Trac integration PLUS local MySQL backups!

[mattgow]

There is a Trac plugin available that does two *brilliant* things
using the SlimTImer API.

http://www.trac-hacks.org/wiki/TracSlimTimerPlugin

1) Synchronises Trac tickets with SlimTimer: When Trac tickets are
"accepted", they are auto created in SlimTimer. When they are closed,
reopened, deleted or have their fields updated in Trac, SlimTimer is
kept in sync! Actually, I think there might even be two-way syncro on
ticket names.

2) Dumps SlimTimer data to MySQL (automatically and/or on
demand): !!!

Choose the number of days you want the data for and hit "dump". The
plugin will go grab the SlimTimer data for those days and shove it
into your local MySQL database (it will grab data for all of the trac
users you have configured with a SlimTimer account!)

Once you have your data in a local MySQL, you can snap an ODBC
connection on it and enter Excel pivot table heaven... gorgeous
reporting with nearly-live data! Seriously, if you haven't played with
Excel 2007's interface for slicing, dicing and visualising SQL data
sources you haven't lived (ok, I'm a project manager).

I think Richard is building some invoicing capabilities into ST which
I'm sure will be convenient. But you can make reports/invoices that
looks a million bucks using Excel or any ODBC capable spreadsheeting
tool. We're a non-profit, so we're actually happier if SlimTimer's
neat interface remains clear of invoicing complexities :)

The Trac plugin looks pretty modular to me so I'm sure that a
programmer could grab the SQL Dump capabilities out of it as a stand-
alone python program if they don't want to run Trac.

Finally, with regards to this Trac plugin

Pro
1) It's free! Source code is available so you can hack it's brains out
if you like
3) It's quite well documented
4) It's stable (we're using it in a production environment)

Con
1) A bit of setup required
2) It's all integrated into Trac so less exciting if you don't use
Trac

Thanks for that API Richard. SlimTimer rules!

[rrw...@gmail.com]

This totally rocks. Matt are you in charge of development? Can I
promote this on SlimTimer.com?

Rich

[Brian Birtles]

Hi,

Just a few comments:

1. Matt: "Actually, I think there might even be two-way syncro on
ticket names."

At the moment the ticket names are only synchronised from trac -->
SlimTimer, not the other way, but it would be fairly easy to change
this.

2. Matt: "The Trac plugin looks pretty modular to me so I'm sure that

a programmer could grab the SQL Dump capabilities out of it as a stand-
alone python program if they don't want to run Trac."

That's right. The part that dumps the SlimTimer data to MySQL was
originally made to be entirely independent of trac. It was only at the
last moment that I integrated it with the trac stuff just to simplify
configuration. It should be fairly easy to de-couple those parts
again. Also, some of the Python code for calling SlimTimer might be re-
usable by other projects seeking a Python API to SlimTimer.

3. Matt: "A bit of setup required"

This is definitely true and shouldn't be underestimated. We've only
set it up with our configuration of trac 0.10.3 on our server. It
would be really helpful if someone else tried to set it up on a
different configuration and then updated the documentation to add
extra notes or remove unnecessary steps or perhaps even change the
code to make it simpler for others.

4. Rich: Matt owns the project in that it was his idea (I just did the
coding). It's very basic but it fills an important gap in our
workflow. For my part I think it would be great it others are able to
make use of it too and improve it. That's why we published it on trac
hacks. So I think Matt will agree that it's fine to mention it on
SlimTimer.com.

Thanks,

Brian

[mattgow]

> This totally rocks.

We thought so. I'm lovin' it.

> Matt are you in charge of development?

We are the mob who created the plugin... but there's no task in our
SlimTimer for supporting the TracSlimTimerPlugin if that's what you
mean :)

We had the benefit of a programmer like Brian volunteering with us
just long enough to do something as cool as the Trac plugin. Our
longer-term programming staff don't have significant time to spend on
it but I'm sure we're able to help out here and there and Brian may
even chime in from wherever he is.

>Can I promote this on SlimTimer.com?

Sure.

Our only reason for being a bit backward about promoting it ourselves
is that we don't want to disappoint people with our rather likely lack
of solid support. But that's not the Open Source spirit is it? Getting
it out there into the wide world means that we can all support it :)

Matt