Showback Reporting

How to set up and use showback reporting in G4mify to track the cost of work performed across departments and companies.

Overview

Showback reporting lets you answer: "How much did this work cost, and who should it be attributed to?"

The system combines three data sources:

• Time entries — hours worked per person per initiative (imported from Project Insight)
• Rate cards — hourly rates per person, role, or system default
• Cost center allocations — how each initiative's cost is split across companies, departments, and teams

Setup Checklist (Admin)

Complete these steps in order before generating reports:

1. Configure Cost Centers

Admin → Settings → Showback Configuration

Set up the organizational hierarchy that work gets charged to:

• Companies — Top-level entities (e.g., Cox, RapidScale)
• Departments — Within each company (e.g., Operations, Sales, Finance, Solutions, Technology, HR)
• Teams — Optional granularity within departments (e.g., Cloud Technical Services, Billing)

You only need to do this once. Add more as your organization evolves.

2. Set Up Rate Cards

Admin → Settings → Rate Cards

Configure hourly rates used to calculate dollar amounts. Three tiers:

Start here: Set at least a System Default rate. Add role-based rates if different roles have different billing rates. Use person overrides sparingly for individuals with non-standard rates.

3. Mark Initiatives as Showback-Eligible

This can be done by Managers (for their owned initiatives) or Admins (for any initiative):

1. Open an initiative detail page
2. Click "Mark as Showback Eligible" (yellow button)
3. Enter a justification note explaining why this initiative should be tracked for showback
4. Confirm — this is a one-way action

The initiative gets a "Showback Pending" amber badge visible to all roles.

4. Configure Cost Center Allocations

Admin only — appears as a pending action on the Admin Dashboard.

1. Open the initiative detail page (click "Configure→" from pending actions)
2. In the Showback Configuration section, you'll see the manager's justification note
3. Add allocation rows: select Company + Department + optional Team, set the percentage
4. Add more rows as needed — allocations must sum to 100% (the total shows green when valid)
5. Click "Configure Showback" to save

The badge changes to "Showback Active" (green).

5. Import Time Entries

Admin → Reports → Showback → Import Time Entries

1. Set the date range for the import period
2. Upload the PI Time Entry JSON file from Project Insight
3. Review the import preview: matched entries, unmatched entries (new PI projects needing mapping), and duplicates (will be skipped)
4. For unmatched projects, select the corresponding G4mify initiative from the dropdown — this mapping is saved and reused for future imports
5. Unmatched users are flagged — their hours are skipped until you create matching users in User Management
6. Click "Import" to confirm

Generating Reports

Viewing the Report

Admin → Reports → Showback (or Manager → Reports → Showback for owned initiatives)

The report shows showback data for a selected time period:

Period selector: Choose a quarter (Q1–Q4) or set a custom date range.

Summary cards:

• Total Hours — all time entries in the period
• Gross Amount — hours × rate (before allocation split)
• Showback Amount — gross × allocation percentages (the actual showback value)
• Initiatives — count of showback-configured initiatives with time entries

Cost Center Breakdown:

• Stacked horizontal bars showing allocation by Company
• Click a Company to expand Department breakdown
• Click a Department to expand Team breakdown
• Each level shows dollar amount and percentage of total

Initiative Table:

• All initiatives with time entries in the period
• Columns: name, showback status, hours, average rate, gross amount, allocations
• Click any row to expand per-contributor detail (person, hours, rate, amount)
• "Needs configuration" flag on initiatives with time entries but no showback allocations

Exporting Data

Three export formats available (buttons on the report page):

Exports use the currently selected period filter and respect role-based access (managers only get their own initiatives).

Role Access Summary

Quarterly Showback Workflow

A typical quarterly cycle:

1. Throughout the quarter: Managers mark initiatives as showback-eligible as work is assigned
2. Admin configures: Allocations set on eligible initiatives (can be done anytime)
3. End of quarter: Admin imports time entry data from PI for the quarter
4. Review: Open the Showback report, select the quarter, review amounts
5. Export: Download XLSX for finance review or JSON for PowerBI dashboards
6. Next quarter: Repeat — mappings persist, only new PI projects need mapping