Reporting

[Daniel Hilgarth]

I am currently using the Android version of TagTime.
I do understand that it is a very simple implementation. As such, it doesn't provide any kind of integration or reporting.
I wonder if this is different for the Desktop version?
I am specifically wondering about the reporting without BeeMinder.
In other words, is it possible that TagTime shows the amount of time I spent on a certain task / tag, broken down by day?
Or is this not how it is working?

Thanks,
Daniel

[Joseph C.]

I believe you can do this through cntpings.pl, but I haven't actually tried it. It looks like you'll have to run it once for each date range you want to know about. (Not very efficient for seeing time spent per day.)

Alternatively, you can make a completely flat Beeminder road, and just use it as a data viewer.

-Joseph

[Daniel Reeves]

Joseph is correct! The cntpings.pl ("count pings") script will tally
your time for any set of tags for any time range. It also tells you
the average number of hours per day you spent.

Btw, everyone here should upvote this suggestion on the Beeminder
feedback forum:
http://beeminder.uservoice.com/forums/3011-general/suggestions/4403354-integrate-with-tagtime-for-android

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "tagtime" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to tagtime+u...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.



--
http://dreev.es -- search://"Daniel Reeves"
Goal tracking + Commitment contracts == http://beeminder.com

[Daniel Hilgarth]

Thanks for your answers!
So, is my understanding correct when I say that TagTime is for tracking averages over an extended period of time?
If I am a developer billing by the hour, TagTime is not the right tool for me - correct?

[Daniel Reeves]

> So, is my understanding correct when I say that TagTime is for tracking
> averages over an extended period of time?

Yes, this can be pinned down precisely but a rule of thumb is that
once you have something like a week's worth of full-time work,
TagTime's estimate will be within 10% of the truth. Maybe it was two
weeks. Something on the order of weeks, though to me it always feels
like it's at least in the right ballpark after a couple days or even
hours.

> If I am a developer billing by the hour, TagTime is not the right tool for
> me - correct?

I actually think this is fine. There are so many other sources of
randomness anyway, like an unlucky bug that takes an extra day to
figure out, or happening upon the right forum question where someone
saves you days of work. TagTime adds more randomness (for example, if
you work for 5 minutes there's a 90% chance that you'll bill for 0
time which is about right, but a 10% chance of billing for a full 45
minutes; if you work for 3.5 hours there's a 1% chance you won't be
able to bill for any of it) but it's perfectly unbiased and thus
entirely fair to the client you're billing. They may get a bit lucky
or a bit unlucky.

[d.hil...@dhilgarth.de]

Thanks for your answer.

 

> > If I am a developer billing by the hour, TagTime is not the right tool for
> > me - correct?
>
> I actually think this is fine. There are so many other sources of
> randomness anyway, like an unlucky bug that takes an extra day to
> figure out, or happening upon the right forum question where someone
> saves you days of work. TagTime adds more randomness (for example, if
> you work for 5 minutes there's a 90% chance that you'll bill for 0
> time which is about right, but a 10% chance of billing for a full 45
> minutes; if you work for 3.5 hours there's a 1% chance you won't be
> able to bill for any of it) but it's perfectly unbiased and thus
> entirely fair to the client you're billing. They may get a bit lucky
> or a bit unlucky.

I don't agree here. These randomnesses are on different levels. One is inherent

to the process of creating software while the other (TagTime) is not and can easily

be avoided by using some other time tracking tool. Furthermore, with TagTime I can't

really specify what exactly I did (like "Fix bug 123, add new feature 456"), so the

report for the customer will be rather coarse and meaningless.

I think I will stay with Toggl.com for my billable hours...