App request: Time tracker [$100]

[31SFX4]

I want to request a time tracking application.

Summary and motivation

The app allows you to start and stop a timer when you work on a project, and record the time accordingly, so that you can later get a summary how much time you have spend on different projects. Freelancers (for example) need to keep track of how much time they spend on different projects (so that they can bill customers for their time). It's also useful for generally monitoring your own productivity.

This lifehacker article shows that there is a need for time trackers, and shows some existing solutions http://lifehacker.com/5362829/five-best-time-tracking-applications

See also a thread on the forum: https://forum.owncloud.org/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=26117

What it is not

Just to clarify (following discussion on the forum), I'm not suggesting:

• an activity tracker that automatically monitors what you're doing
• a frontend to any of the web-based trackers

  Suggested way forward

It might not be too difficult to do. One could actually use the calendar system as the database backend, because time entries in their basic form are really just records of an activity name (=calendar entry title) and its start&end time, plus optional categories (for different projects) and descriptions. They should be stored in a separate calendar, but that's trivial as OC already allows multiple calendars.

What the app needs:

• A simple dialog to start and stop an entry, i.e. record the current time as start/end time. In its simplest form that's the calendar entry dialog plus a "now" button for start and end time, and a button to create a new entry from the current one (using the same title, categories etc. but the current time as start time). At a later stage it would be nicer to have something more adapted to this specific use (e.g. an additional dropdown of recently used titles).
• A way to summarise the information, i.e. extract data from the calendar to create a table and some bar graphs to show how much I've worked on different projects (calendar entry categories) in a week/month/year or user defined period.

[karlitschek]

good idea. hopefully someone finds the time to implement this

[31SFX4]

I put a bounty on it, as was suggested on the forum: https://www.bountysource.com/teams/owncloud/issues?tracker_ids=216441

I'm really keen to have it for my freelance work (and was happy to pay for such an online service in the past, so I'm also happy to pay a bounty), but I don't know enough about the app framework in OC to get started and don't have time to learn it right now, so I hope this encourages somebody. Thanks!

[karlitschek]

Sure. Not every contribution to ownCloud is driven by money/bounty. So let's see if someone wants to do this. Or does one of you volunteer to do it? :-)

[31SFX4]

Of course I don't want to imply developers are driven by money. It's amazing how OC has developed, and I'm a total fan of free and open software (and try to contribute my time when I can).