How To Manually Group & Ungroup Activities & Entries

Save time and make billing more efficient by grouping your time into convenient billable blocks. 

Time by Ping (TBP) gives you complete flexibility over your time and allows you to group and ungroup all your Activities and Entries as you see fit, making it quick and easy to bill for your time individually or in blocks.

How do I group Activities in my Timeline?

Grouping Assigned Activities in your Timeline is simple and intuitive:

1. You can only group Activities that are assigned to the same Client / Matter. Select the Activities you wish to group by either: 

1. • Clicking on the icon for each Activity
     
   • Shift and Click to select a consecutive range of Activities 
     
   • Or clicking anywhere in an Activity bar related to the Client / Matter in question and then using our Smart Select feature by checking the ‘Select all activities’ box in the Client / Matter box that displays on the right-hand side of your TBP window
     
2. In the Client / Matter box, click ‘Group and Edit’ and the box expands and combines the time for all the grouped Activities
3. In the expanded Client / Matter box, make any edits and then click ‘Close’ 

How do I group Entries in my Timesheet?

Grouping Entries in your Timesheet is very similar to grouping Activities in your Timeline:

1. You can only group Entries that are Assigned to the same Client / Matter. Select the Entries you wish to group by:
   • Clicking on the icon for each Entry
     
     
   • Or clicking anywhere in an Entry bar related to the Client / Matter in question and then checking the ‘Select all entries’ box in the Client / Matter box that displays on the right-hand side of your TBP window
     
     
   • Or clicking on the Client / Matter header
     
     
2. In the Client / Matter box, click ‘Group and Edit’ and the box will expand. TBP recalculates the total billable increment value for the group by combining the time (hours, minutes and seconds) for all the Activities in the grouped Entry and will recalculate the billable increment based on this new combined time
3. In the expanded Client / Matter box, make any edits and then click ‘Close’ 

How do grouped Activities appear in my Timeline?

You can easily identify a grouped Activity by this icon:

Every Activity that’s part of a group will show at its relevant timestamp to keep the chronology of your Timeline – and will also show the details for the group as a whole:

We will show (in order of appearance, left to right):

1. The start time for the first Activity in that day for that group
2. Dropdown arrow that expands to show all Activities in the group at that point in your day
3. Total number of Activities in the group at that point in your day
4. Group Narrative
5. Total duration in hours, minutes and seconds for all the Activities in the group at that point in your day
6. Group release status

In your Timeline, if you just want to see the Activities that make up a particular group, simply:

1. Click on any Activity in the group and the Client / Matter box will display on the right-hand side of your TBP window
2. Click ‘Edit Details’ and the box will expand
3. Check the ‘Show entire group in Timeline’ box and your Timeline will display the Activities in that group only

How do grouped Entries appear in my Timesheet?

Any grouped Entry has a number in brackets that shows how many Activities are in the group, like this:

Let’s look at the group details you can see in your Timesheet (in order of appearance, left to right):

1. Dropdown arrow that expands to show all Activities in that Entry at that point in your day. When you click on the dropdown arrow it also shows you the duration in hours, minutes and seconds for each Activity that’s part of the Group along with the timestamp in which the activities occured
2. Total number of Activities in the Entry
3. Entry Narrative
4. Work Codes
5. Total duration in hours, minutes and seconds for all activities that make up the Entry
6. Total duration of all the Activities in the Entry in billable increments 
7. Entry release status

What happens to my Narratives and Work Codes when I group Activities and Entries?

Good question. Here’s what happens to your:

Narratives

TBP follows our Narrative grouping rules, which go like this:

Grouping two or more Automatically Generated Narratives (AGN)

When grouping Entries or Activities that all have AGNs, TBP combines the individual Narratives and defines each with semicolons, like so:

• Analyze and prepare Motion to Compel; Research regarding www.Westlaw.com.

Grouping two or more Manually Generated Narratives (MGN)

When grouping Entries or Activities that all have MGNs, TBP combines the individual Narratives and defines each with semicolons, like so:

• Review and analyze summons; Prepare motion to quash services of summons.

Grouping any number of AGNs & MGNs

When grouping Entries or Activities that have a mix of AGNS and MGNs, TBP shows only the MGNs.

For more information on this, read our How To Edit Narratives article.

Work Codes

What happens to your Work Codes depends on whether the Activities or Entries being grouped share the same Work Codes or not:

• If they have the same Work Codes, they remain in the Group
• If they have different Work Codes, TBP will reset them and in time make a new prediction based on the group information

All changes to your Narratives and Work Codes will be visible in both your Timeline and Timesheet views. 

How do I ungroup Activities or Entries?

In your Timeline and Timesheet you can ungroup individual Activities from Entries, or ungroup an entire grouped Entry.

To ungroup a single Activity:

1. Click on the dropdown arrow of any group to expand it and show the individual grouped Activities
2. Click  next to the Activity you want to remove from the group

When you remove an Activity from a group, the group information will automatically update to account for the change. The removed Activity will revert back to its original state with original duration, Narrative and Work Codes.

To ungroup all:

1. Click on any Activity or Entry to select the Group and the Client / Matter box will display on the right-hand side of your TBP window
2. Click  and then click on ‘Ungroup’

All Activities will revert back to their original state with original duration, Narrative and Work Codes.