Time tracker
What do you all think about timesheet tracker for small teams that automatically sends reminders to people to add their time? and sends an automated team status update.
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What do you all think about timesheet tracker for small teams that automatically sends reminders to people to add their time? and sends an automated team status update.
I think there is a lot of competition in this area and most teams are already setup with a time tracker service, but I think there are small wrinkles that you can provide solutions for.
for example, a bot that can remind team members to fill-out their timesheets since most employers complain that people usually delay filling their time sheets and makes hard on the accounting team.
or maybe a tool that helps teams integrate their different services like jira tickets with timesheets service with a reporting tool ... etc
Like an integration to an existing service? The end of your comment is really interesting. So A timesheet service that integrates with Jira tasks, If I'm understanding it correctly.
A few years ago I wrote a small app (for myself) that used the Pomodoro technique plus time tracking. Essentially every 20-minute timer you could plan what you will do for the next 20 minutes or write down what you did for the last 20 minutes. I see value/use there.
What I prefer is time tracking integrated with project management and Git. I have a project management tool that allows pressing start/stop on a timer with each task. For every Git commit I also track the task ID associated with the commit. Later I should be able to do analysis on time spend, number of commits, and lines of code, etc associated with every task.
Long story short, I'm not sure about a "separate" tool for time tracking versus integration with existing tools. It seems like a lot of teams are suffering from "tool fatigue" so are hesitant to add yet more tools.
Hope that helps,
@Lakebed_io I'm curious, what project management tool do you use?
Toodledo allows time tracking associated with tasks. I'm stuck with that for my personal task lists because I can't be bothered switching.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUNyz7SWsAEjqRA?format=png
For Lakebed agile/sprint planning I use Yodiz.com.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUNynAXXsAAIVWz?format=png
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUNynAPWoAIxg6h?format=png
I see that's why you recommended integration because there are so many tools out there already, it makes sense. what prevents you from switching? Just curious
For Toodledo, it has a mobile app, I'm on the free plan, and I've written an IFTTT recipe that records some analytics.
For Yodiz, I love it. It's one of the few tools I found with reasonable pricing for startups (free up to 3 years) and allows a userstory to be tagged with release+epic+sprint+component. It makes backlog and sprint planning so easy.
I've used a few for different projects. Microsoft VSO, Jira, and Trello. It just depends on the project usually the team usually has one already adopted. Personally I use Trello if the project is basic but if need more feature use Jira.
Yes, it does, I was initially thinking about a separate tool. I didn't even consider time tracking integration at a task level. This is GREAT insight, thank you.
I also agree it should be some kind of integration, we were also thinking about developing separate tool because Jira was missing some basic functionalities our clients requested. We gathered feedback from our clients and they strictly said they don't want to introduce new applications/tools in they everyday business. There was a problem even when we suggested to use some well proven BI tools for reporting and skip reporting limitations Jira had, they just want everything in one place and in one application which is sometimes really impossible :) There were several implementations of Jira where our clients even requested to have a CRM, ERP, HR, asset management and much more inside Jira. In some companies we managed to make some 'fake' CRM/HR systems using tickets as entities (each customer = Jira ticket with customer related data in issue fields), but of course this can't be a serious solution for bigger companies.
Regarding timetracking, our idea about timetracking was to keep it simple but add enough functionalities Jira was missing. We also just started and put our product to marketplace. Have a look at: https://www.indiehackers.com/product/worklog-express , this is our integration with Jira.
Your idea about worklog reminders is not bad at all, many people just forget to create worklogs because they are overwhelmed with their everyday business. Our idea was to offer a quick grid interface for project managers to create 'bulk' worklogs for some period because many developers just forget entering worklogs. A good reminder could be a good benefit, although you can use Jira native features like subscription filter which can query all tickets without worklogs and send them to email of issue assignes.