Universal TimeTracker

The Universal TimeTracker will help you to book your times in Jira and other systems simultaneously. Meanwhile it will help you to control, that time bookings are reliable, consistent, exact and timely in your Jira system to make sure, your plannings and reports (e.g. burn down charts) are correct.

Employees find time tracking annoying. You won't change that. But you can make them love the TimeTracker they use.

|| Name | Universal TimeTracker (for Jira and other systems) ||

Contents on this page

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Description

The TimeTracker supports multiple software systems and can both import times in Jira alone or import timebookings in multiple systems. Compatible and planned products include: Jira, Projectile (see www.projectile.de), OTRS, Bugzilla and every other project management system that supports a REST or SOAP-interface.

Technical Features

• The Universal TimeTracker is written in Java and Grails.
• The complete software runs on a web interface an is optimized for Firefox browser. We performed compatibility checks for Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome and Iceweasel though.
• Quick bookings (Start, Stop, Description) can be made through desktop widgets on Mac OS and Windows (installation needed).
• All time bookings can be imported from the Universal TimeTracker into Jira. That is done on a daily basis, if the user has finished bookings for the day. An amount of plausability checks is run before bookings are imported, to prevent importing wrong bookings. As you may know, Jira does not let you change your bookings in Jira. So we make sure, everything is right before the import.
• Third party software can be integrated through APIs (e.g. SOAP or REST)
• The time tracker has a fixed java interface, that you can use, to connect your own system. (Contact us, if you want to program an interface for the time tracker yourself.)
• Your third party software has to provide a possibility to get tasks / issues through the API and let us save bookings for defined users.
• Optional is a estimation of remaining time to complete (ETC) and finishing of tasks through the API.

Advantages of the Universal TimeTracker

• Increase the motivation of your employees to book their times in Jira. The current solutions over Jira, Greenhopper or other extensions simply do not suffice for employee satisfaction in our opinion. Our software was usability tested both from usability experts with a heuristic analysis and with user tests. We have invested over 2000 hours in programming it, too make it fast, efficient and effective. Time tracking really annoys people. But the software shouldn't!
• Create accurate and true time bookings instead of very rough estimates on actual workload consumption. If you book in Jira directly or over Greenhopper redundant and rough bookings are common. The burn down charts that you generate with such data are not worth while analyzing. You need accurate data and booking discipline for good burn down charts.
• Speed up the documentation process in Jira. With a fast loading web interface your employees can book as if they worked with a client software, but they only need a web browser to do it.
• Prevent redundant booking in different systems. Do you have to work for clients in different software (OTRS, Bugzilla, Clearspace, SAP, project management systems, ERP software, ...). Use this TimeTracker to unify all your bookings in one interface and transfer your bookings over an API into your systems.

Usage explained in screenshots

Do not get confused, that the templates, that I used are in German only. We will change that shortly and upon request at the latest. An English version is in preparation already. More language versions require your support and help, but are definitely possible and wanted.

Videos of the Universal TimeTracker

• Introduction video
  Basic introductory Screencast with all basic information and an explanation of the time booking interface for employees. View introduction video now!
• Screencast (Video) of an admin in the Timetracker, that checks time bookings of other employees
• A demonstration of time booking via Dashboards on Mac OS (Windows works with Yahoo Widgets the same way (Video).)
• Explanation of start and stop times in the TimeTracker to make sure, that full days are booked.

Installation

Full Size

This plugin cannot be downloaded and tested yet, as it is a standalone solution that connects to Jira and other systems just over their APIs. Please see our videos or call us for a free deskto sharing session for more information about how the Universal TimeTracker works and is deployed.

At the moment an installation of the Universal TimeTracker is not possible, without services of //SEIBERT/MEDIA. The total amount of time is especially depending on your needs and the systems you want to connect. If you want to run a "Jira standalone version", you should calculate with an amount of 1'500 Euro for the installation from our side.

This is how you can implement the Universal TimeTracker in your company

1. You read this page thoroughly and see our screenshots and videos.
2. You contact us at atlassian@seibert-media.net and tell us, that you are interested in the Universal TimeTracker. Please tell us, how many users shall work with the software.
3. If you want, we can have a desktop sharing session to show you the TimeTracker in detail and answer your questions.
4. If you are convinced, that you want the tool, we will talk to your IT-staff to make sure, the software is integrated correctly in your infrastructure. (Normally we ship a virtual machine using vmware or XEN-images with our web software, that your IT department can simply activate in your IT environment. It would be helpful for you and us, if we had a VPN tunnel to your implementation. But that is optional.)
5. If you need additional services, we well calculate these and send you an offer.
6. You place your order. We will charge 40% of all fees upon order. The rest is due, when the system works properly in your environment.

Contact us at atlassian@seibert-media.net to talk about your implementation or call us at +49 611 205700.

Individual services, support and programming interfaces

• Your licence of the Universal TimeTracker will include up to 5 hours of email support. An additional package of 5 remote hours over the phone (incl. desktop sharing sessions) will be 500.00 Euro. We only sell packages of 5 hours or based on time and materials.
• Individual programming or creation of a new interface can be done by yourself under our supervision or by our development team. If you want an interface to a big and well known system, we will be happy to share your invest. Let's talk about it.
• The basis of all interfaces, that we create is, that we can use them for other customers also.

Version History

History and background of the Universal TimeTracker

The Universal TimeTracker is, what //SEIBERT/MEDIA calls, a third generation Time Tracker. When the agency was founded in 1996 we created our own booking, reporting and billing engine with a time tracking frontend (first generation). Then we bought for ten thousands of Euros a mature project management suite called Projectile (see www.projectile.de) that we still use to its full extent. When we switched to Projectile we were absolutely happy with the integrated TimeTracker (second generation). These first and second generation time trackers are basically, what you find, when you search and evaluate other time trackers for Jira. Although the projectile timetracker was mature it had two major deficits: 1. It was too slow to feel like a client software and it was not a cool and fast ajax interface. 2. It could not book in Jira also. We need the project management software to track our times and bill. And we need Jira for agile development and project management. That's why we invested over 2000 hours in developing the new time tracker, that we call the "Universal TimeTracker", because it is a mature web software programmed in Java (Grails), has an easy to use interface (Ajax, Usability tested) and can book in literally every system with an API from one time tracking interface. This is what we call a third generation TimeTracker.

The future of the Universal TimeTracker

This is what we plan to put in the TimeTracker in the future:

• Capacity management for resource planning of agile development and normal project teams.
• More third party software systems to fulfill the dream: "Book your time in one place and transfer it to whatever software you want." (or better: That has an appropriate API.) :-)
• Tighter integration in Jira (Perform daily tasks in Jira or Greenhopper from the booking interface. But that will be kept on a low level. This will not become a second Greenhopper. Examples: Move Jira Tasks through workflow, Provide estimations of remaining time)
• Transfer time bookings to OTRS and Bugzilla (both are client systems, that our employees need to feed also).
• Time Booking over the iPhone or Google Android mobile systems to the TimeTracker and from there in Jira. (We are currently evaluating programming an iPhone app for the time tracker.)
• Booking over other web based applications (iGoogle, ...).
• Integration into Confluence (e.g. time bookings as status updates)

Stay informed an watch this page over > Tools > Watch in the upper right corner or comment and watch it! 

Do you have any questions or want to get email updates about the Universal TimeTracker? Drop us a note at atlassian@seibert-media.net.

Open Issues

We do not have a public project in the Jira development server yet. But as soon as this is available, you will see the open issues here.