Get control of your time
Several of our funders require us to document how we spend our time. In this regard ProMark is your best friend.
Many of AGRO’s funders, including the Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark, require us to record our work hours if they are to provide us with funds.
As you can read in the article New framework agreement regarding public sector consultancy almost there, our time usage will be followed more closely in connection with our grant from the ministry.
According to the new performance agreements, we must document how we distribute the work hours we spend between policy support and sector-related research. Each of the performance areas has a pre-determined financial framework.
At the present, work is being done to get our policy support projects and relevant internal projects related the work programme budgetted. As of now, you can record your time on the advisory projects that are set up in AGRO for policy support in the performance areas Plant production and Animal production with the following project numbers that belong to the specific effort areas.
| Project no. | Effort area |
| Plant production | |
| 25235 | Crop breeding and pollination, crop health aspects and crop protection, and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) |
| 25236 | Climate-smart production systems |
| 25237 | Fertilisers, standards, and nitrogen prognosis |
| 25238 | Technology – agriculture and crop production |
| 25239 | Soil and soil conditions, including digital data, maps and picture analysis |
| 25240 | Green transition and biomass |
| 25241 | Targeted regulation and measures |
| 25251 | Agricultural reform and public green benefits |
| Animal production | |
| 25242 | Animal behaviour and welfare |
| 25243 | Nutrient cycles and animal manure |
| 25252 | Production systems, management and advice |
New effort areas within other performance agreements can be added later.
ProMark must be used
Funders such as GUDP and Innovation Fund Denmark typically write in their grant description that time spent by the project partners must be recorded in a time registration system and that the actual salary expenses must be specified accordingly. We can only fulfill this requirement if we have full control of our ProMark.
Since January 2016 all staff in AGRO have been required to record their work hours in the time registration system ProMark, which replaced ARS. As is the case in all newly brought together groups, the rules need to be agreed upon before the tasks are solved. This includes agreeing on who does what.
In ST the rules we have agreed upon are that the department secretariats are responsible for following up on staff. If an employee despite repeated reminders has not recorded his or her work hours in ProMark before accounting time, then the employee must fill out a spreadsheet with records of their work hours. Thereafter, financial and HR staff will need to re-record for that period. This creates extra work.
No employee can get out of recording work hours and you will just create extra work in other people’s busy workdays if you dither.
ProMark has come to stay
All employees have budgets in ProMark. The projects marked with a yellow asterisk are the ones you are budgetted for. It is therefore important to record your hours on these projects and none others. Changes can, of course, occur but agree on these well ahead of time with the project leader who can then agree on a new budget allocation with the project finance administrator.
Before you start recording for 2017 you are advised to delete all projects in the template and start from the beginning by selecting relevant projects. Some projects are completed and it is therefore no longer relevant to record work hours on these.
On behalf of the department management I would like to encourage you to make a real effort to update your ProMark at the end of each month. Use your energy on this instead of whining about the system because whether you like it or not, ProMark is here to stay.