If you've ever closed a task to take a call, grab lunch, or jump into a meeting — and come back to find the clock never stopped — you know the problem. Time tracking that assumes continuous work from open to close is not typical of how anyone actually works and requires manual correction to the calculated effort in the timesheet.
R3 changes that. The headline feature is session-based time tracking, and it's joined by project plan improvements, new manager filters, and a handful of quality-of-life updates across the platform.
Here's what's new and why it matters:
This is the centerpiece of R3 — a significant upgrade to how Aproove captures effort at the task level.
Before: In the legacy model, time tracking started when a user opened a task and ran continuously until the task was completed. Close the task, reopen it an hour later, and the clock kept running the entire time. The only option was to reconcile the difference in the timesheet after the fact. That works in theory, but in practice, it leads to inaccurate timesheets and additional manual effort to reconcile the numbers.
After: With session-based tracking enabled, Aproove records work in discrete sessions. The clock runs while you're actively working. When you stop — whether you pause manually or the system detects inactivity — the session ends. When you come back, a new session begins.
The feature is opt-in and configured at the task template level, so existing workflows aren't disrupted. Teams can adopt it at their own pace.
Manual session control. A session management tool appears in the task, allowing users to start and pause sessions. Admins can also hide this tool if they want the system to manage sessions automatically based on activity.
Inactivity timeout. A configurable timeout — set in minutes per task — automatically pauses tracking after a defined period of inactivity. If someone steps away for five minutes without pausing, the system handles it.
Session editing. Before committing a timesheet, users can open an "Edit Sessions" popup to review all recorded sessions. Sessions can be modified, merged, or deleted. This gives both individuals and managers full control over the data before it's finalized.
Timesheet integration. When a task is completed, the timesheet shows a calculated duration based on the sum of all sessions. Once saved, the session data becomes read-only — still visible at the project level, but locked from further editing.
The result: timesheets that reflect actual effort, not just elapsed time — with less manual cleanup at the end.
The Time Tracking menu now includes two new filters to help managers find and review timesheets across their teams.
Filter by user shows individuals who either report to the connected user or exist as personal contacts in their address book.
Filter by group lets you filter by personal contact groups or system-level team groups configured on the backend.
It's a straightforward improvement, but a meaningful one for anyone responsible for reviewing time entries across multiple people or projects.
R3 brings three updates to project planning — each one small on its own, but together they reduce friction for teams managing complex timelines.
Complete a Planned Task from the list. For simple tasks that don't have a workflow behind them — things like "confirm the venue" or "send the invite" — you can now right-click and mark them complete directly from the Planned Task list. The finish date is set to right now, and it's done. No extra steps.
Visual indicators for completed tasks. Completed Planned Tasks now display with a strikethrough on the task name and a gray icon, matching the completed state shown in the project timeline. Before R3, there was no visual distinction between finished and unfinished tasks in the list.
Configurable weekend scheduling. Weekend exclusion from deadline calculations used to be hardcoded. Now it's a setting in the project template. When enabled, weekends are treated as working days — they count in deadline calculations and tasks can start on Saturdays or Sundays. This adds flexibility for teams with weekend operations or global teams working across time zones.
A small but welcome improvement: if you start typing a message in the project chat panel and close the panel to reference a proof or file, your draft is preserved when you reopen it. Mentioned contacts are saved too. No more retyping messages after a quick detour.
Admins can now control whether tasks and timesheets for personal contact group users appear in select locations of the User Dashboard. When display settings are disabled, those entries are hidden, giving teams a cleaner view focused on the people and data that matter most to their day-to-day work.
A few additional updates worth noting:
R3 is about making Aproove fit the way teams actually work — not forcing rigid patterns onto flexible, real-world workflows. Session-based time tracking is the biggest step in that direction, but project plan updates, manager filters, and chat improvements all move in the same direction: less friction, greater accuracy, better visibility.
Please get in touch with us if you would like access to the full technical release notes (including bug fixes), or to discuss any topics related to the 2025/R3 release.