workflow.
2. Tick I understand the consequences of unpublishing the default approval workflow.
3. Click Yes, Unpublish.

The Yes, Unpublish button stays disabled until you tick the box.

If no custom workflow is published, no automated approval routing runs after you unpublish the default workflow. Timesheets can still be approved or declined manually.

On web, approve or decline timesheets from the Timesheets list. You can select several timesheets and approve them together. On mobile, use the single approve or decline option.

Each approval or decline starts the matching trigger, Timesheet approved or Timesheet declined.

Each approver assigned by a Request approval step receives an email and a push notification that a timesheet is pending their approval. With sequential approval, only the approver whose turn it is receives the notification.

Open the workflow's execution history and find the run. If the workflow cannot find an approver, it logs the run as failed and records that no approver could be found. No approval request is sent. This can happen when an employee has no primary manager, a work site has no manager assigned, or no active user has the Security Role User access. Then check Settings > Notifications.

The timesheet matched an automatic approval rule. Check the execution history to see which workflow and step approved it.

This is expected. Each daily entry runs the workflow separately, so a five-day week creates five runs. Under the default workflow, each daily entry that needs approval sends its own approval request.

This happens when a custom workflow and the default workflow are both published, because both run. Unpublish the default workflow to stop its requests.

This is expected. An edit resets the timesheet to pending, cancels any open approval, and sends the timesheet through the workflow again. For a weekly timesheet, editing one daily entry cancels only that entry's pending approval.

A workflow only runs when every condition is met. Check the Submission date condition, which uses the date the timesheet was submitted.

If Timesheets is missing, or a user cannot create workflows, check that Timesheets is available for your organisation. Then check the user's Workflows permission in Settings > Permissions. Read access lets a user view workflows but not create or edit them.