Time sheet

I have stated before that the core technology for 14Dayz online time tracking was developed to help lawyers comply with recent Dutch legislation for time tracking in bankruptcies. During development lawyers and their secretaries were closely involved in perfecting the system.

One of our biggest challenges in convincing lawyers and their secretaries was asserting that a web based application like 14Dayz can work as fast as a stand alone application installed on their computer. We realized that to satisfy these customers we not only had to prove logging hours can be made just as fast as a traditional system, or a spread sheet for that matter. We had to prove online time tracking could actually be a whole lot faster.

We’ve studied to our customers’ experiences and worked with them again and again to squeeze out every single burst of data entry speed, whilst keeping the user interface clean, easy and simple. And we were successful: Every secretary and lawyer that now uses this system is convinced logging hours online is just as fast as or faster than traditional time tracking in stand alone software.

Functionalities introduced at our clients request:
• Automatically save each time sheet entry when it is completed.
• Be able to log hours in whole hours and fractions (1.5) and in hours and minutes (1:30 or even :90).

How simple is it?
Select the team member you want to log the hours for. Your own name is always selected first. Select the date by using the calendar control. The current date is always selected.

You see the time sheet for this team member for this particular date. Select the project, category or sub category you want to log these hours on, enter a short description and enter the time. Now enter the next line, you can see the line you entered being saved in the background.

What makes it different?
First of all the 14Dayz time sheet is closer to a real-world paper time sheet than it is to a web form. Like its paper predecessor once you’ve written something down, it stays written down. No need to re-enter forms again ever. If it’s okay, it’s saved. If not, you’ll know right away. Stop loosing data and valuable time.
All of the application has minimized the number of screens. There are no pop-ups anywhere and nothing opens in a new window. For logging hours all you really need is the time sheet screen.

Research tools like systems thinking and mind maps have helped to discover the best way to present the time sheet in the user interface that is instantly recognizable and intuitive to grasp.

Suggestions:
• For achieving secretary like hour logging speed, learn how to navigate the time sheet by using the keyboard;
• Select the first project select box with the mouse. Choose the project by pressing the first letter of the project name on the keyboard. Of you have multiple projects with the same name, press the first letter multiple times, or use the up and down arrow keys to navigate through the projects.
• Use the [TAB] key to move to the next field.
• Choose categories in the same way as projects and [TAB]. Enter a short description, [TAB], enter hours and press [TAB] again to save the line and continue in the project select box of the next line.
• If you run out of lines, the system will automatically add empty lines for you, without reloading the page. And your data entry is saved as soon as you complete a line.

Short cuts, how to enter time:
This works!
• :5 - 5 minutes
• :15 - 15 minutes
• :30 - 30 minutes
• :60 - 1 hour
• :90 - one and a half hour
This works too!
• 0.1 - 6 minutes
• 0.25 - 15 minutes
• 0.5 - 30 minutes
• 1 - 1 hour
• 1.5 - one and a half hour

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