Adam_Gibson Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Nice new forum Doug. I hope we have participants. My problem, which I doubt is unique, is that I hate invoicing. Sure, I enjoy getting paid, but the heavy legwork to figure out the time I've spent on a given project for the previous segment is arduous. I invoice monthly. I've tried several timesheet programs, including Spherical Timesheet and Chrometa (which has its plusses). But since I work on many projects each month, and since (I may have mentioned this) I disdain invoicing, no program other than Chief's finicky integrated time tracker records each file on which I work. There leaves much guesswork as to which Chief session (and window) may be related to a given project. When querying my most recent tracker, Chrometa, about zeroing in on each window, their response was, "Sorry Chief Architect does not allow scripting. We can't grab the name of the document you're working on." To put it bluntly, this sucks. I work hard. I'd like to bill the correct client for my hard work. Any suggestions would be most appreciated. For the record, I'm looking for automation. For example, if I'm working on a file under a specific client's name , I don't need the 20 different library and associated windows. I just want to know that I worked on Client Name/Revision for X amount of time on a specific day. I'l bet that I'm behind the times and that many already have a proven method, and I'm a neanderthal. Please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan_Park Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 We fixed a few issues with time tracker in X6. We found some cases when we were porting that didn't look right and investigation proved they were wrong. Several cases were fixed where time was not being tracked correctly. Time tracker now automatically starts again when you start working after it stopped. There are a bunch of things that could be improved. Being able to track time and put a billing code next to that time would be a big improvement. With luck you may find X6 less finicky. I still think it has a lot of room for improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam_Gibson Posted February 28, 2014 Author Share Posted February 28, 2014 I've noticed an improvement. Nonetheless, I have to use Chief to tabulate and export time, which is dreaded and tedious. Why doesn't it allow scripting? This would make external time sheets so much more efficient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan_Park Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 It was our goal on porting to make things work the way they used to work. We really should put together a better list of what time tracker needs to do. I totally agree with you on the billing. I used to own my own business years ago and as much as I liked getting paid I hated doing the paper work. I think with time tracker you need the ability to have project management tool that allows you to mark time in a plan and layout and perhaps several plans to a particular project. That project data would need to be updated independently of the plan file. Which, I think, is what you are getting at in part by having the time exportable. Then you need to get that data into your other tools for billing. It's not just the time in Chief that you have to bill for either. So being able to easily get that data into an external tool is important. I hope we can make time for improving time tracker. It could be much better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McQueen3D Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 This lack of ability to distinguish by file is why I never used time tracker since it was introduced. I always used Excel sheets, one for each client, in a special time tracker book. It's a lot of work to track and enter the data but it was easy to get Excel to add it up for billing at the end of the month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam_Gibson Posted March 1, 2014 Author Share Posted March 1, 2014 Dan, you hit the nail on the head. For those of us whose income is derived from using Chief as our principal tool, precise time tracking is essential to our livelihood. Correct, not just time spent in Chief, but for example when composing an email or viewing a website pertaining to a specific project that time must be tracked as well. It would be unreasonable to expect Chief to track anything outside of it (Chrometa does a fairly good job).But take a look at this screenshot. Unless I note what file I've worked on for each portion of the day, I have no way to delegate the time to specific projects! And that's if I even deign to look at the time tracker, which I tend to avoid until the end of the month. Chrometa says it can't pull the file names because Chief won't allow scripting (not that I know what that means). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam_Gibson Posted September 3, 2014 Author Share Posted September 3, 2014 Does anyone around here use 3rd party software to track their time? If so, what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbuttery Posted September 3, 2014 Share Posted September 3, 2014 Adam: my friend uses Time Stamp http://www.syntap.com/products_timestamp.htm Lew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam_Gibson Posted September 3, 2014 Author Share Posted September 3, 2014 Thanks Lew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zowie123 Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 Yes! Please add whatever it takes to allow time tracking by 3rd party. Chief should not be a time tracker, but it would be awesome if it interfaced with some of the popular time tracking software. Manic time, Chrometa to name a couple. Manic Time is amazingly universal once it's set up. It seems to work with all programs but Chief. Thank you, Barry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelaleigh Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 I find my tracker in X8 to be tracking any file that is open at the same rate, regardless of whether I am using it or not. I thought these were supposed to be tracked separately, or that this would have been addressed by now? Doesn't this make Time Tracker useless, even for exports? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelly_K Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 It is a nuisance to be sure, one needs to just be diligent about turning off the tracker when not needed. Typically, I close the model; if I wish to copy from it - I have added the stop button to a toolbar to help remind me to turn off the tracker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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