Attendance

This month, we had 13 members at the Saturday meeting.

Software Focus: Time Reporting Software

We got to business quite quickly this time around, with the software topic being time reporting software.

Roy reported on Iambic Software’s TimeReporter, while Sean reported on AllTime for Mac users, and on Responsive Software's TimeLogger. Demos were run for all using the PalmOS Emulator on laptops that Roy and Sean brought.

Iambic TimeReporter retails for US$150, and is a powerful combination of palmtop and desktop system. A 30-day free trial is available. Roy has been using it for over a year now, and is generally pleased with the performance.

On the palmtop client your main screen is a Time Entry Screen, which includes the following items: Client, Project, Activity, Time, Timer On/Off, Duration, Autofill Pop-up list. More detail can be input for each field; for example, the Project entry screen includes Name, Code, Client, and Rate options. When these options are filled, then the Palm is used as a timer, with you logging in on a particular project and logging out when that activity is done.

There were questions on whether Times can be manually put in (if one forgets to use the timer) and whether Duration can be put in manually as well. These were tried, and the answer is yes.

Unfortunately, Roy reported that on his palmtop, generating Reports crashed the Palm, so he relies on the desktop half of the program for reporting. This crashing may be due to some incompatibilities with other programs (hacks?) but doesn’t really bother him that much.

The TimeReporter desktop client is a Windows program, and provides a lot of functionality. Data is brought in by hotsyncing, or by importing CSV (comma separated values), or via its own conduit. Reporting is powerful, and includes filtering and graphical capabilities - but Roy would like more flexibility on the forms, including the possibility to incorporate company logos. Exporting to Quickbooks, Quicken, MS Money and Excel is standard, and exporting to Access is possible.

Sean reported on Iambic Software’s AllTime, a $50 version of the above software, which includes the palmtop app only. This is directed at Mac users who cannot use the above desktop client, but may be used by those who don’t think they need the desktop program. While the rest of the time reporting metaphor works as above, reports are created using the standard Palm Memopad function, and can exports files in CSV, which may then be manipulated in other desktop programs.

Expense Director is an add-on application that pulls in data for time reports, does automatic conversion of rates, mileage, and so on.

Sean reported on Responsive System’s TimeLogger, a similar time reporting application priced at US$50, and which boasts both a desktop and palmtop version.

Most of the functions are similar to TimeReporter, so we concentrate on the differences here. TimeLogger enables users to define subprojects within major projects. Project tracking is more name-oriented here, as opposed to being able to track with codes. The desktop version includes long descriptions. The export file appears to be a (tab/space delimited) text file.