Types and Mix Dashboard | FireFlight
Last updated: April 2026

Types and Mix Dashboard

Tasks by step type, hours by step type, and meeting hours three metrics that show how the team's time is actually distributed across categories of work, logged in real time as the work happens.

FireFlight's Types and Mix Dashboard shows three time-tracking metrics segmented by step type: how many tasks fall into each category, how many hours each category is consuming, and how much of the team's logged time is going into meetings. All three update in real time from time entries logged directly to jobs, work orders, and tasks using start/stop timers or quick entry. Most operations are running live time mix reporting in weeks, not months.
FireFlight Types and Mix Dashboard showing time distribution by step type across tasks, hours, and meeting activity

Most operations that track time know how many hours were logged in total. Far fewer know how those hours were distributed across types of work what proportion went to direct field activity, what proportion to administrative tasks, and what proportion to meetings. Without that breakdown, a labor cost that is running over budget has no obvious explanation. With it, the explanation is visible in the step type distribution before the overrun reaches accounting. The Types and Mix Dashboard provides that breakdown continuously, from the hours your team is logging right now, without requiring a separate analysis to see it.

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What does the work type mix actually tell operations and finance teams?

The work type mix reveals the structure of how time is being spent, not just the volume. A team that logs 400 hours in a week and spends 60% of those hours in direct field work, 25% in planning and administrative tasks, and 15% in meetings has a specific cost profile. A team logging the same 400 hours but spending 35% in direct field work, 30% in administrative tasks, and 35% in meetings has a different cost profile and probably a different delivery capacity even though the total hours are identical.

The mix matters for billing accuracy, for project cost allocation, and for understanding whether the operation is delivering work at the rate the project budget assumed. A project estimated based on 70% direct field hours and running at 50% direct field hours will finish over budget even if nobody worked an unauthorized overtime hour. The Types and Mix Dashboard shows that discrepancy as it develops in real time, when there are still decisions to be made about how the remaining work is allocated.

Why does tracking Meeting Hours as a separate metric change how teams manage their time?

Meeting time is consistently one of the largest categories of non-direct-work hours in service operations, and it is consistently the category that gets the least scrutiny because it is distributed across many individual calendar entries rather than appearing as a single visible cost center. A team member who spent 12 hours in meetings last week did not log those hours as "12 hours not doing fieldwork." They logged them as individual meetings, each of which seemed reasonable in isolation.

The Meeting Hours metric on this dashboard aggregates those individual entries into the total that actually reflects the cost. For operations managers reviewing the week's time distribution, seeing that 18% of all logged hours went to meetings provides a very different kind of information than reviewing each team member's calendar. It also provides a trend if Meeting Hours as a proportion of total logged hours has been increasing over the past six weeks, that trend is visible in the dashboard rather than invisible in individual schedules. The change that trend warrants is a management conversation that the data makes possible and that the absence of aggregation makes nearly impossible to initiate.

Time entries in FireFlight are logged at the point of work, not reconstructed at the end of the day. Start/stop timers capture exact durations as team members move between tasks. Quick-entry logs let team members record time against a specific job, work order, or task in seconds. The step type classification is applied at entry, so every hour logged carries both its attribution and its type classification from the moment it is recorded.

The consequence for the Types and Mix Dashboard is that the distribution it shows reflects what actually happened, not what someone remembered happening when they filled out a timesheet at 5pm. PCG has built time tracking and labor management systems for field operations since 1995, and the gap between end-of-day recalled time and actual time-at-task is consistently the largest source of labor data inaccuracy in operations that do not use point-of-work logging.

How does the task count by step type add to what hours alone show?

Hours by step type tells you where time is going. Tasks by step type tells you how that time is structured. A step type that represents 20% of total hours but 40% of total tasks contains many short tasks high-frequency, low-duration work. A step type that represents 30% of total hours but only 8% of total tasks contains fewer but substantially longer tasks low-frequency, high-duration work.

That structural difference matters for scheduling, for staffing, and for estimating future projects of similar type. An operation planning a new engagement that will require significant high-frequency short-task work needs to staff and schedule differently than one planning a project dominated by a smaller number of long-duration tasks even if the total hours look similar in the estimate. The Tasks by Step Type metric provides the structural context that hours alone cannot, and it is available from the same dashboard view as the hours data rather than requiring a separate task-level query to find it.

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On the Types and Mix Dashboard, Ikhana explains what step types are and how they are assigned, why Tasks and Hours show different distributions for the same work, and how to interpret a meeting hours proportion relative to total logged time. Team members learn to log time with correct step type classification on day one rather than creating uncategorized entries that the dashboard cannot segment.

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What the three metrics give your team

  • FireFlight Tasks by Step Type. The count of tasks in each defined step type category for the selected period. Shows the structural composition of the work mix how many tasks of each type the team is carrying separate from how long those tasks take. High task counts in specific categories identify where task volume is concentrated, which informs scheduling decisions about how many task transitions the team is managing in a given period.
  • FireFlight Hours by Step Type. The total hours logged against each step type category for the selected period. Shows where the team's actual time is going across work categories. When the hours distribution shifts away from the types that generate direct value field work, direct service delivery, productive output toward administrative and overhead types, the shift is visible in this metric before it shows up in project cost overruns or delivery delays.
  • FireFlight Meeting Hours. The total hours logged against meeting-type entries for the selected period, tracked separately from other step types. Provides the aggregate view of coordination and overhead time that individual calendar entries do not produce. When meeting hours as a proportion of total logged hours is increasing over time, the trend is visible in this metric as a management signal rather than remaining invisible in distributed calendar data.

What PCG learned across 31 years of labor tracking system builds: the operations that managed labor costs accurately were not the ones with the strictest time logging policies. They were the ones where logging time was faster and easier than not logging it, and where the classification system matched the way the team actually thought about their work rather than requiring translation at the point of entry.

Step types that reflect real work categories produce real data. Step types designed by someone who does not do the work tend to produce "other" entries that the dashboard cannot segment. The configuration conversation at deployment is the most important technical decision in a time tracking implementation and it is the one PCG spends the most time on, because the quality of the dashboard depends entirely on the quality of the classification that feeds it.

What operations see after deployment

  • FireFlight Labor cost distribution is visible before it becomes a budget problem. When hours are shifting toward lower-value step types, the distribution in the dashboard shows it during the period rather than at month-end when the project cost report arrives and the cause is no longer recent enough to investigate accurately.
  • FireFlight Meeting time becomes a managed variable rather than an invisible overhead. When meeting hours are visible as a proportion of total logged time, the decision to add another standing meeting has a quantified cost that was previously missing from the conversation. The metric does not eliminate meetings it makes their time cost visible alongside the direct work time it displaces.
  • FireFlight Project estimates for similar future work become more accurate. When historical step type distributions are available from completed projects, the estimate for a new project of the same type is grounded in actual data about how time was spent not just total hours, but which categories of work consumed which proportions of those hours.
  • FireFlight Time logging accuracy improves when team members see the data their entries produce. When the dashboard reflects their actual work in recognizable categories, team members understand what they are logging to and why. The motivation to log accurately increases when the data visibly represents real work rather than appearing as an administrative requirement with no visible output.

Questions operations and finance teams ask before deploying FireFlight time tracking

FireFlight What does the Types and Mix Dashboard show in FireFlight?
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The dashboard shows three time-tracking metrics segmented by step type: Tasks by Step Type, Hours by Step Type, and Meeting Hours. Together they show how the team's time is distributed across different categories of work how many tasks fall into each type, how many hours each type is consuming, and how much of the total logged time is going into meetings rather than direct work activity.
FireFlight What is a step type in FireFlight time tracking?
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A step type is a category assigned to a task or time log entry that describes the nature of the work being performed inspection, installation, diagnostic, administrative, travel, training, or any category structure defined for the operation. Step types are the classification system that lets the Hours by Step Type metric show not just total hours logged but which kinds of work those hours represent.
FireFlight Why does tracking Meeting Hours separately matter for operations?
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Meeting time is a significant and often underappreciated portion of a team's logged hours. When meeting hours are embedded in a general administrative or overhead category, the actual proportion of the team's available time consumed by meetings is invisible. Tracking Meeting Hours separately makes that proportion visible which is the first step toward deciding whether it is appropriate relative to the direct work the operation is supposed to be delivering.
FireFlight How does Tasks by Step Type differ from Hours by Step Type?
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Tasks by Step Type shows the count of tasks in each category how many inspection tasks, how many installation tasks, how many administrative tasks exist in the current period. Hours by Step Type shows the time actually consumed by each category. A step type with a high task count but low hours contains many short tasks. A step type with a low task count but high hours contains fewer but longer tasks. The two metrics together reveal the time cost structure of the work mix in a way that either metric alone cannot.
FireFlight How does this dashboard connect to job-based time tracking in FireFlight?
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FireFlight's time tracking logs hours directly against the job, work order, asset, or task that generated them using start/stop timers or manual quick-entry. The step type classification is applied at the point of entry, so every hour logged carries both its job attribution and its step type from the moment it is recorded. The Types and Mix Dashboard aggregates those classifications in real time, so the distribution of hours by type reflects exactly what has been logged, not what was planned.
FireFlight What does a changing work type mix signal about an operation?
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A work mix that shifts toward a higher proportion of administrative or meeting hours over direct work hours signals that operational capacity is being consumed by coordination and overhead at the expense of delivery. A mix that shifts toward a higher proportion of reactive or emergency step types over planned work types signals that the operation is increasingly running on response rather than on schedule. Both shifts are visible in the Hours by Step Type metric before they show up in delivery performance or cost overruns.
FireFlight How long does it take to deploy FireFlight time tracking with step type classification?
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Most operations are running live time tracking with step type reporting in weeks, not months. The step type structure is configured during deployment to match the operation's actual work categories. PCG handles configuration. Teams begin logging time immediately after training, and the Types and Mix Dashboard reflects actual data from the first hours logged.

If your operation tracks total hours but not what kind of work those hours represent, labor cost overruns have no explanation until after they have already happened. FireFlight's Types and Mix Dashboard shows the distribution of time across step types in real time, from hours logged as the work occurs. Configuration takes weeks, not months, and PCG handles the step type structure that makes the data meaningful.

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Allison Woolbert
Allison Woolbert
Principal, Phoenix Consultants Group  |  Developer, FireFlight Data Systems

PCG founded 1995. 500+ applications built across 31 years, roughly one-third in regulated environments where software failure carries direct operational and compliance consequences. FireFlight is the platform built from that body of work. When you contact PCG, Allison is the person who answers.

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FireFlight Data Systems is a product of Phoenix Consultants Group. PCG founded 1995. All system configurations are custom-built for each deployment. Implementation timelines, module availability, and integration scope vary by organization. Contact PCG directly to discuss requirements specific to your operation.

Types & Mix Dashboard

Start/stop timers or quick-entry time logs.
Track time by job, user, task, or work order