Using MLO to plan and execute projects and tasks is fantastic. Having to use a separate app to track time spent is frustrating, involving duplicate data entry, inconsistencies, etc. I believe time tracking could be integrated into MLO cleanly and unobtrusively, so as not to bother those who don't want or need it. I recently looked at over a dozen time-tracking apps, listed below, with brief comments. First, some design ideas. Throughout, when I say project, I mean any non-leaf node of the hierarchy.
- Maintain a list of task or activity types (eg Administration, Coding, Maintenance, Documentation, etc.) - Maintain a list of clients. - Maintain a log of activities. Each entry includes a start date/time, end date/time, associated task id. Give the task log a separate tab next to Task Notes and Properties. By default, show the current date. Allow filtering by date; maybe show a calendar or drop-down calendar. - Provide a timer to accumulate time to a task. Select the task, right click, and start the timer. Maintain a MRU list of tasks; show on right-clicking the tray icon. - Provide a properties pane (or tab?) to capture expenses. Associate each expense with a project. Capture date, amount, vendor, description, paid (bool). - Provide reporting options: Summary by date (today, week, month), Detail by date, Summary by project, detail by project, projects by client (detail/summary, Client billing (paid, unpaid, all), Activity per time unit (detail/summary) (eg this week 20 hours coding, 10.5 hours admin, etc.), ... - Don't need detailed financial accounting of billing. Products I reviewed: Maybe - Easy Time Tracking - sluggish ui, but pretty functional. Allows customized statuses for projects and tasks; task categories; does invoicing. Tray window is informative but a intrusuve. - Timeless Time & Expense - Seems to have everything, but pretty awkward. Version 3 coming soon, free upgrade, Allows expense tracking. UI seems sluggish here too. Tray control but no window. Almost - AllNeticWorkingTimeTracker: very clean ui. has tray app for start/ stop. Doesn't have task categories (activities). Reporting not great. - TimePanic - interesting. activity centric. Allows projects + subprojects; no expense support; Definitely not - FruitFul - Office Time - has projects and categories, but no tasks. Multiple windows confusing. - Responsive Time Logger - pretty rich feature set. Expensive. Tray app doesn't allow task switching (per screen shot). - Complete Time Tracking - kind of cool, compact ui; no activities; - Time Shadow - Time Tracker - ya Timer - http://www.nbdtech.com/yaTimer/Help/ - kind of cool, no task notes - WHID - sourceforge - TimeSheets MTS - pretty heavy duty - requires manually entered project and task ids - - Fanurio - http://www.fanuriotimetracking.com/ - Java based. no tasks That just scratches the surface. There are TONS of tools out there, none with an MLO's highly tuned look and feel, most very awkward, heavy, sluggish. AllNetic comes closest, but lacks functionality. I would easily fork over more $ for an integrated MLO implementation. Anybody else? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/myLifeOrganized?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
