Project management and time off tracking with MrTickTock 2.0

MrTickTock 2.0 has been released and published at http://mrticktock.com.

What's new?

We have added popups with details for tasks, projects and customers, improved time off tracking and reporting and fixed bunch of reported issues. Here is the list of most important changes:

• Task, project and customer details popup
  Simply click task, project or customer name anywhere across the application and you will get a nice popup with details like reported time, involved users, description and action buttons (close, edit, etc.). Take a look:
  
  
• Project estimated time
  Few of our customers requested that feature. In the project details popup you can set Estimated Time in hours and watch the project progress bar showing hours worked vs estimated time:
  
  
• Hide closed items and blocked users on the Reports page
  When your list of tasks, projects and customers grows you probably want to close some of them and keep your views clean. That was already possible for most of the MrTickTock screens and now it works on the Reports page as well. The Reports page is no more cluttered with closed customers and projects or blocked users. You can of course show all items with one click:
  
  
• Time off and overtime summary
  Since MrTickTock 1.9 it was possible to generate Days off report. Now you can also add time off summary to the standard time report:
  
  
  
• Set non-working day for the entire company
  When admin sets non-working day, system asks if it should be set for all users. That is really useful as holiday days are usually the same for all or most of the users. Prior to that change every user had to mark holiday individually. Screenshot:
  
  
• Set, clear and extend time off from the popup calendar
  If you work in a group then you have most likely used popup calendar for team absence preview. Now the calendar is even more powerful. You can set day off (vacation, sick, non-working), extend the absence period or delete it:
  
  

MrTickTock 2.0 contains also bunch of other improvements and bug fixes. We hope that it will make your life and business much easier.

What's next?

Version 2.1 will focus on performance improvements. It will be dedicated for users with big number of tasks and other data.
We will also introduce limited-user role. It will allow to invite users with permission to report time only (no create tasks or see other data). That's another feature asked by our customers.

Next we will work on billable hours, invoices and other similar features.

That's all for today folks. You can try all of that at mrticktock.com.

We also publish most recent news via Twitter

Please note that we have moved tracking user ideas and feedback from JIRA to UserVoice at https://mrticktock.uservoice.com/forums/167739-features-and-bugs-for-mrticktock.

Enjoy,
MrTickTock team

Time off report in MrTickTock 1.9

MrTickTock 1.9 has been released and published at http://mrticktock.com.

What's new?

Time off report is the biggest new feature but you can also find a lot of other useful improvements. Here is the list:

• Days off report
  It allows to quickly find a number of vacation and sick days used by your employees or co-workers. It is extremely important information if your company wants to track time off or you have regular employees and your country law requires vacation and sick days tracking. Here is how it looks like:
  
  
  
• Users selection in Time worked and Days off reports
  Do you manage a team of several users and want to generate report only for few of them? Nothing simpler. Now you can select individual people you want to include in the report:
  
  
• New Time worked report
  We have added simplified report grouped by Total which means that you will get in your report only total worked time without details such as tasks, projects, customers or dates:
  
  
• Calendar preview for absence
  Did you use Google Calendar to track vacation and liked its simplicity and the way of displaying time off? We have added something similar. It is monthly time off popup - great solution for managers who want to plan work ahead and need a quick preview for the coming month. Look at the screenshots:
  
  
  
• Close/Archive Customers and Projects
  If your project contains several tasks it is not convinient to close all tasks within the project in order to hide them from the view. It is simpler to close the project. Now you can do that and all the tasks from that project will behave as they were closed. You can also close entire customer to make all projects and all tasks from that projects behave as closed:
  
  
• Search tasks by name
  Do you work with tasks a lot? Do you have plenty of them? We have a good news for you. Task management is now much simpler. You can filter tasks by customer, project and task name with our handy text box filter:
  
  
• User info popup
  It is a nice popup with user's basic information like active task, time worked and days off in last week, month and year. Click on the user name anywhere within application and you will see it:
  
  
  
  
• Allow admin to change users' settings
  Sometimes you may want to setup few things for new folks joining the company. Number of hours worked per day, yearly vacation limit or any other user setting can be accessed and changed by an admin:
  
  
  
  
• Disable possibility to report time for the future
  It may sound strange but we allow to report time for the future by default. We believe that limitations are wrong. Employees and managers should trust each other to make the work smooth and have fun. Nevertheless we also belive that application should be flexible and give users freedom of choice so if you want to disable time reporting for the future, here it is:
  
  

As usually there are many other simple improvements and bug fixes which make MrTickTock more usable and friendly.

What's next?

Version 2.0 will bring  more popus with basic information for tasks, projects and customers. It will be possible to add details for customers like description, email and contact data, estimated time for the project, description for tasks, etc.
We will also add time off and overtime information to the time worked reports.

After 2.0 we want to add billable hours, invoices and integration with other project and task management software like JIRA and Google tasks.

That's all for today folks. You can try all of that at mrticktock.com.

We also publish most recent news via Twitter

Enjoy,
MrTickTock team

Track time with Android phone

MrTickTock has a nice Android app which allows to track time manually or automatically right from the Android device. The app is available to download from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mrticktock.

Let me show you how to use it in a few simple steps.

1. Register & create first task

Once you have downloaded and started the app you should be greeted with login/sign up screen as presented on the first screenshot. Simply press the blue New here. Sign up button.

On the next screen you need to fill in the simple registration form. Provide your account/company name, email address, new password to your account and press green Register button. Application will create your online account and move you to the next screen.

The third screen will ask you for your first task name. Type it and press Create task button. Application will create your first task, synchronize online and move you to the main screen.

Main screen is presented on the last screenshot. Now you are ready to track your time and manage tasks.

2. Track time with Start/Stop work button

On the main screen (dashboard) click the Track time icon and you will be moved to the separate tracking screen. Your first task is already selected and you can press green Start button as presented on the second screenshot. It starts tracking time for selected task. When you press Stop button the timer will be stopped and time report will be synchronized with online account.

If no internet access is available then time report will be saved to the log (third screenshot).  You can send online or delete particular report entry from the log any time you want.

With the three icons located on the right side of the timer (second screenshot) you can:

• set your availability (sick, vacation, working, non-working) - it is a nice feature if you work in multi-user environment,
• add note to the time report (e.g. description of the work done)
• close task if don't want to report time against that task any longer (app will ask if you want to select other task)

3. Report time manually

Instead of tracking time with Start/Stop button you can also directly report specified amount of time. Just press counter in the top part of the Track time screen (first screenshot) or select Report time menu option and provide time in the popup window as presented on the second screenshot.

4. Track time automatically

MrTickTock for Android contains unique automatic tracking feature. It allows to track time totally automatically. It is able to discover when user enters and leaves the office area and start/stop tracking accordingly.

The automatic tracking features uses WiFi accessibility so you need to define your office WiFi.

Simply go back to the application dashboard (first screenshot) and next go to the Settings (second screenshot). Now you need to add your office WiFi to the list so MrTickTock can track your time automatically when you are in the range of selected WiFi network and stop tracking when you leave the range.

Once you have selected office WiFi, go back to the Track time view (third screenshot) and set blue combo to Automatic tracking. If you are in the selected WiFi range then time tracking should start automatically. If not in the range you will see appropriate message below the combo.

Note: 
a) You don't need password to the office WiFi. MrTickTock only tracks if your phone is in the range and does not try to connect to any of the selected WiFi networks.
b) When you leave the office area, automatic tracking stops timer and tries to synchronize it with online account. In case of no internet access, timer value is saved to the log so you can send report online later.

4. Manage tasks (select, create, hide, close, filter)

MrTickTock gives you flexible task management capability. On the main Dashboard click Manage tasks icon and you will be moved to the task list view.

You can select task for tracking simply clicking the task on the list. Selected task is marked with green bullet (second screenshot).

Menu options (second screenshot) give few more actions available for tasks:

• Filter tasks allows to filter task list by Customer, Project and task status (visible, hidden, closed) as shown on the third screenshot.
• Create task menu option allows to create new task for selected customer and project (fourth screenshot).
• Bulk operations menu option allows to hide/unhide/close/reopen/delete tasks in bulk.

Available task actions (hide/unhide/close/reopen/delete) can be performed on a particular task as well. Just tap and hold task on the list to show context menu.

5. Summary and people off

MrTickTock for Android gives you two more screens.

Summary view visible on the second screenshot shows list of the tasks with time reported today as well as brief overview of total time worked today, yesterday, current week and month.

Who is off view (third screenshot) shows list of people who marked day as off (sick, vacation, non-working) for today or tomorrow - another nice feature for multi-user environment.

6. Online access

If you need something more than offered in the app, like comprehensive time reports, customers and projects management, inviting coworkers, changing account settings, resetting your password, etc. you can visit the online account. It is available at http://mrticktock.com/app. In order to log into the account you must provide your credentials used in the registration step (email and password).

Enjoy!
MrTickTock team.

Track time and store time ranges with MrTickTock 1.8.2

MrTickTock 1.8 has been released and published at http://mrticktock.com.

What's new?

Please welcome new Tick-Tock day view (in addition to the weekly time sheet), time ranges and few other improvements.

Here is the list of the most important changes:

• Day view
  Beside of the existing weekly time sheet our users can now enjoy Day view available in the Tick-Tock tab. It provides not only time reporting facility but also contains additional information like Users on the clock and Time ranges and has much more exposed Start/Stop Work feature.
  Those of you who don't care about other days of the week will surely love it.
• Users on the clock
  Do you want to know who else has started timer and is tracking time in the company? Nothing simpler, just look at the Users on the clock box in the Day view (Tick-Tock tab). Collapse the box if you are not interested.
• Time ranges
  Few of you asked for that feature. It appeared that you want to store not only a total time worked on a task but also In and Out times to justify overtime and for other reasons.
  Here it is. Time ranges are visible on the Tick-Tock day view in task details. They can be also included in the report grouped by Date and Task so you can share it with your boss or customers. Over midnight time tracking is fully supported!
• HTML notification emails
  We have switched to html view for all notification emails. They look much more pretty and are more legible.
  There is still alternative plain text view available for non-html friendly email readers.
• Simple sign up
  That's actually a feature for newcomers. In order to create a new account it is enough to provide just an email and password. All the rest (first and last name, and account name) is auto-generated. There is of course possibility to manually change all the fields. Sign up takes now no more than 20 seconds!
• Introduction wizard
  We have added simple introduction wizard which helps to make few first steps within the application. It pops up hints on how to enter time, set day off, perform task actions or switch Tick-Tock view between day and weekly time sheet.
• Performance improvements
  We have identified and fixed few performance issues, mostly in the Projects & Customers tab - it works faster and is much more responsive now.
• Week begins with Saturday
  Our customer reported that in some countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan people use local calendars in which week begins on Saturday (calendars like Hijri-Shamsi and Hijri-Ghamari).
  Therefore we have added support for Saturday as the week beginning. It allows to display time sheet starting from Saturday as well as correctly count weekly workload. Enjoy!

As usually there are many other simple improvements and bug fixes which make MrTickTock more usable and friendly.

What's next?

Version 1.9 will bring new vacation tracking facilities:

• Monthly calendar preview with users' time off. That's a great solution for managers who want to plan work ahead and need a quick time off preview for the coming month(s).
• User card view with brief information about time worked, time off, active tasks, etc.
• New time off reports with information on users time off for the past week, month, year or a custom period.

All of the above will make it easy to track paid time off in MrTickTock 1.9.

In the next versions we want to also add billable hours, invoices and integration with other project and task management software like JIRA and Google tasks.

That's all for folks. You can try all of that at mrticktock.com.

We also publish most recent news via Twitter

Enjoy,
MrTickTock team

Time Reporting with MrTickTock 1.7

MrTickTock 1.7 has been released and published at http://mrticktock.com.

What's new?

In this version we have focused on the Reports section. You can also find few other improvements which make MrTickTock more flexible:

• Group by date and task report (with or without comments)Few of our users asked for this kind of report as they wanted to see more detailed preview of their weekly/monthly work with possibility to share it easily with their customers. It is also possible to attach all available public comments to the report to make it even more detailed. All of that can be of course exported to CSV, single HTML page or PDF.
• Reports settings are now remembered
  Most of us usually play with the same settings all the time. The same date period (e.g. previous month), the same set of Projects (e.g. All) and the same type of the report (e.g. grouped by Date). Now you don't need to set it every time you visit the Reports page. They are now stored as a cookie in your browser and restored every time you visit the page.
• Grouped by Date report in compact mode
  If you switch between projects quite often then your monthly project report can contain many gaps with the 0:00 value reported. Now you can enable Hide dates without reported time checkbox to exclude all dates without reported time and make your report smaller and more legible.
• Time zone list improvement
  Some of you complained that you cannot find your time zone on the list. It was actually there but not easy to find.
  Now time zone list is shorter, grouped by GMT offset and contains list of available cities. Enjoy!
• Easy show/hide all tasks
  If you want to start working (add to your main Tick-Tock view) all the tasks you can simply press Select All link available from the Tasks page. There is no need to click every task separately.
• Balloon hints for new users
  Few of our users complained that they worked with totally different time trackers before and found it difficult to switch to MrTickTock. Therefore we've added few simple balloon hints to show you how to take first steps in our app. We will add few more hints in the next version. We definitely want to make our app self-explanatory so there is no need for external documentation and everyone can quickly start tracking time.
  
• Move tasks between projects
  Have you ever wanted to merge projects or simply move single task to another project? Now it is possible. The feature is available from Customers/Projects tab but we will add it also to the standard set of actions available on the Tick-Tock and Tasks tab.
• Duplicate list of projects/tasks
  That's really useful for those of you who use the same project/tasks structure for all kind of projects and for every customer. You can just create your structure once and then duplicate it for every new customer or project you create. This is another feature requested by our customers. We love to make you happy :)

As usually there are many more simple improvements and bug fixes which make MrTickTock more usable and friendly.

What's next?

Version 1.8 will bring new tracking view focused on the current day with bigger start/stop work buttons, list of working people (users on the clock) and possibility to enter start and stop time (again asked by many of you). The old view will stay as it is so you would be able to pick up the best matching.

After 1.8 we will work on a vacation tracking improvements. We want to make easy not only to set day off but also track Paid Time Off. The new feature will contain calendar preview and summary page.
Another features in the queue are billable hours, invoices and integration with other project and task management software. We will start with ability to automatically retrieve tasks from JIRA to MrTickTock. Next we will probably integrate with Google tasks.

That's all for today. You can try all of that at mrticktock.com.

We also publish most recent news via Twitter

Enjoy,
MrTickTock team

Woman voice

Hey all,

We just got a woman voice regarding MrTickTock name and wanted to share it with all of you.

Woman:

MISTER Tick Tock?

Are there no women that work in your company? With all the women-hating going on around the planet, I'm a little sensitive. Perhaps you could rename your software TickTock, just to not get on the nerves of all the women who use your software and see that MISTER thing every time. Just saying.

 
Our answer:

Hi,
You wrote this as anonymous so probably won't read the response but anyway...
Actually you are right. There are no woman in our company and personally I very regret that.
We wanted to use MrTickTock instead of just TickTock to make it special and more human like, to show our customers that we are different, we listen to their needs and try to fulfill their wishes. Actually we are in the middle of the way. At the end we want to have animated MrTickTock logo which is sad when somebody deletes the account or very happy if they invoice the customer and earn money. We want to make MrTickTock live.
There is of course no way to call it Miss or Misses TickTock as the logo and name is clock-like and quite dumpy. It is just like a man. We would love to add some feminine accent to the application and make it more woman friendly so if you have any suggestions we would love to hear your feedback.
Cheers,
Jacek

Source: https://jira.spartez.com/browse/TT-414

Track time, manage tasks and generate reports online

MrTickTock 1.6 has been released and published at http://mrticktock.com.

What's new?

In this version we have again focused on several improvements:

• Close and Reopen tasks
  It is a great complement to delete task functionality.
  If you open task and track time for every single activity then you probably have plenty of them and your Tasks view looks messy. Now you can simply close task if you feel it is done and you don't want to track time against it any more. Closed tasks disappear from the view unless you want to show them with 'show closed tasks' checkbox.
  Closed tasks can be reopen if you decide to work more on them.
• Reports section available for non-admin users
  If you invited other users to your MrTickTock account, probably some of them are in the User role and do not have admin privileges. Since version 1.6 non-admin users can access Reports section and get use of flexible reports. They can of course see only their own data and cannot access reports for other users.
  
• Google and Yahoo login
  Google and Yahoo are most popular email providers. We decided to let our customers log in and sign up with just one click without the need of filling Log in or Registration forms.
• Simple registration
  Standard registration form is now much simpler so new users can start working with MrTickTock even faster than before.
  We will also switch Android app to benefit from that feature and allow mobile users to start using the application without the need for a web based sign up.  
  
• Change email
  Have you registered your MrTickTock account for a wrong email address? Have you changed your email provider? It is not a problem for MrTickTock any more. Just go to your profile page and change your email.

As usually there are many more simple improvements and bug fixes which make MrTickTock more usable and friendly.

What's next?

Version 1.7 will bring few more task management facilities. It will be possible to move task between projects and customers. It will be also very easy to duplicate Customer or Project structure - very handy if every new project contains the same set of tasks.

We will also introduce new In/Out view. It will show Start/Stop Work button, time worked, list of users with activated Start Work and few other things related to Today. It will not contain weekly time sheet as it is currently on the Tick-Tock view. The new page is an answer to the customer requests who prefer to focus on the current day and want to have the information bigger and more legible.

After 1.7 we will work on a vacation tracking improvements. We want to make easy not only to set day off but also track Paid Time Off. The new feature will contain calendar preview and summary page.
Another features in the queue are billable hours, invoices and integration with other project and task management software. We will start with ability to automatically retrieve tasks from JIRA to MrTickTock. Next we will probably integrate with Basecamp and Trello.

That's all for today. You can try all of that at mrticktock.com.

We also publish most recent news via Twitter

Enjoy,
MrTickTock team

Automatic time tracking with MrTickTock for Android

MrTickTock for Android (version 1.0) has been released and published in android market.

What's that?

MrTickTock for Android is an easy to use Android application. It allows to manage tasks and track time so you don't have to visit mrticktock.com website if you have Android device in your pocket.
It connects to the mrticktock.com in the background if possible and sends all reports to the system so users can benefit from the web UI and features.

We tried to make MrTickTock for Android as simple and useful as possible. Personally I use it every day to track my time automatically. I sometimes adjust the tracked value manually if I forget to switch tasks or leave the phone in the office when going for a lunch.

Here is the list of current features:

• Manual time reporting
  Simply enter how much time you have worked and press 'Send Report'. It works in exactly the same way as reporting time on the web. Simple but useful.
• In/Out tracking
  Press 'Start Work' button and MrTickTock for Android will start the timer. Press 'Stop Work' and timer will stop. Tracked timed will be sent online or saved to the Log if  no internet connection is available.
  
• Automatic tracking
  This is the coolest and very unique feature. We have found only one other Android time tracker offering similar thing as a beta.
  If you work in the office and there is available WiFi network, just mark it as the office one (in the settings). MrTickTock for Android will start tracking your time automatically when you enter the office and stop when you leave. The nice thing is that it does not require access (password) to the WiFi. It simply checks if the network is in range. Therefore it will work also if you visit your customers' office but can't log into their network or if your company does not allow to access WiFi from devices other than workstations.
  
• Log view
  It contains all time reports which have not been saved online to the server. The most common reason for that is missing internet connection when tracking was being stopped.
  Users can simply delete the Log entry or send it to the server.
  
• Task management
  MrTickTock for Android allows to create and delete tasks. The task list can be filtered by Customers and Projects - quite useful if the list is very long. Next version will allow to close and reopen tasks.

Try it from android market.


What's next?

Next versions will contain bunch of new features:

• Close/Reopen task.
• Add note to the time report (e.g. work description) - visible as a Scrum report at mrticktock.com
• Allow to mark day as Sick/Off/Non-working - visible online to the team members.
• Summary view - show tracked time and tasks for today, yesterday, last week and month.
• Widget - start/stop tracking and preview of tracked time.
• Export report to DropBox or save locally - MrTickTock reports are flexible. You can choose customers, projects or tasks, date range and grouping method to get exactly what you need as CSV, PDF or HTML file.
• Automatic tracking based on location (GPS, AGPS, etc.) - great solution for people working outside the office (geologists, builders and others).

We will strive to release new versions of MrTickTock for Android every month.

If you tried MrTickTock for Android or have any suggestions, please let us know. Email us at info(at)mrticktock.com or raise an issue at https://jira.spartez.com//browse/TTA.

Follow us on Twitter to get latest news.

Best,
MrTickTock team

Simple task management and time reporting with MrTickTock

MrTickTock 1.5 has been released and published at http://mrticktock.com.

What's new?

In this version we have focused on several improvements:

• Export time report as HTML document
  Few of the current MrTicktock users asked for that feature. It allows to download visible time report as a single html file which looks exactly in the same way as an online report and makes it easy to share the report with customers and other interesting parties.
  
• Export time report as PDF document
  Some of you prefer PDF over HTML so it is also possible to download report as a PDF file. We use one of the open source libraries so unfortunately there are some limitations. The first is that we do not support Asian languages at the moment. The second is that we had to limit the size of report which can be exported to PDF. That is a side effect of the pdf library performance issues. Nevertheless we think it is still useful and should work for most of you. Let us know when you hit some of the limits and we will try to improve it.
  
• Task management improvements:
• In place task editing
  Both admins and users can easily change task name on the Tick-Tock page and Tasks page. Simple and useful.
  
• Simple task deleteTask delete action is now available not only on the Customers and Projects page but also on the Tasks page. Admins can delete any task. There is of course confirmation box which clearly tells if there are any time reports or notes related to the task. Users  can also delete task but only if there are no time reports and notes linked with the task or they are related to the user who tries to perform the delete action.
  
• Scrum Standup improvements:
• Maximize standup (note) input popupSome of us writes long notes. The standard small text area is not sufficient in that case so we have added Maximize facility - just press the icon located in the top right corner of the Standup (Note) popup or press Ctrl+Shift+Arrow Up to make it bigger.
  
• Week view on the Standup page
  It clearly shows which day of the week is visible on the page. It is also simple to switch between days, look at yesterday's standup or move week back to check what happened there.
• More AJAX
  MrTickTock gains more and more users. We try to make the application as fast as possible but sometimes it takes more than half a second to perform an action. We have added more ajax and progress indicators to make the application more responsive and improve user experience.
• JIRA issue collector
  We switched to trello.com for a day to day project management as JIRA is quite heavy. Trello let us create new task with one just click and move it between backlog and versions with drag & drop. Nevertheless we still use JIRA to keep our long term backlog and collect user requests. Therefore we added JIRA issue collector to the application and linked it with existing Report a problem and Request a feature links. It let our users to raise new issue through simple form containing only one required field. There is also possibility to attach a screenshot. JIRA issue collector is really handy.
  

As usually there are also many other improvements and bug fixes. Try it yourself at mrticktock.com


What's next?

Version 1.6 will bring more task management facilities. We will introduce closed task concept. Actually it is ready on development. It should improve user experience for those of you who plays with tens of tasks. Closed task will disappear from the view to make it more clear.
It will be of course possible to open task.

We will also try to introduce login with Google and remove confirmation in the first step of account creation. It will help newcomers to access MrTickTock for the first time and start using it in just few seconds.

We plan to introduce separate view for start/stop work feature, activity log available for Admins, integration with JIRA and other bugtrackers (task sync), extended User Profile with detailed information on worked hours, vacations, etc., billing and invoices and much more useful stuff.

MrTickTock Android application 1.0 should be available in the Android Market this week. It will allow users to create and delete tasks, report time manually or with start/stop button as well as report time automatically. The last feature is based on the WiFi availability. It will automatically start and stop time tracking if user is inside or outside the office.
Next version will allow to track time automatically basing on the GPS location, add notes (standups), close tasks, mark day as sick/off/non-working and probably more.

If Android app is successful and users like it then we will start working on the similar app for iPhone.

We also plan to create a Confluence plugin to retrieve all Scrum Standups entries from MrTickTock and show them on the wiki page.

That's all for today. You can try all of that at mrticktock.com.

We also publish most recent news via Twitter

Enjoy,
MrTickTock team