How To Assign & Re-assign Your Time

A quick look at how your time is automatically or manually assigned to the right clients.

Time by Ping (TBP) is packed full of powerful features that reduce the amount of time and effort you need to put in to accurately bill for your work. For all emails and documents, once we capture an Activity, we apply our predictive technology to complete as much information about it for you as possible. 

The first thing we do is predict which Client / Matter an Activity should be assigned to – and if we have enough information to make an accurate prediction, assign it for you automatically. If we don’t have enough information, we’ll ask you to assign it instead and will use that to learn and improve our predictions.

Once a Client / Matter is assigned, we’ll also write your Narratives and generate your Work Codes where needed.

What are Assigned and Unassigned Activities?

An Unassigned Activity has no Client / Matter attached to it. Instead, it includes as much information as possible to help you assign it to the right Client / Matter yourself. In your Timeline, Unassigned Activities are marked with a yellow left-hand border and look like this:

Conversely, an Assigned Activity is assigned to a Client / Matter. In your Timeline, an Assigned Activity looks like this:

Once an Activity is assigned to a Client / Matter, it will also show as an Entry in your Timesheet. If you want to change the Client / Matter attached to an Activity, we’ve also made it easy to re-assign it.

How does Time by Ping automatically Assign my time?

TBP flexes its predictive muscles for every email or document Activity we capture. Here’s how:

• For emails or documents filed via your Document Management System (DMS), we automatically Assign that Activity to the relevant Client / Matter within TBP
• For emails or documents not filed via your DMS, our Matter Categorization model makes a prediction on those document or email activities but only Assigns a Client / Matter when we’re at least 70% certain it’s correct

For more information, read our How We Automate Your Time article.

How do I Assign an Unassigned Activity in my Timeline?

If a Client / Matter prediction by TBP doesn’t meet our 70% threshold for certainty, the Activity will show in your Timeline as Unassigned but will include as much information as possible to help you quickly assign the right Client / Matter yourself. There are three ways you can manually assign an Activity to the right Client / Matter:

Assign using your Current Matter List:

1. Click on the Unassigned Activity in your Timeline and your Current Matter List (CML), on the right-hand side, will switch from ‘Filter mode’ to ‘Assign mode’
2. Click  next to the relevant Client / Matter in your CML to assign your selected Activity

Using our Add to Previous / Next Feature

If an unassigned activity sits immediately before or after an assigned activity, you can quickly add it to the Client / Matter for these assigned activities with one click. Simply:

1. Hover over the 'Plus' icon above or below the unassigned activity 
2. Click on the Client / Matter you want to assign it to

See our Add to Previous / Next: Assign Time Quickly article for more information. 

For any Client / Matter that isn’t in your Current Matter List:

1. Click on the Unassigned Activity in your Timeline and you’ll see an ‘Unassigned Matter’ box display on the right-hand side of your TBP window. Click on ‘Assign’In the Assign to Client modal, use the search bar to find the Client / Matter you’re looking for: 
   
2. If you’ve assigned time to this Client / Matter before, the results will show exact matches in the list directly below
   • If you’re searching for a Client / Matter you haven’t assigned time to before, click ‘Search Firmwide’ to search the Practice Management System (PMS) and see any related results in the list directly below
3. Click on the Client / Matter you want to assign the Activity to and then click ‘Save & Close’. The Client / Matter will now be added to your CML and, if it came from a Firmwide Search, it will be added to your local list too

How do I manually Re-assign an Activity in my Timeline?

Just as there are two ways to assign an Activity, so there are also two ways to re-assign one:

Re-assign via your Current Matter List:

1. Click on the Assigned Activity in your Timeline and your CML, on the right-hand side, will switch from ‘Filter mode’ to ‘Assign mode’
2. Click  next to the relevant Client / Matter in your CML to re-assign your selected Activity

For any Client / Matter that isn’t in your Current Matter List:

1. Click on the Assigned Activity in your Timeline and the Client / Matter box displays on the right-hand side of your TBP window. Click on ‘Re-assign’
   
   
2. In the Assign to Client modal, use the search bar to find the Client / Matter you’re looking for:
   • If you’ve assigned time to this Client / Matter before, the results will show exact matches in the list directly below
   • If you’re searching for a Client / Matter you haven’t assigned time to before, click ‘Search Firmwide’ to search the PMS and see any related results in the list directly below
3. Click on the Client / Matter you want to re-assign the Activity to and then click ‘Save & Close’. The Client / Matter will now be added to your CML and, if it came from a Firmwide Search, it will be added to your local list too

Assign or Re-assign multiple Activities

You can also easily assign or re-assign multiple Activities at once as long as they all belong to the same Client / Matter:

1. Select a single Activity
2. Click on the Activity icons of any other Activities with the same Client / Matter you want to assign or re-assign
3. Click  next to the relevant Client / Matter in your CML and your selected Activities will be assigned or re-assigned to that Client / Matter

How do I Re-assign an Entry in my Timesheet?

Once an Activity is Assigned, it appears as an Entry in your Timesheet.

If you want to re-assign the Client / Matter for any Entry, you have two options:

Re-assign an Entry via your Daily Timesheet 

In a similar vein to re-assigning an Activity in your Timeline, you can re-assign an Entry in your Timesheet. In your Daily Timesheet on the right-hand side of your TBP window, simply:

1. Select all Entries you want to re-assign
2. Notice the Daily Timesheet box has turned into an assign mode
3. Click on the Client / Matter to Re-assign the Entries 

Using this flow, you can only Re-assign Entries to Client / Matters that you already have time assigned to i.e. Ones that show in the Daily Timesheet. 

Re-assign an Entry via the Client / Matter box

1. Click on any single Entry, or on the Client / Matter header to select a group of Entries,  and the Client / Matter box displays on the right-hand side of your TBP window
2. Click on and then click ‘Re-assign’
   
3. In the Assign to Client / Matter modal, use the search bar to find the Client / Matter you’re looking for: 
   • If you’ve assigned time to this Client / Matter before, the results will show exact matches in the list directly below
   • If you’re searching for a Client / Matter you haven’t assigned time to before, click ‘Search Firmwide’ to search the PMS and see any related results in the list directly below 
4. Click on the Client / Matter you want to re-assign the Entry to and then click ‘Save & Close’. The Client / Matter will now be added to your CML and, if it came from a Firmwide Search, it will be added to your local list too

1.  

Assign or Re-assign multiple Entries

You can also easily re-assign multiple Entries to multiple Clients / Matters at once:

1. Select a single Entry
2. Click on the Entry icons of any other Entries with the same Client / Matter you want to assign or re-assign
3. In your Daily Timesheet, select the Client / Matter to assign or re-assign them