Hi,
I'm sorry for offtopic, but I do not found any place to ask my question.
Is there any recommendation on good time tracking software for developers (MSVC+MSDN+other soft)? I want to track a time I spend on each project, but I am unable to find anything that can track my time without pressing start and end buttons every time I want to do a job.
Please help. Thanks.
>>I want to track a time I spend on each project
Use your watch and enter the times in an Excell spreadsheet. Or maybe something like this, which you have probably already seen.
gosh. You want software that reads your mind and can tell what exactly you're working on at each moment?
I'm sorry, but there are telepathic computers yet.
No, I want software that track a time I'm working in MSVC, MSDN and so on. It's possible to get the project name form MSVC title bar and save the time of activity to a log. I can write the software for myself, but I'm sure that it's already exists somewhere.
PS. Sorry my french :)
Hi,
I'm sorry for offtopic, but I do not found any place to ask my question.
Is there any recommendation on good time tracking software for developers (MSVC+MSDN+other soft)? I want to track a time I spend on each project, but I am unable to find anything that can track my time without pressing start and end buttons every time I want to do a job.
Please help. Thanks.
There is one but its web-based (runs off a php/mysql server) . Dont know its name but its commonly used by opensource developers.
You might browse this list to see if there is anything useful to you or give you ideas of how to write your on VC++ add-on macro
Web-based tracker is not a solution, because it will not detect what I am working on. It just replaces excel spreadsheet.
Thanks for suggestions.
you'll find out that getting the project name from visual studio isn't fine grained enough.
A particular project can have many different trackable issues associated with it.
And each issue could well have multiple activities which may or may not involve visual studio and may or may not have to be logged independently as sub activities.
IOW, there's no one size fits all solution, and there's no magic mindreading software that knows what you're doing when even if it could read out visual studio (and if it did, it wouldn't know if it were the actual window you're currently working with. I use multiple computers simulataneously at work, often as many as 3 workstations and terminals open to 5+ servers. Throw in some VPN connections to remote machines and there's nothing to be gleaned from anything anymore for your super snooping automatic time tracker.
jwenting, your work is hard to track, but mine is not. I'm a freelancer and I just working on my PC on two projects and it's easy to detect automatically what I'm doing now for sure.
it's not. If it's so easy you don't need some mindreading software to do it for you, you can remember it yourself.
What if you're on the phone to a customer, doing some research, etc. etc.?
No software is going to know what project that's for...
What if you're eating lunch around the corner but leave your PC turned on with that source code loaded? Are you going to charge your customer for that?
Or you forget to close your tracker overnight and it happily records 8 hours of dreamtime as hard labour.
If it's so easy to make according to you, there's nothing stopping you from making it yourself, is there?
And if there is a demand for it (which according to you there implicitly is) it's sure to make you some money too.
I recommend you Smart WorkTime Tracker. Look at http://tracker.aklabs.com for details.
You can also try AllNetic Working Time Tracker and vakcer.com.
I hope this helps.
Wow, thanks! Looks very intersting, I will test all this applications soon and tell you what I'm thinking about.
So work on one project in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. It would make your accounting for time a hell of a lot easier (excel spreadsheet easy).
I can't imagine you getting anything solid done if you're context swapping between two projects several times an hour. You're going to be spending half of each day just figuring out where exactly you left off before the switch.
You're a free-lancer, manage your own time better. You're not some low-level grunt in a cube-farm being asked to account for your movements to every 15 minutes.
If these switches are being driven by your customers phoning up several times a day, then you need to manage that flow much better, say no PM phone calls unless it's absolutely urgent, and even then send an email first.
well said. It's estimated that any distraction from the task you're working on will cost you 15 minutes at least in productivity.
So if you are working on coding for project A and someone calls for a "quick update" on the status of project B that takes you 5 minutes to handle, you've really lost 20 minutes.
Hi, I'm back!
Thank you for all your messages :)
salem, i'm not switching between projects every 15 minutes, but I often forgot to log my time at all. I often logs my time carefully day or two, but then I stop doing that :-/
alexak, I tested these programs and Smart WorkTime Tracker looks like the one I wanted! Thanks again! It works wery well and count all my activity automatically, except it does not count my phone calls, but this feature is scheduled to the next release.
There is a flash tutorial available:
http://tracker.aklabs.com/tutorial/time_tracking.htm
I'm going to buy it soon. :)
seriously... i leave VS projects open all the time when i am not working on them, just because i hate closing and re-opening them. even if i don't intend on coming back anytime soon, i often leave project open just by accident. you are better off creating a simple timer app... place simple "START PROJECT A" / "START PROJECT B" buttons on it
You're a free-lancer, manage your own time better. You're not some low-level grunt in a cube-farm being asked to account for your movements to every 15 minutes.
I'm an independent developer, currently with 2 clients and I spend some time for each one pretty much every day. One of them is satisfied with me just reporting how many hours I spent per day. The other wants my time in 15 minute chunks per task/project. It was a pain in the beginning but you do (mostly) what the client wants. And technically, if something takes me 31 minutes, I get to round up and charge for 45 minutes, though I'm not that anal about it.
And how do I track my time? I keep an index card and a pen on my desk. That solution is inspired by the Hipster PDA.
Look at software that attorneys use-- like Timeslips. There are plenty of them out there.
Yes, but he wants something that magically knows what he's doing rather than him having to tell it all the time.
const std::string reasons[] = {
"working on project 1",
"working on project 1",
"working on project 1",
"working on project 2",
"working on project 2",
"working on project 2",
"talking to mates on the phone",
"drinking coffee",
"having a crap",
"smoking a cigarette",
"on a legally mandated work break",
"at lunch",
"surfing the web",
"chatting up a member of the appropriate sex",
// add other stuff, in the proportions which you seem do them.
// In fact, any activity which might take more than 7.5 minutes
// should be factored into a 15 minute micro managers report.
};
int main ( ) {
while ( true ) {
int reason = rand() % ( sizeof reasons / sizeof *reasons );
cout << "In the last 15 minutes, you were mostly " << reasons[reason] << endl;
sleep( 15 * 60 );
}
}Hi,
I'm sorry for offtopic, but I do not found any place to ask my question.
Is there any recommendation on good time tracking software for developers (MSVC+MSDN+other soft)? I want to track a time I spend on each project, but I am unable to find anything that can track my time without pressing start and end buttons every time I want to do a job.
Please help. Thanks.
Hi,
I believe Timetrack Professional from Bit Computing (www.bitcomputing.com) can help you in time tracking your software tools (MSVC+MSDN+other soft). It automatically record how much time you have used on your software and even URL by your web browsers. You can then categorize your recorded time into categories.
I think they have a free version. Check out their site if it compatible with vista. I'm using their professional version, it comes with more features.
www.14dayz.com seems pretty good. I used to use that when I worked for a web dev company in Boston. I think it was written for attorneys or something, but it scales REALLY nicely to software development.
Hi,
Is there any recommendation on good time tracking software for developers (MSVC+MSDN+other soft)?Please help. Thanks.
It's free and has a good interface. We use it every day.
Have you looked at TimeTTracker by RFCons? I have been using it for over 6 years and I can track all of my daily tasks. The software is designed to keep track of anything, especially time and money. The application has been developed for both individuals who need to organize personal information, and for businesses of all sizes - anyone who demands the most from their computing experience. With TimeTTracker, you can gather, review, and report any information related to your activities (generally, time you care about), income or spending (generally, some numbers you care about).
I recommend that you look into the software. www.rfcons.com
I guess it it time to use my time tracking moderator option and close this thread before more future time travellers decides to advertise their time trackers...
And I guess I will close this thread again seeing as the time travel spammers have woken up...
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