MrTickTock 2.3 - task management, reporting and time off tracking

MrTickTock 2.3 has been released last Friday and published at http://mrticktock.com.

What's new?

We have added several imrovements related to task management and generating reports. As usually there are also bunch of UX and performance fixes.

Here is the list of most important changes:

• Hourly rate
  Do you work for more than one customer on several projects? Each of them has separate contract and hourly price? Store this important information directly in your time tracker and don't mess anything! Hourly rate property for customers, projects and tasks can make your life easier.
  If you outsource part of your work and hire contractors then we have a good news too. Hourly rate property is also available for users:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Not linked tasks
  If you want to quickly create a task which is not linked to any customer or project then it is a matter of a chebkbox and one click. All tasks created this way are grouped within artificial project and customer (Not linked/Not linked):
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Days off marked on time report
  When you generate time report and spot missing values for some users, you may wonder whether they were absent or simply forgot to enter time value. Now it is clearly visible - day off markers you already know are added to the time report:
  
  
  

  

• "0" time values in the report
  If there is no time reported for selected customer or project, you can still make it visible in the report. Default compacted version can expanded with zero time values with one checkbox:
  
  
  
  

• Week view on absence calendar
  If you manage large team then week view may be a better option to preview your team absence. It fits more data so you will not lose anything:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

MrTickTock 2.3 also contains set of other improvements. Here is a short list:

• Customers and Projects sorting is unified across all pages.
• Closed Customers and Projects are not visible by default on the filters making them more clear.
• Exported CSV file is separated by comma by default.
• Terms of Use document has been published.
• Advanced options on the Reports page is collapsed by default to make the page clear.
• and more.

What's next?

Version 2.4 will bring requested "enterprise" features:

• limiting user access rights so it won't be possible to create and modify tasks
• possibility to modify users' timesheet by admins.

That's all for today friends. Try all of that at mrticktock.com.

We publish most recent news via Twitter

If you want to praise us, tell off or share feedback then drop a comment below or browse our 
feedback system.

Enjoy,
MrTickTock team

Project condition tracking and billing with MrTickTock 2.2

MrTickTock 2.2 has been released and published at http://mrticktock.com.

What's new?

This time we have added couple of features to help teams track progress of their projects and improve billing process.
We have also focused on several other improvements (UX and performance) for small and larger teams.

Here is the list of most important changes:

• Billable and non-billable tasks
  If you don't want to bill your customers for time spent on internal or not related activities then non-billable tasks are the right choice.
  All tasks are billable by default and can be marked as non-billable on the task details popup:
  
  
  
• Estimated time and progress bar for tasks
  Estimated time and nice visual progress bar for projects appeared in MrTickTock few months ago. Our customers loved it and asked the same for tasks. Here is how it looks like:
  
  
  
  
• Quick project time activity preview
  Details popups for Customers, Projects and Tasks contain Users involved in the last month section. We have added quick preview of time worked for every listed user (feature requested by our customers):
  
  

• Project start/end date
  Details popups for Customers, Projects and Tasks now contain First time report and Last time report data. This is a great indicator of when activity started for the Customer, Project or Task and when it has finished.
  
  
  

• Keyword "now"
  If you use time slots feature and report or modify time ranges using Start/Finish time input fields then you can simply type "now" keyword into these fields - it will be automatically converted into current time. You don't have to look at your watch and type the actual time into MrTickTock any more .
  
  
  
  
• Hide unused tasks
  One of MrTickTock features is to show on Tick-Tock page all tasks which are hidden but have time reported in the current month. It allows to quickly preview what we worked on and is extremely useful in case of decent amount of tasks.
  It appeared that some of our customers create bunch of short tasks every day. It results in having tens of tasks on the main Tick-Tock view and makes it very cluttered.
  Now it is possible to hide/show all such tasks with one click of the collapse/expand arrow:
  
  
  
• Tasks page performance
  Some companies using MrTickTock are creating tasks very actively and have thousands of them in open state. We have improved Tasks page performance so it works well with such enormous bunch of data.

MrTickTock 2.2 also contains set of other improvements. Here is a short list:

• Absence calendar works well with large number of entries (absent users).
• More AJAX and fewer reloads on Tick-Tock page.
• Edit task name UX improved in various places.
• Show report button in Project/Customer/Task details popup.
• Allow to change company name on the company profile page.
• Close Task action makes task hidden automatically.
• More balloon hints for beginners.
• and many more!

What's next?

Version 2.3 will bring some additional billing features. We will also go through the list of features requested by our customers.

That's all for today friends. Try all of that at mrticktock.com.

We publish most recent news via Twitter

If you want to praise us, tell off or share feedback then drop a comment below or browse our 
feedback system.

Enjoy,
MrTickTock team

Time reporting for lawyers and raw data export - MrTickTock 2.1

MrTickTock 2.1 has been released and published at http://mrticktock.com.

What's new?

This is again significant release. We have added support for decimal values method used by law firms and highly voted raw data export feature. We have also published json API.

Here is the list of most important changes:

• Time tracking for lawyers
  Most attorneys bill in tenth of an hour, which is 6 minute increments. We have added support for that approach and it is possible to generate time report based on most popular 6 or 15 minute intervals. It is also possible to set minimum number of intervals:
  
  

• Raw data export
  Time reports available in MrTickTock are handy and quite powerful but some of you still needs more. It is because your business grows, your customers want more fancy reports or simply because of your habits from the previous time keeping system. It is impossible to support all possible ways of generating output so raw CSV report has been added. The exported data can pushed into other system (e.g. Excel) in order to produce fancy graphs or plots:
  
  

• Tasks filtering on the Tick-Tock page
  Some of you work on a number of tasks simultaneously. No matter whether you are a project manager, super hero who can solve tens of issues a day or your tasks are simply short in terms of time. If your Tick-Tock page is full of tasks it is not very easy to spot the right one in a second. Filtering is an answer to this problem. It is available on the day view only but if you like it and want to have the same on the week view then just let us know. 
  
  

• Progress bar on the Standup page
  Do you work with a team and read daily reports on the Standup page? Are you a manager and want to keep an eye on how much time your team members report? We have a good news for you. We have added a nice visual progress bar for every user:
  
  
  
  
  
• Long task names
  Some users prefer long and descriptive task names over the short acronyms or single worded names. More, some use full sentence to name a task.
  We have increased task name length limit from 50 to 100 characters and fixed how it is displayed across the application. If you need more than 100 characters you can use description.
  
  
• Public API
  Are you a geek? Do you like MrTickTock but miss some integration? Now you can access and manipulate your data with simple https calls. Read more how to build your own extension.
  The first third-party integration is already there - an iPhone app. Check out how it looks like on the features page. Source code is available.

MrTickTock 2.1 contains also bunch of other new things: blocked users improvements, timezone detected and set automatically for new users, users popups and Users page improvements, click-able links in descriptions, improved security and much more.

What's next?

Version 2.2 will focus on performance. It will be dedicated for users with big number of tasks and other data.

We will also make first step towards invoicing and add support for billable and non billable tasks.

We will also allow to reduce user role permissions so they will be able to report time but not create tasks nor see other data. That's a feature asked by our customers.


That's all for today friends. Try all of that at mrticktock.com.

We also publish most recent news via Twitter

If you want to praise us, tell off or share feedback then drop a comment here or browse our 
feedback system.

Enjoy,
MrTickTock team

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.