An Architect's View

50 responses so far ↓

• 1 Rob Brooks-Bilson // Mar 24, 2007 at 12:20 PM

  Check out Billings 2. I haven't used it myself, but I have heard a lot about it recently.
  
  http://www.billings2.com/

• 2 Jim Priest // Mar 24, 2007 at 12:39 PM

  I tried several online tools but they were all just a pain to use. Now I use paper :)
  
  http://davidseah.com/archives/2005/11/12/the-printable-ceo-series/
  
  

• 3 Carlos Balacuit // Mar 24, 2007 at 12:41 PM

  I built a simple timekeeping CFMX application for myself to keep track of how many hours I spend on any number of project accounts. At the end of the week, it summarizes my usage so I can submit my timecard.
  
  It uses the XMPP event gateway (my employer has a Jabber server for inter-office IM) to listen for me to say "add 2 hours to XYZ", sent to a "TimeKeeper" user agent. I also adapted it to use the SMS gateway, but I haven't established an SMPP connection yet. For now, I'm using jabber on my Blackberry.
  
  I still have to adapt it to be useful for our recent change to a 9/80 alternative workweek.

• 4 Steve // Mar 24, 2007 at 12:51 PM

  We've got a bit of a "legal pad addiction" in our office. The left margin makes a great spot to scribble down notes on work done per project each day. It's nice to have a written log when filling out timesheets at the end of the week.
  
  It's old school, but effective and easily tossed across the room when necessary!

• 5 t // Mar 24, 2007 at 1:09 PM

  First I use the yellow notes in Outlook.
  When the work day is over I punch it into our own web-based logger.

• 6 Derek P. // Mar 24, 2007 at 1:23 PM

  I wouldn't say that this "fits in" with my life, and as a matter of fact, I tend to forget to even do this..but we use the quickbooks online time tracker. Now, if you have vista, they have gadgets so that you can easily enter your time without visiting the website so thats kind of a nice feature...they also have the ability to submit hours via SMS text message, I need to start doing it that way.

• 7 Rob Wilkerson // Mar 24, 2007 at 1:27 PM

  On OS X, I use a little application called Time Tracker (http://code.google.com/p/time-tracker-mac/). A simple application that does exactly what it needs to do. I can set up projects and even specify tasks for those projects. It also detects when I go idle and asks me whether I want to include that time.
  
  I've found it pretty handy.

• 8 Rob Wilkerson // Mar 24, 2007 at 1:28 PM

  I should have mentioned, there's a little "play" button that gets added to the menu bar so you can hide the application itself and still start/stop your time for a given project.

• 9 GarethE // Mar 24, 2007 at 1:35 PM

  I've been working on an Apollo in house application in my spare time. It is a simple application that plans to make the recording of data from 3 different applications easier. Not intended to be an application to replace the existing applications, but something that takes the most frequent everyday tasks and puts them in to one easy to use application.
  
  Check out my post back in November.
  http://www.kaffien.com/blog/?p=7
  
  I will try and get an update on my blog soon. Although, not much on the UI side has changed.
  
  Cheers
  Gareth.

• 10 Sean Corfield // Mar 24, 2007 at 1:44 PM

  @Rob, it looks neat but not very sophisticated right now. If the play button let you select projects / tasks (per issue #11) I'd use that. Maybe I'll find some time to contribute to the project and add it...
  

• 11 Sean Corfield // Mar 24, 2007 at 1:53 PM

  @Gareth, an Apollo app would be very nice - let me know if you publish it!

• 12 Sean Corfield // Mar 24, 2007 at 1:55 PM

  Just found a nice tool for OS X:
  
  http://www.stuntsoftware.com/OnTheJob/
  
  It includes invoicing functionality (but no menu bar integration - although it has some dock functionality). Not bad for $25. I'll keep looking.

• 13 Christopher Wigginton // Mar 24, 2007 at 1:59 PM

  I use a little menu utility called foobar from http://matrixsoftware.com. I've used it through several incarnations of windows and it works flawlessly. It works like a pop up menu and has time tracking, reminders, a password keeper and some other features.

• 14 Kurt Wiersma // Mar 24, 2007 at 2:02 PM

  On OS X I have been using the free Project Calculator 1.8.3 available at the link below. It it pretty slick as it lets me setup multiple projects with different bill rates and tracks my hours. It has an export to csv format option I might use in the future with a script to feed into our time tracking system.
  
  http://bluebanana-software.com/
  
  Looks like they have a non-free ($10) version 2.0 coming out soon.

• 15 Sean Corfield // Mar 24, 2007 at 2:05 PM

  Here's another useful gadget for Mac OS X folks:
  
  http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macgems/2005/06/activetimer/index.php

• 16 Ethan Pitsch // Mar 24, 2007 at 3:15 PM

  Our company started using Harvest at the beginning of March and it's met our every need. Cost ranges from $9 - $40 monthly.
  
  http://www.getharvest.com/

• 17 Adam Fortuna // Mar 24, 2007 at 3:16 PM

  I really like the layout and functionality of Harvest (http://getharvest.com/) I used it for a month at work to get an idea of how it turns out and loved it. Unforunately I don't need to actually track any of my time or else I'd probably use it.

• 18 Hilary // Mar 24, 2007 at 4:01 PM

  I use slimtimer:
  http://www.slimtimer.com/
  
  Has some great reporting functionality.
  I also share it with clients so they can see how I am spending their money;-)

• 19 adampasz // Mar 24, 2007 at 4:13 PM

  Excel. :)
  
  I played around with some online tools, but they did not feel flexible enough. With all those tools where you have to start/stop a timer, inevitably I forget to do so, and the tracking gets screwed up.
  
  I break down everything into blocks of 30 minutes. I've found that even if I forget to log something, I can still come back a day or two later and reconstruct what I did.

• 20 christopher Cachor // Mar 24, 2007 at 4:20 PM

  Billable for Mac OS X

• 21 Robin Harrison // Mar 24, 2007 at 6:36 PM

  I use the Pencil & Paper 1.0. I find the worksheets from <a href="http://davidseah.com/archives/2007/01/28/emergent-task-planner-tweaks/">davidseah.com</a> really help with timeboxing, and of course, working out afterwards what I actually spent my time on.

• 22 Joshua Curtiss // Mar 24, 2007 at 9:47 PM

  I've been using Trac with the Trac Time Management plugin. It's not perfect, but trying to work on one ticket at a time (thus always knowing where to record my time spent) has helped me stay more focused during development.

• 23 William // Mar 24, 2007 at 10:06 PM

  I've got a webcam based motion detector over my monitor that clocks me in and out whenever I move from my desk. The system sends a timecard with photos to my boss when I log out of the system every workday.

• 24 Matt // Mar 25, 2007 at 5:03 AM

  I am in the middle of changing the front end of phpCollab into a flex application. Next step will be to add a desktop widget with Apollo for task and time tracking. This will be a bit more team oriented. I am not sure if it would be annoying for the freelance folks out there.

• 25 Richard // Mar 25, 2007 at 5:35 AM

  If you're working in IT, doing time-based billing and you have to split it up into segments of less than half-a-day, and account for/justify it all, then it looks like your life is already complicated enough

• 26 Kay Smoljak // Mar 25, 2007 at 7:19 AM

  We use 88miles: http://88miles.net/
  
  It's simple, there's an API... what more could you want?

• 27 Jeff // Mar 25, 2007 at 11:08 AM

  I second Harvest. Its very slick and I'm trying to emulate it in an application I'm writing for work.

• 28 John Wilker // Mar 25, 2007 at 11:36 AM

  I wrote a time tracking app in CF many moons ago. I have slowly been updating it. I can generate invoices from billable time, reports per project, etc. It does what I need it to.

• 29 Sammy Larbi // Mar 25, 2007 at 2:28 PM

  Looks like a lot of in-house stuff. We use an in-house solution as well, but I like your suggestion Sean, of tying in with IM. Some friends of mine implemented something similar as an in-house application for Deloitte (in .NET), though it was built from the ground up.
  
  I didn't realize there were so many apps made for this. We've been using an internal one since before I came in here. It's nice for automating with our billing process, but it could be improved. I like a lot of the ones I'm seeing here for Mac. Any Windows users got similar products they'd like to share?

• 30 Sean Corfield // Mar 25, 2007 at 3:25 PM

  @Sammy, I've been using Active Timer (free) over the weekend which automatically tracks time spent in every application, including time spent in each different window of each application. I'm really liking that as a way to track just how much of the *elapsed* time I'm really spending on a particular task versus "goofing around".
  

• 31 Sean Corfield // Mar 25, 2007 at 3:27 PM

  Hmm, that didn't really answer your question since it's Mac only (sorry). I don't think one tool alone would do everything I need (I can imagine using Active Timer with On The Job, for example).

• 32 Russ Johnson // Mar 25, 2007 at 7:57 PM

  Sean,
  
  I've been using OnTheJob for about 3 weeks now and I love it. Probably the easiest way I have found for tracking time. Plus the inactivity feature is nice so that when I get called away from my desk or getup to make a sandwich, it logs me out automatically.
  
  The only gripe I have about it is that you are very limited on being able to customize the generated invoices.

• 33 Cutter // Mar 26, 2007 at 6:07 AM

  Many moons ago, when I was part owner of a screen printing company, I had written an MS Office application using Access and Outlook '97, using a custom Outlook application. I'm definitely going to look at some of these other options. (Sounds like a good Flex learning project)

• 34 Randy // Mar 26, 2007 at 7:27 AM

  "I've got a webcam based motion detector over my monitor that clocks me in and out whenever I move from my desk. The system sends a timecard with photos to my boss when I log out of the system every workday."
  
  You're kidding right? I would never ever work for someone that had a solution like this in place. That's just awful....
  
  -Randy

• 35 Jim // Mar 26, 2007 at 10:52 AM

  I have actually seen an application that takes screenshots of your desktop every X minutes - then it dumps these into a dir and allows you to sort through them...
  
  Ah - here you go:
  http://www.timesnapper.com/

• 36 Greg // Mar 27, 2007 at 9:41 AM

  I use Advanced Time Reports Personal. Free, pretty handy to click in my QuickStart bar and add an entry. And produces nice reports for invoicing.

• 37 Ouz Demirkap1 // Mar 29, 2007 at 11:42 AM

  We use Quickbooks Timer here. There is an export feature and you can directly use exported data in Quickbooks. This is a ToDo for us and I really do not like in a full time job but we have to track our work and this looks the easiest way also payroll stuff.

• 38 Derek Organ // Jun 24, 2007 at 6:39 AM

  1time has everything you need and its really easy to set up.
  
  http://1timetracking.com

• 39 Cosmina Stefanache // Jul 11, 2007 at 3:01 AM

  Hi Sean,
  
  I would also like to suggest Fanurio http://www.fanuriotimetracking.com which does both time tracking and invoicing (Im one of the people involved in this project).
  
  Fanurio is a desktop application designed to help freelancers manage their work and be paid for it. It can do basic project management, time tracking and invoicing in order to have all the functionality in one place.
  
  Cheers,
  Cosmina

• 40 Sean Corfield // Jul 11, 2007 at 7:30 AM

  @Cosmina, your project is Windows-only which is no use to me. However, I approved your comment in case someone else reading this blog entry is using Windows.

• 41 Cosmina Stefanache // Jul 12, 2007 at 1:51 AM

  Hi Sean,
  
  Actually we are now working on the Mac version. Although Fanurio is developed using Java,
  there are some platform specific issues that we must handle before releasing it (dock integration,
  run on startup, dock icon badge to indicate status, etc).
  
  If you are interested I may notify you when the Mac version is ready.
  
  Cheers,
  Cosmina

• 42 Sean Corfield // Jul 12, 2007 at 8:12 AM

  @Cosmina, cool! Yes, I'd love to be an early tester for that! Thank you!

• 43 Joshua Curtiss // Jul 12, 2007 at 11:49 AM

  Sweet. That would definitely be worth a look when it comes to Mac. It seems like it could even be used with my Trac/TimeManagementPlugin approach; any time directly associated with tickets could still be on Trac, but all other time spent doing the sundry things we do beyond actual coding could find a place in a tool like that. It would be easy enough to add the totaled Trac hours into the tool when it came time for total time reporting and billing.

• 44 Cosmina Stefanache // Jul 13, 2007 at 12:05 AM

  OK :). I will post a comment here when the Mac version is ready.
  
  Cheers, Cosmina

• 45 reuben // Jul 31, 2007 at 1:19 PM

  Another system is Onepoint. They have a free/opensource version for use. Written in Java and has a lot of good features, inclucing being able to setup a server to host the system and access via the web if you like.
  
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/opproject
  
  Great list of systems by the way. I really like David Seah's site.

• 46 Jordana // Sep 6, 2007 at 1:56 PM

  You seem to need Intervals. That's the tool we use at our production company. It's a web-based time tracking, project management, task management, budget check, paperless time sheet generator, and soon it will even let you produce the invoices for your clients. It has little timers that run simultaneously in case you're performing more than one task at a time. It's a very nice and intuitive visual environment that you can even personalize.
  Ah! and you can upload your documents pertinent to that specific task and other people can access them, which means no more attachements to deal with.
  I really recommend it. It makes our lives and work so much easier and it keeps us all organized and focused on the tasks at hand. :-)
  http://www.myintervals.com/

• 47 Seth Bienek // Oct 29, 2007 at 10:36 AM

  Not to resurrect an old post or anything.. But here I go. :)
  
  Sean, what did you end up using?
  
  I read recently of a new Flex and/or AIR app that does this, but I haven't been able to find the blog post or the actual project.
  
  Anyone know what I'm talking about?

• 48 Sean Corfield // Oct 29, 2007 at 10:58 AM

  @Seth, I stayed with On The Job. The AIR app was mentioned at MAX but I didn't catch the name of it.

• 49 Dan Gebhardt // Apr 23, 2008 at 12:17 PM

  You've got quite an extensive list of options posted here. If you don't mind, I'd like to add one more:
  
  http://www.LiveTimer.com
  
  LiveTimer has simple yet effective Timer for tracking hours as you work, as well as daily and weekly time entry modes. LiveTimer's classifications are very flexible. For instance, you could track your time against clients, projects and tasks, or opt to just use projects (these classifications can be renamed, too). There's a free 30 day trial, after which it costs just $5 a month per user.

• 50 Casey Jensen // Aug 10, 2009 at 10:32 AM

  Personally, the best tool I've found to do this is CaptureWorks JobCapture. The software automatically tracks time right down to a certain document in any of its' supported applications (you can do manual time tracking if the application isn't supported), and when you close a document you are prompted to assign the time you spent working on it to a "Job". It also has idle detection - it doesn't record time when you're idle.
  
  However, the downside is that the company offers poor support, updates don't seem like they'll exist, and a comparable Windows client is rather lacking and sluggish.

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