TimeTracker version 1.0, June 1999

Brought to you by Inertron Software, http://www.inertron.com/palm

Email: support@inertron.com

This product is shareware, US$20.

Register at any of these websites:
http://www.viamall.com/pilotgearsw/insof2.html
http://www.palmcentral.com
http://www.inertron.com/palm
or 
Phone orders: 817-461-3480
Fax orders: 817-461-3482

SHAREWARE NOTICE
TimeTracker is distributed fully functional and the only shareware reminder is the one dialog when the app is first launched.  Unlike some other programs, there is no time-limit. So if you never register, you can keep using it forever without fear that it will suddenly stop working right when you need it. We assume that people are basically honest, and that the length of the shareware evaluation period should be up to the individual. Registering entitles you to unlimited upgrades; all future versions will recognize and accept your registration code.

INTRODUCTION
TimeTracker is a time-keeping tool for contract workers, lawyers, or anyone else who works on multiple projects on an hourly basis. You enter the project names and optionally assign each to a client. Select a project and tap a button to start a timer for that project. Tap again to stop the timer. You can start and stop projects as often as needed throughout the day and the times are accumulated. A detail view shows the daily totals for each project, and you can check off days as they are billed. Times can be displayed as either hours and minutes, or as hours and tenths of an hour. TimeTracker has been tested on a Palm Pro, Palm III, and Palm V.

QUICK START
The main display consists of four columns: A checkbox used to indicate that a project has been completed; the project name; today's daily time (or the date on which a project was completed); and the overall total time for the project. This list is sorted alphabetically by project name.

Tap the "New" button (or select "New Project" from the Options menu) and enter the name of a project. If desired, use the "Client" popup to select the client that the project belongs to (the popup also leads to a dialog for entering client names). 

When you want to start timing your work, select a project name and tap the "Start" button. The timer will start for that project and the running daily time will be underlined. When you stop working on that project, tap the "Stop" button to stop the timer. If you are switching to a different project, select it and tap the "Start" button to start the timer for that project. If you go back to timing the first project, the timer will pick up from where it left off (currently there is not an automatic way to keep track of individual work "segments" in a day but you can manually itemize your time using the note feature on the Details View or by setting up your projects as daily tasks).

Note that the running time is not added to the total column until you stop the timer.

Use the "Edit Client List" menu item to add, delete, or edit client names.

THE DETAILS VIEW
Select a project and tap the "Details" button. At the top of the Details View are the project name and client. You can change and/or edit those from here.

The list in the middle of the screen shows every date on which any time was accumulated for the project, and the time for that date.

The checkboxes to the left of each date can be used to check off dates as they are billed.

Above the list is the total time for the project (the sum of all the times in the list), and the total unbilled time (the sum of just the unchecked dates).

You can add a note to a date by selecting the date and then tapping the "Note" button. An icon will appear on the right of any date that has an attached note.

You can delete a date by selecting it and tapping the "Delete" button.

You can also manually change the time on a date. This might be needed if you stop working on a project but forget to stop the timer, or if you forget to start the timer when you start working. To change the time, select the date and tap the "Edit" button. In the small window, select one of the digits and use the arrow buttons to change it appropriately.

If you manually edit today's time and increase it, and then start the timer for that project, it's possible that the timer will reach 24 hours. Since it's not possible to have more than 24 hours in a day, if this happens the timer will automatically stop and a warning will appear.

The "Cancel" button will undo all changes made to the Details View, with two exceptions: Changes made to an existing note will remain, and notes that were deleted will not come back.

The hard scroll buttons can be used to cycle through the projects without the need to go back and forth to the main view. Any changes made are automatically saved when you use the scroll buttons.

COMPLETING PROJECTS
When you complete a project, check it off using the checkbox at the left of the main display. The middle column will now show the date that it was completed (the date on which you checked the checkbox).

PREFERENCES
You can choose to have times displayed as hours and minutes ("hh:mm"), or as hours and tenths of an hour ("hh.ff"). This option affects all displayed times except the "today" column of the main display, which is always shown as hours, minutes and seconds.

You can choose to have completed projects sorted to the end of the main display, useful to get them out of the way of projects you're still working on.

PURGE
This command allows you to delete all completed projects that are older than a specified time. Only completed projects are candidates for being deleted; all projects with an unchecked checkbox are unaffected. You can choose a time of one month, three months, six months, or nine months. All projects whose completed dates are older than the chosen time will be deleted.

Please be certain that you have billed for, or at least recorded the times for, all completed projects that might be deleted. This command cannot be undone!

CROSSING MIDNIGHT
If you work late into the night and have a timer running over midnight, TimeTracker will automatically change to the next day and continue the timer.

If you accidentally leave a timer running and don't return to TimeTracker for several days (you forget to turn the timer off on Friday and leave it running over the weekend, for example), all intervening days will have accumulated 24 hours of time. You can use the Details View to delete those dates.

POSSIBLE FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS
Currently, the only way to get the data out of TimeTracker is by hand; manually typing it into a spreadsheet or invoice. Obviously, it would be desirable to have a way to load the TimeTracker data into your desktop computer. But conduits are not straightforward to write. So before making that kind of effort, we need to know if there is really a demand for it. 

So if you would like to see something along these lines, write to us at support@inertron.com. Tell us what you'd like to see -- anything from a conduit that creates a simple tab-delimited file to a full-featured desktop application that syncs with the handheld version and has capabilities for setting up and printing invoices right from there. Also tell us how much additional you would be willing to pay for what you are requesting (registered users are entitled to all future versions of the handheld application, but a conduit or desktop application, being substantial work, will be extra).







