Time Keeper

Origins

This application was designed and built to meet my personal and small business requirements. Part of the motivation came from wanting some way to quantify and manage my time in front of the PC as well as streamline the time coding of client project work.

Like much of my application development, the time keeper tool evolved from a pretty basic system into something much more elaborate than originally intended. In some areas it is has room for potential additions which are built in but not fully complete such as:

  • Multi user team time management
  • Process tracking (what applications contribute to what tasks)
  • Notifications of performance based on expected minimum / maximum times

Screen Shots

timeKeeperreports (GIF)
clients (JPG)
Main interface of the application
3 different reporting screens
Closeup of client / project list

 

Features

  • Create and manage client details and client projects with multiple projects per client.
  • Colour code clients and project for quick recognition.
  • Link to file system folders for quick access to project or client data
  • Multi user support for shared time keeping and reporting
  • Start tasks assigned to projects to log your time while you work
  • Have multiple tasks running simultaneously or limit concurrent tasks for quick task creation.
  • Receive notifications on your projects you are working on (over time, under time)
  • View reports on time usage across projects and clients

 

Technology

I chose to build in Microsoft Visual Basic for the simple fact that it is a rapid development language with plenty of easy to grasp features for someone of my limited abilities.

This project was partly an experiment in object orientated development using a highly normalised database created Microsoft Access (again for ease of development).

I have attempted to keep this application as simple and self contained as possible with a single database and executable application and a bunch of non-essential program settings stored in the system registry.