User Guide & Screen Shots of Time Sheet Logger

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Introduction
This user guide provides instruction on how to get the most out of your new software. It explains how to use the various features of the software and describes the purpose of all the button and options.
The install/uninstall instructions are included in the readme.txt file included in the installation package.

Overview
After installation of Time Logger, the first thing to do is to configure your projects and tasks. Open the activity manager and add the tasks that you want to log time for. A few example activity definitions have been pre-set to give you an brief idea of the type of activities you can track using Time Logger. You can delete any or all of these activities and define activities specific to your needs. See theManage activities section for a detailed guide on creating or editing activities.

Once your activities are set up, you can Start logging time on your current task. You can switch a task at any time and the more often you do it, the more accurate your time logging will be. You should always switch tasks at the beginning of the activity. When you log out or turn off your computer Time Logger remembers the last task you were doing for when you next log in. Time Logger Start s counting time for that task as soon as you login.

When the day for handing in timesheets arrives you cangenerate your timesheet for the current week or any previous week from the Time Logger control panel. The time sheet options are described in the Generate timesheet and Configure Time Logger sections. You can generate a time sheet at any time. As well as normal timesheet generation, I found the timesheet window useful on Friday mornings to figure out how many hours I had done so far that week and hence how many more I had to do before I could Start the weekend.

We all make mistakes (Don't we?) and so there is always a need to undo or adjust a logging action. This is achieved via the log editing window. TheEdit log section describes in detail how to edit your activity log.

The Time Logger control panel window is the gateway to managing your activities, generating timesheets, editing the log file and also selecting some options. TheConfigure Time Logger section describes in detail how to use this window.

If you have trialed Time Logger and you think it will be useful for you I would sincerely appreciate your license purchase. With your purchase you will have access to email support and I will endeavor to solve any problem that you may have and even hope for some suggestions for improvement. The Register section gives details on how to obtain a registered version of software.

Manage activities
You access the activity manager via the Time Logger control panel. To open the Time Logger control panel, select Start then Programs then Time Logger 1.2 then Time Logger or right click the clock icon in the system notification tray and select Open. Then click the

button.

The activity manager window:

In this window you can add a new activity, delete an activity and modify the timesheet options for an existing activity.

Add a new activity.
Select the

button and then enter a text description in the Project text box and the Activity text box. The text entered can be any freeform text including spaces and upper and lower case characters.
If you want this new activity to appear as a row in the timesheet, then ensure theShow in report option is checked.
If you want Time Logger to subtract the minutes logged for this task from the timesheet totals then ensure the Bookable option is unchecked. For each new task, Time Logger checks both the Show in report and Bookable: options by default.
Once you are happy with the new activity click the

button. Once you click this button Time Logger will append the new activity to the end of the activities list.
You can abort the definition of the new activity by clicking the

button.

Delete an activity.
To delete an activity from the activities list, click the activity to be deleted using the left mouse button. Time Logger will highlight the selected row in the table. You can use the arrow keys to move the row selector up or down.
To delete the activity, click the

button. Remember, you can undo your changes by clicking the window close icon or the

button at the bottom right of the window.
Once deleted, Time Logger will remove the selected activity from the activities list and select the next activity automatically. If you want to delete all activities then select the first activity and continue clicking

until the activities list is empty.
Note: If you delete an activity, you cannot book any more time to this activity but the timesheet reports will still show any hours booked for the activity.

Modify an activity.
You can modify the Show in report and Bookable for any activity. You cannot modify the Project or Activity fields.
To modify an activity, click the activity to be modified using the left mouse button. Time Logger will highlight the selected row in the table. You can use the arrow keys to move the row selector up or down.
Click the

button and check or uncheck the Show in report and Bookable options. Once you are satisfied with the modifications, click the

button and Time Logger will update the modifications in the activities list. You can abort the definition of the new activity without closing the window by clicking the

button adjacent to the

button.
You can ignore any changes you have made by clicking the window close icon or the

button at the bottom right of the window.
Save your changes.
You can perform any number of add, modify or delete operations in the activities manager without saving any changes.
To save your changes click the

button at the bottom of the window.
To undo all modifications to the activities list, click the window close icon or the

button at the bottom right of the window.

Switch current task
Open the task switch window from the keyboard by select the Alt key combination currently defined in the Time Logger control panel. By default this is set to Alt-1. Time Logger will highlight the activity currently being logged. Also, you can quickly determine the current activity at any time by hovering the mouse over the Time Logger icon in the system notification tray. Time Logger displays the activity field of the current activity and the number of minutes spent so far in that activity.

The task switch window:

You should always try to switch tasks at the moment of Starting the new task in order to get the most accurate results in the timesheets. However, if you forget to switch at the Start of the task you can still keep accurate records by using the Interrupt activity option. If you are a bit forgetful and keep missing the opportunity to switch tasks then try enabling the Auto prompt feature from the Time Logger control panel. This feature auto displays the task switch window at set intervals so you can select your current activity.

If you want to switch to a task that is not in the list, you can Start the activity manager from this window by clicking the

button. See the Manages activities section for details on adding new activities.

Switching activity before commencing the new activity.
Select the new activity by left clicking the row or using the mouse wheel or keyboard arrow keys.
Click the

button. Time logger will close the window and Start counting time for the selected activity.
Recording an interrupt activity.
If you are interrupted in your priority activity by a phone call or other higher priority task and you didn't record the task switch then you can record this interrupt activity by selecting the activity from the list and checking the Interrupt activity option. Set the duration of the interrupt activity and then click the

button. Time Logger will log this activity without changing your current activity.

Switching activity after commencing the new activity.
You can also use the interrupt activity option described above to "back-clock" if you didn't switch activities at the Start of your new task.
Select your current task and set the duration as above. Click OK and then re-open the task switch window and change the current task.
If you have totally forgotten to record an activity and have switched to another task then use the Edit log window to adjust the log.

Generate timesheet
You access the timesheet report via the Time Logger control panel. To open the Time Logger control panel, select Start then Programs then Time Logger 1.2 then Time Logger or right click the clock icon in the system notification tray and select Open. Then click the

button.

Timesheet report window:

Time Logger generates a timesheet report using the Week number selected in the Time Logger control panel. The timesheet is represented as a table showing the days of the week along the top and then below a list of all the activities recorded for that week with a cross reference of the accumulated time for each task. The time values represent hours and fractions of hours.

Many people or many companies have their own timesheet format and reporting mechanism. Instead of forcing a specific format on you or providing a direct link to the zillion different tools used for timesheet management, Time Logger provides a generic facility to export the timesheet data to the tool of your choice, or the tool mandated by your employer. Time Logger provides the facility to copy the timesheet data to the clipboard which can then be "pasted" to a spreadsheet, document or other tool for formatting and submission.

Exporting timesheet data.
To copy the timesheet data to the clipboard, first highlight the data you wish to copy by left-dragging the mouse over the required table elements or by left clicking and using the Shift button and arrows keys to highlight the required data. To select all the data, the right-click anywhere within the table and select Select All.
Select the delimiter (Commas, Tabs or Spaces) to insert between the timesheet data items.
To copy the data to the clipboard, right-click anywhere within the table and selectCopy to Clipboard.
Then open your destination tool and paste in the clipboard data. In most applications, this is achieved by selecting the Paste option from the application Edit menu or by using the ctrl-v keyboard shortcut.
Note: Ensure the required delimiter is selected and the required timesheet data items are highlighted in the table before copying to the clipboard.

Configure Time Logger
To access Time Logger features or to configure options open the Time Logger control panel. To open the Time Logger control panel, select Start then Programs then Time Logger 1.2 then Time Logger or right click the clock icon in the system notification tray and select Open.

Time Logger control panel:

Click the

button to open the Time Logger activity manager. See the Manage activities section for a description of how to add, modify or delete activities.
Click the

button open the registration window and unlock the trial version. If this button is visible then the version you are running is unregistered. See the Register section for details on how to obtain the registered version.
The Switch Tasks drop-down list allows you to select the keyboard shortcut used to open the task switch window. By default this is set to Alt-1 but if you find this shortcut interferes with another application you use, select a different shortcut here. You may need to experiment to find an unused shortcut. The new shortcut is effective as soon as you make a selection.
Check the Enable Auto prompt option to enable the automatic pop-up of the task switch window at set intervals. Select the interval that best suits the frequency of your task switches. When this option is enabled and you are not at your computer to select a task then the window will disappear automatically after twenty seconds without switching your current task.
Click the

button to open the timesheet report window and view the hours against activities for a specific week. See the Generate Timesheet section for more information on the timesheet window. The week number shown by default is that for the current week according to the ISO week numbering standard. To generate a report for a previous week, select the week number using the spin control.
Click the

button to open the log editor window and make adjustments to activity events recorded by Time Logger. See the Edit Log section for details on how to perform activity log modifications.
Click the

button to save your configuration changes and hide the control panel window.
Click the

button or the close window icon to ignore any configuration changes made.
The

and

buttons do not have any affect on the changes made in the activity manager, timesheet or edit log windows.

Edit log
You access the activity log editor via the Time Logger control panel. To open the Time Logger control panel, select Start then Programs then Time Logger 1.2 then Time Logger or right click the clock icon in the system notification tray and select Open. Then click the

button.

The activity log editor:

This window shows all logged activity events filtered for any day for which you have logged data. You can select which day to display and then delete or edit the individual events for that day.
Select a date.
The date filter is controlled by the date selector drop-down box at the lower left of the window.
To advance one day, click the

button. To show the previous day, click the

button. To select a specific date, click the drop-down button to show a calendar date selector. This shows a standard date selector control that allows you to navigate by month or day of the month. Time Logger updates the event list above the date selector automatically when a new date is selected.
Delete an event.
To delete an event, select an event from the event list and right click the mouse to show the edit context menu. Select the delete option and Time Logger will mark this event for removal from the log. The event is only actually removed from the log when the

button is clicked.
Edit an event.
Select an event in the activities list and right-click the mouse to show the edit context menu. Select Edit from this menu to open the event edit window.

Edit event window:

In this window you can change the event type, project name, task name, date and duration of the recorded event. Use the drop down lists to change the fields of the event.
* The Event field should never require changing and is a placeholder for future Time Logger functionality. If you change this field, currently this will have no effect on existing functionality.
* The project and task pick lists show the project names and task names defined in the activity manager only. You cannot enter new project or task names here. To assign a new project name or task name here, you need to define a new activity with those names in the activity manager. See the Manage activities section for more details.
* You can move the event to any date by using the Date date-selector.
* Use the Duration spin-control to adjust the duration of the recorded activity. The up-down buttons increment or decrement in 15 minute intervals.
To update the activity list in the log editor click the

button. To ignore any changes click the

button. Clicking the

buttons closes the event editor window.

Exit Time Logger
If for any reason you wish to exit Time Logger, the right click the Time Logger icon in the system notification tray and select the Exit option.
You can reStart Time Logger manually via the Start menu, or windows explorer or the run command.
During installation, a shortcut was placed in the Start up folder of the Start menu so that each time you log in, Time Logger will Start automatically and record the log in event.

Other Topics
Managing log files.
Version 1.2 of Time Logger does not include any management of log file other than the functionality described in the Edit log section. Future versions of Time Logger will include further functionality to block remove old log entries. The estimated worst case size of the log file for a whole years worth of log entries is around 250K bytes which is less than an average eight page MS Word document. However, if you wish to archive your log file, then copy the file;
..\ My Documents\Cassiel\Time Logger 1.2\logfile.csv to anywhere you like.
To reset the lofgile then simply exit Time Logger and delete the log file. Time Logger will automatically create a new empty log file the next time Time Logger Start s.

Exporting the log file.
The log file generated by Time Logger is in CSV format so it can be loaded automatically into a spreadsheet simply by double clicking it. All data is ASCII text and can therefore also be viewed in any text editor.
The first four fields contain the event type, user name, project name and task name for each logged activity.
The next two fields specify the date of the event. In order to decode these fields, see the win32 API documentation for the FILETIME structure where the first of the two fields is a hexadecimal representation of the least significant 32 bits of the time and the second field is the most significant 32-bits also in hexadecimal.
The last field is a hexadecimal representation of the activity duration in minutes.
With this information, you could use Time Logger to collect your time sheet information and use other tools to process it, analyze it or whatever takes your fancy.

Getting the most out of Time Logger.
For many computer programs that manage records, the system is only as good as the data it manages. This is true for Time Logger also and so to get the best out of the program, I have provided a few pointers;

* Time Logger remembers the last task you were working on when you log out or shut down the computer and Start s counting time for the same task when you next log in. This means that, to get the most accurate timesheets, you should login as soon as possible at the Start of the day and log out or shutdown at the end of each day.

* If you require lots of detail on your time sheets, you need to use the task selector regularly every time you Start a new task. The task selector hot-key makes this very convenient. If, like me, you are a nightmare at remembering to record the Start of a task, try out the auto prompt feature. This feature gets Time Logger to ask you what you are doing at regular intervals. However, you get used to the idea of switching tasks very quickly.

* Suppose you get interrupted in your current task by a phone call or an urgent job pops up and you have to switch what you are doing for a while. When you get back to the task at hand, you realize that the interrupt should really be recorded for the timesheet and in the rush to be helpful, you forgot to switch tasks. In this case use the Interrupt Activity feature on the task selector to record what you were doing. If you are not sure what you have recorded, use the activity log editor to view and/or revise your records.

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User Guide & Screen Shots of Time Sheet Logger

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Try out:Analyzer XL |Downloader XL |Smart VBA |Trader XL Pro (best value) |ConsoXL | MergeXL | O2OLAP for Excel | MORE>>