We all have to register time, but why bother?

September 11, 2009 | by Maciej Greń

View Comments

StuffToDoWhen working on projects with a fixed budget you will for sure recognize the time registration need. @GOYELLO we use our Redmine Project Management Environment to register time. Unfortunately, it is very boring and time consuming job. The good news is that we found a way to maximally simplify the time registration process by developing one simple tool…

What kind of stuff you have to do today?

We decided to use Stuff To Do plugin which was developed by Eric Davis. The plugin architecture allows us to improve it without changing the Redmine core. Eric Davis’ version enables people to define what kind of tasks they have to do today. We wanted to add start/stop timers for every specific task. You can download our adjusted plugin here.

Stuff To Do main screen

When to use the hour registration plugin?

There are several situations when you could use this plugin:

  • You have to register time on tasks that are very small (few hours).
  • You have to switch between tasks very often.
  • You tend to forgot how long you were working on a specific task.

How to use it?

Next to each task you have following list of buttons:

StuffTodo_4_play_pause_cancel

The first button (green) starts the timer for a specific task. Pressing it the start button will disappear. The first button in line now is the one responsible for registering your time (pen). After pressing it you will see a small window where you can register your spent time.

StuffTodo_6_quick_log

Other buttons are responsible for canceling the time registration and for moving your task back to a list of available tasks.

Power buttons!

There is one very neat functionality. We call it Mass Time Log. StuffTodo_2_mass_log This is a special button which you can use for registering all tickets in one click. It is very useful when you want to finish your work. Then you just press this button and you will see one screen with all things you did today. Just fill the fields and press save. An example screen is presented below.

StuffTodo_5_mass_log

StuffTodo_3_breakThe second power button we call Coffee Break. When you want to have a break, you can press this button. It will pause the timer.

What we achieved by this plugin

Currently we test this tool in our company. Several people are pleased with it. Soon the others will follow! I will keep you posted! Till that time, please share your opinion about this plugin with us by commenting below. We can also meet and discuss on Twitter via @GOYELLO.

  • Hello,

    I can't get the plugin up. I installed it with Redmine 0.9.4 into directory /vendor/plugins/redmine_goyello_stuff_to_do. I read the hint for installing it under /vendor/redmine_goyello_stuff_to_do. But this does make no sense for me. After copying the files to the first mentioned destination I called rake db:migrate_plugins RAILS_ENV=production and got the following:

    == CreateLogtimeEntries: migrating ===========================================
    -- create_table(:logtime_entries)
    -> 0.0252s
    -- add_index("logtime_entries", ["issue_id"], {:name=>"logtime_entries_issue_id"})
    -> 0.0035s
    -- add_index("logtime_entries", ["user_id"], {:name=>"logtime_entries_user_id"})
    -> 0.0034s
    == CreateLogtimeEntries: migrated (0.0325s) ==================================

    == CreateNextIssues: migrating ===============================================
    -- create_table(:next_issues)
    -> 0.0148s
    == CreateNextIssues: migrated (0.0149s) ======================================

    == AddIndexesToNextIssues: migrating =========================================
    -- add_index(:next_issues, :issue_id)
    -> 0.0034s
    -- add_index(:next_issues, :user_id)
    -> 0.0035s
    == AddIndexesToNextIssues: migrated (0.0071s) ================================

    So I would suppose to see the Plugin working under Administration » Plugins. But nothing happens. It seams as if there never would be called the plugin.

    Any advices or hints? Thanks in advance.

    Marco
  • Hello,

    First, Thanks for a great mod on edavis' stuff_to_do. Upon using your mod today I've come to realize if the above issue was inherently by design, or just wasn't thought out when modifying stuff_to_do.

    I love the connivence of your mod providing an 'easy access' to the necessary changes one needs to do when an Issue's time is logged (changing statuses, percentage done, etc...). But it seems that these changes are not reflected in the issue's history once made through your plugin as well as the needed email notifications sent to those who wants to be notified of changes to the issue.

    I am on Redmine 0.9.6 on mod_rails/apache, Rails 2.3.8/Ruby 1.8.7

    Perhaps this is a platform issue? Other than this, I think your mod is great and a nice addition to our workflow. Thanks once again!

    NOTE: I've added this as well at github.
  • Any update on the merging of your work with David's?
  • impacta
    Hi guys! Congratulations for your nice plug-in. We have read it's tested on Redmine 0.9.2. But is it compatible with newest 0.9.3 and 0.9.4 versions? We installed it on Redmine 0.9.3 without a problem. We can access the Stuff To Do link and we can drag tasks to "What I'm doing now" pane, but once they are listed in the pane, they show NO ACTION BUTTONS! The mass time log and coffee break buttons do not appear either. This make the whole application completely unusable, of course :-(((( We'd be VERY grateful if you could tell us if this is a version-related problem, or if we are just doing something wrong. Thank you so much.
  • Jacob Jakobsen
    Nice looking and easy to install.
    Have you considered logging the start- and end-times? This would greatly add to the value of the plugin due to the increased precision and traceability!
    Thanks
    Jacob
  • This needs lots of work, for example to give a project manager the ability to set the day to day tasks for the developers, ons the tasks that belongs to them.

    Other wise it works well... thanks so much.
  • Dan Borden
    This looks great, but why not record start/end time?
  • maciejgren
    Hi Dan,

    this plugin allows you to register time by simply clicking start and stop when you finish it. Then, at the end of the day you press register button and all your hours are registered for this day.

    Did I answered your question?

    Regards,
    Maciej
  • South Pole
    I got original stuff_to_do working, but failed to install your mod. I left comment on github. thanks.
  • maciejgren
    Our development team is a bit blocked now by the flu coming through Poland but we will check your issue as soon as we are back on rails!
  • We had Eric build this feature for us and it turned out great - but you've gone and just made it waaaaay better. Thanks and well done!
  • maciejgren
    Hi Tim,

    Thank you for your comment. I am pleased you liked our plugin. We talked recently with Eric about merging the current Stuff To Do with our improvements. I hope we will manage :)
blog comments powered by Disqus