Guided Setup Wizard

The Time Track Central Guided Setup wizard connects a new Business Central environment to the Time Track Central backend and seeds it with a bit of sample configuration, so there's something to work with immediately instead of starting from a blank environment.

Starting the wizard

Business Central registers it as an Assisted Setup entry under the Connect group, titled Time Track Central — "Connect to the Time Track Central frontend and import sample data." It normally appears on its own the first time you open the extension.

You can also start it manually at any time:

• Search (Tell Me, the magnifying glass) for Assisted Setup, open that page, and select Time Track Central under Connect.
• Or search directly for Time Track Central Guided Setup — the wizard window's own name.

You need a valid Time Track Central license to run it — an unlicensed tenant is blocked from even registering the wizard. See Licensing.

Walking through it

The wizard is a linear stepper: Back is available on every step but the first, Next on every step but the last.

1. Welcome — "Before you can start using Time Track Central, we need some more information about this installation and setup the connection between the backend and your Business Central installation. This wizard will guide you through that process." A Learn about this wizard in the help pages link opens this documentation site. Choose Next to get started — nothing to fill in yet.

2. General Information — a read-only summary of what you're about to connect: Tenant ID (the Entra tenant ID of this installation), Environment Name (e.g. Production or a sandbox name), and Company Name. "If the information above is correct, you can continue to the next step. If not, close this wizard and restart it from the correct environment or company." There's nothing to edit here — if the tenant, environment, or company shown is wrong, closing and reopening the wizard from the correct Business Central environment or company is the only fix.

3. Microsoft Entra Application (optional) — one field, Entra Application (Client) ID. "Create an app registration in your Microsoft Entra tenant and enter its Application (client) ID below." This ID identifies a single app registration you create yourself in Microsoft Entra ID — in the same tenant Business Central is registered in — that does double duty: it's used both for the service-to-service connection between the Business Central API and the Time Track Central web backend, and for signing your organization's Entra users in to the web app itself. It's not something Time Track Central hands you automatically. A user without the Super permission set who enters an ID here gets an error asking them to have an administrator run this step instead — that's expected behavior, not a bug, since completing the step grants permission sets to a service-to-service application. Leaving the field blank just skips it for now; you can complete it later by running the wizard again, or from the equivalent action on Time Track Central Setup.

   • When you choose Next, the wizard adds the app to Business Central's Microsoft Entra Applications page and assigns it three permission sets: D365 BASIC, PBOT ENTRA (the core Time Track Central connection), and PBOE ENTRA (expense management — assigned only if the Expense extension is installed). If the app is already on that page, the wizard leaves it and its permission sets unchanged.
   • This doesn't finish the job by itself. Afterwards, a Microsoft Entra administrator still needs to open the app on the Microsoft Entra Applications page and choose Grant Consent. Only an Entra admin can do this. Skip it, and the connection stays broken even though this wizard step reported success.
   • The certificate this app registration needs, and the redirect URI its sign-in side needs, are both set up later, in the portal wizard's Azure Entra step.

4. Portal Access — three editable fields, prefilled to save typing: Name and Email (from the signed-in user's account), and Company Name (the company's display name — change it if the technical Business Central company name isn't what should appear on the portal). "This information is used by Time Track Central to give you access to the customer portal and follow up on your registration." Check these before continuing, especially the email address — it's where the follow-up email in the final step gets sent.

5. Basic setup — one checkbox, Import Basic Setup, checked by default. "Load a basic setup to get started quickly. The dataset contains some project types, a generic overtime setup and some payroll codes." "Data is only imported in empty tables. If a table is not empty (already contains a configuration), the table will be skipped." That makes it safe to run even against a partially-configured company — existing project types, overtime rules, or payroll codes are never overwritten, only the still-empty tables get filled in. Uncheck the box to skip sample data entirely.

6. Final — "We have imported some sample data, however the Time Track Central website is not operational yet!" followed by "Within a couple of minutes you will receive an email with a link to the Time Track Central portal, where we will guide you through setting up a subdomain and creating the service-to-service connection between Business Central and the website backend." Two buttons appear here instead of Next:

   • Close — closes the wizard.
   • Continue with setup — closes the wizard and opens Time Track Central Setup directly, for admins who'd rather keep configuring than wait for the portal email.

Finishing the wizard is not the same as being live: the portal email — allow a few minutes for it to arrive — is a required next step to finish setup on the website side.

Setting up on the portal

The Business Central wizard only gets you halfway — the rest of the connection is completed in your browser, on the Time Track Central portal itself, once the "installation is ready" email arrives.

Signing in

1. Open the email and follow the sign-in link.
2. Enter your email address. The portal emails you a one-time, 6-digit sign-in code (valid for 5 minutes) instead of using a password — enter it to sign in.
3. Signing in takes you straight into the portal's own setup wizard, for the same company and environment you just registered from Business Central.

If the email address isn't already linked to an existing Time Track Central company on the portal, you may land on an Approval pending screen instead of the wizard — an existing member of that company has to approve your access first, from their own Company join requests page. You'll get an email either way once that decision is made, and the setup wizard becomes available as soon as you're approved.

Walking through the portal wizard

This wizard is also a step-by-step flow, but unlike the Business Central one, each Next actually performs the step's action — reserving a subdomain, testing a connection, triggering a real deployment — and won't let you continue until it succeeds.

1. Welcome — names the company you're setting up. If your license includes Work Reports (Business or Enterprise tier), a note confirms its approval app will be deployed alongside your main instance.
2. Subdomain — choose where your Time Track Central web app will live (lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens, at least 3 characters — used as {subdomain}.timetrackcentral.app); availability is checked as you type. If your license includes the Work Reports approval app, you'll also choose a second, separate subdomain for it.
3. Azure Entra — fill in the Client ID, Instance, Tenant ID, Audience, and callback paths for the app registration you created earlier — the same one used for both the Business Central connection and web app sign-in. Instance, Audience, and Callback path fall back to Time Track Central's standard values if left blank, and Tenant ID falls back to your company's tenant ID. Generate a certificate, download it, and upload it to that app registration's Certificates list in Entra. Then register a matching redirect URI on the same app registration — your subdomain plus the callback path, e.g. https://{subdomain}.timetrackcentral.app/signin-oidc (the default) — or sign-in to the web app will fail. On that same app registration, open Authentication (Preview) → Settings and make sure both implicit-flow options are turned off: Access tokens (used for implicit flows) and ID tokens (used for implicit and hybrid flows). Use Test connection to confirm before continuing; it requires the certificate to be generated first.
4. Business Central — confirm the Base URL and BC company for the connection (both prefilled from what you already entered in Business Central). Use Test connection, which also relies on the certificate generated in the previous step — you can't continue until it passes.
5. Deploy — choose Next to deploy. This can take a minute or two, with a status indicator for each instance being created (your main instance, and the Work Reports approval app instance if your license includes one).
6. Finalize — choose Complete to finish and go to your new Time Track Central dashboard.

The Expense extension has its own, separate guided setup wizard covering expense categories, payment types, and mileage vehicles — see Expenses: Guided Setup.