Locking and unlocking timesheets
Sandtime.io supports both manual control and automatic locking for timesheets. Only an Administrator can lock or unlock a period.
Auto-locking
Open Settings, go to Time tracking, open Locking timesheets, and enable Auto-locking timesheets if you want past weeks to lock automatically.
When auto-locking is enabled:
- past timesheets are locked,
- the current timesheet locks after each week,
- editing past periods is prevented until they are unlocked.
Locking one person’s week manually
To lock a single week for a single person instead, open Settings, pick the Member, open their profile, and click Display timesheets. In the timesheet view, select the week and click the lock icon. This affects only that member and only the selected range.
Manual unlocks
If a locked period still needs correction, an administrator can unlock it directly, or approve an unlock request sent by a team member who cannot unlock their own timesheet. This is useful for payroll corrections, late submissions, or approval adjustments.
A team member can raise that request from two places. From the activity they were trying to edit:
Or from the timesheet view, for the whole week:
Either way, Sandtime.io confirms what is being asked for and states how long the period will stay open once an administrator approves it.
While auto-locking is enabled, an unlocked period automatically locks again after a set duration - see below. When auto-locking is disabled, a manual unlock has no time limit; the period stays unlocked until it is locked again manually.
Unlock duration
Open Settings, go to Time tracking, and open Locking timesheets to set the Unlock duration: how long a period stays open after it is unlocked, either directly by an administrator or by approving a team member’s unlock request. Choose a preset (30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 8 hours, or 24 hours) or enter a custom value between 30 minutes and 24 hours; until you set one, it stays at 30 minutes. Once the duration elapses, the period locks again automatically.
Good practice
Turn on locking only after the team understands when reporting should be complete each week. Otherwise, the admin workload grows quickly from repeated unlock requests.