Time Management

Thanks much for your kind words! I'm really glad you're finding my thoughts helpful. :-)

I feel a little apologetic at the moment because I have written a LOT below about all this stuff; I really hope it is not overwhelming or otherwise unpleasant. I happen to have had some free time in the past several days to give to thinking about all this, and I anticipate having less time as this winter progresses, so I'm kind of in a think-about-this-while-I-can mode. I hope that you'll find all of the below helpful and not take any of it as demands, expectations, etc. These are all simply my thoughts, recommendations and preferences. :-) Additionally, I occasionally will write things that I then change my mind about in the next paragraph. I typically leave my original thoughts because I think they often have valuable info in them, even just as an alternative perspective from where I end up on an issue. So if you find yourself wondering where I'm going at times, keep reading because it hopefully will become more clear. Having said all that, let's dive in!

I have written a ton, and since I have been trying to organize my thoughts as I went by grouping them into categories, I'm going to just make several posts which will hopefully make it a little easier to follow, but also easier to post replies to sections of content. :-)

I'm writing this paragraph after having written everything below, but thought it might be more helpful to put at the beginning. Though I'm probably not always as consistent in my terms as I might like to be, the following are what I'm trying to refer to when I use various terms below:
-Add Time: This refers to the current system of Adding Time, as well as to that same system with some improvements (such as having more accessible Add Time links with associated Objects (eg, Tasks), like I discussed in my earlier post. I sometimes also refer to this as Recording Time Activity, or as Record Time, because it can (but does not have to) involve connecting Time Activity (defined below) with an Add Time record. Depending on how everything ends up working we may be able to just stay with Add Time, or we might switch to Add/Record Time.

-Object: This refers to anything in PP that we can attach Comments, or eventually, Time to; eg, Projects, Messages, Task Lists, Tasks, Tickets.

-Time Activity: This refers to the function of logging time spent doing something that is attached to an Object in PP; it is meant to be distinguished from Add Time. I see Add Time as ultimately having to do with Adding Time for billing purposes, whereas I see Time Activity as being more for the user to help them keep track of how they are using their time and thus to aid them when it comes time to convert the time they have worked (ie, their Time Activity) to billable time (ie, Add Time). Note: Having read over all of this one last time it occurs to me that we may ultimately want to use terms like Start Timer / Stop Timer; this relates to the analogy I make later about Time Activity logging basically functioning as a stopwatch with a memory; Start/Stop Timer (and similar terms) may help disambiguate this functionality from Add Time. For all of the below I use Time Activity (because I don't feel like retyping it at this point).

-Open Time Activity: This refers to Time Activity where the timer has been started, but the user has not Stopped the timer and thus the Activity is still Open.

-Closed (but Unrecorded) Time Activity: This refers to Time Activity that is completed, meaning the user has Stopped the timer. However, the user has not yet Recorded this Time Activity by connecting it to an Add Time record. In the future it might be simpler to just call this Unrecorded Time Activity.

-Closed (and Recorded) Time Activity: This refers to Time Activity that is completed, AND it has been assigned to an Add Time instance and thus will no longer be available to be added to another Add Time instance. In the future it might be simpler to just call this Recorded Time Activity.

-Global setting: This refers to a setting that when changed will apply to all users; this would be akin to enabling or disabling a plugin.

-User-Global setting: This refers to a setting that only applies to (and is stored for) the currently logged in user, but will apply across multiple views in PP for that user (eg, if there were a User-Global setting that changed how Comments functioned for the user, then all Comments would be changed for that user, not just on a particular screen, such as Tasks).

-User-Global view: This refers to a view where the user is able to see all of a certain kind of data, spanning across all Projects; this is basically what views like My Tasks are.

Ultimately there may be much better terms to use for things than the above. I just had to come up with something so that I could communicate what I'm talking about. :-)

In terms of layout positioning, I think that having Open Time Activity listings near the top, below the Task details, but above Comments would be good. This makes it quick and easy to get to your Open Time Activity listing and Stop it (or Edit it if need be). We might even want to apply special styling to this item so as to better make it stand out and enhance the easy-to-spot-and-click aspect of it. Open Time Activity listings for other users should always be shown below the Open Time Activity listing for the logged in user; additionally (and obviously), the Open Time Activity for other users should NOT be editable by anyone other than them (we may need/want to provide some kind of Admin power/permission to edit these, or a special Admin view among the other Admin configuration pages, for making changes to these records in the instances that it is actually needed; I don't think there should be very many occasions where someone else would need to be able to edit another user's Time Activity, but there may be significant scenarios that I am not thinking of). The user's own Time Activity listings should be editable by them (unless the Time Activity has already been assigned to an Add Time record, as described more below, in which case it should no longer be editable, except for maybe the Note field??); I'm thinking that both StartTime and StopTime should be editable, as well as the Note field. The main reason for making editable Start and Stop times is that sometimes people will forget to Start or Stop when they intended to and so being able to make changes will make it more useful (otherwise folks will just revert to entering time in large chunks via Add Time and not track it in more detail the way the functionality we're talking about adding will enable them to do).

[Note: The next several paragraphs contain content that I changed my mind about later.]
I would envision the Closed Time Activity listings (ie, these are a complete Start/Stop pair, but that has not been Recorded yet) for a given object to be listed somewhere below the Open ones (and again, only the Time Activity listings created by the logged in user should be editable by them). I'm not certain yet myself whether I would prefer that the Closed (but Unrecorded) Time Activity listings to be above or below the Comments section for a given object. I could imagine myself and others wanting either/both, so it might be worthwhile to just plan from the beginning to make a global Admin option to switch between showing Closed (but Unrecorded) Time Activity "Above Comments" or "Below Comments".

It also would probably be good to add a line just below the object details (Task, Ticket, etc.) with in-page links to the Comments section, the Closed (but not Recorded) Time Activity section, and the Closed (and Recorded) Time Activity section. It makes the most sense to me that the Closed (and Recorded) Time Activity section can be at the bottom of the page, because it is the least necessary to see. In fact, that section would be a good candidate for some kind of JS powered accordion functionality (eg, http://jqueryui.com/demos/accordion/) with this section defaulting to closed. It is nice to have access to the info when one wants it, but after the Time Activity as been Recorded to one or more Add Time records, it is less likely the user will be referring to it very often (and in many cases probably not at all).

Thinking a little further about the possible accordion functionality, it could make sense to have all 3 sections be accordion powered. We would need to make sure that when a user has clicked on a link that takes them to a particular Comment that the accordion functionality does not interfere with that (ie, ideally the page would load, the Comments accordion would open, and the page would jump to the appropriate Comment like normal). Additionally, we could make use of the JQuery Sortable functionality to make the sections rearrangable via drag and drop. I would envision this arrangement being a User-Global setting, meaning that the ordering is stored for the logged in user, and it applies to all views that have these same elements (eg, views that have the ability to add Comments and Start/Stop Time Activity Logging). Adding accordion functionality to all 3 sections probably warrants further thought though. My intention is to help keep the page from getting too cluttered, especially with the data to do with Closed (and Recorded) Time Activity listings (of which there could end up being quite a list of in some cases). But I don't want to in any way decrease functionality or availability of important options/data, such as adding/viewing Comments, Start/Stop Time Activity, etc.
[Note: This ends section that I changed my mind about.]

I realized as I was reviewing this one last time that we really don't need to bother with the above 3 paragraphs (I'm leaving them in case there is something useful in there). The My Time functionality (which is discussed later) in conjunction with enhancements to the Time tab page and the Add Time page should address everything adequately. In the above paragraphs I was struggling with how best to handle having all of that info on Object detail pages, and now I'm realizing that it doesn't need to be there at all. All that needs to be on Object (eg, Task) detail pages is any Open Time Activity (with the logged in user's being at the top of the list, and editable).

[Note: The following may be less pertinent now, but it still might be something we want to consider at some point.] A final (for the moment) thought regarding layout considerations: if it would be helpful I could make a rough mockup in Dabbleboard that you could then edit and comment on. If we do that I'd probably want to PM you the link so as to avoid any mischievous persons from doing any editing of their own. :-)

An important element of making the Start/Stop functionality useful is having a way for the user to be visually reminded (but not obnoxiously so) that they have Open Time Activity being logged. This helps prevent the user from logging Time Activity for multiple things at the same time (which we may want to technically allow in case there are instances where someone wants to use PP that way, but which is not how we would expect people to use it), and it also encourages them to stay on task and to Stop the Time Activity being logged if they are switching to something else.

So to these ends I would suggest that in the right sidenav, above all other items there be a list of all Time Activity Being Logged (which would only be for the logged in user) which would list the object names (eg, name of the Task, Ticket, Project, Message, etc.) of any Time Activity being logged; in theory this would usually just be 1 item, but it is possible that some users would have a wish/need to be logging multiple items at the same time. Each item in this list would be a link to the detail page of the object listed where the user would have originally Started their Time Activity being logged, and where they could now easily Stop their Time Activity being logged. Another consideration with this list is whether to have it display the amount of time logged thus far next to each item (in parenthesis perhaps). I personally would lean more towards this being a static number that just updates each time the page is loaded versus a live javascript clock that ticks away the seconds; if we did do a JS clock, I (and my wife) would prefer it to not display the seconds and not to have any blinking animation--we both find that kind of thing distracting. That all goes for any JS timer/clock used on any page; something that changes every minute is fine, but something that is constantly changing (eg, every second) is annoying (to us, at least).

It would also be really useful to have a My Time tab on the main dashboard screen (alongside of My Projects, My Tasks, etc.). I'm thinking that this would basically be a User-Global view (meaning, it is only data pertaining to the logged in user, but it spans all Projects) of the Open Time Activity, Closed (but not Recorded) Time Activity, and Closed (and Recorded) Time Activity information, just like what is viewable and editable in the detail view of a given object (Task, Ticket, etc.), only the listings probably won't be editable on the My Time screen, but rather this would be a list of the items with links to the detail pages where you can perform the appropriate actions (this would be similar to the My Tasks page). Within each of the 3 sections (Open, Closed and Closed-Recorded) Time Activity listings would need to be grouped by the particular objects they are attached to (eg, Projects, Task Lists, Tasks, Tickets, Messages, etc.). Probably the only actions to be performed via these lists is for there to be links to the detail page for each listed object, because that is where one would perform further actions (eg, Stop Logging Time Activity, Record Time Activity to an Add Time record, etc.), if one so desires. This view is also very useful for enabling one to see what they have done for the day across all projects, in addition to Closing any Open timers, and Recording any Unrecorded Time Activity to Add Time records.

It would probably be helpful if there were controls on this page (My Time) to show all Time Activity listings for this user for various time periods (the units could probably be days, and we could have it default to 1 day, which would basically be today's time, but they could make it 2 days, 3 days or longer if they wanted to); we might also want to add pagination to this, so that changing the default number from 1 to 3 would change how many days worth show on the page at once, but there probably needs to be a way to go back to look at older records without having to display everything that came before them on the same page (which at some point could be taxing for a server). So maybe we make 7 days the max to shown on one page at a time (and for those who have more powerful servers, or very little data and want a higher number there could be an Admin global setting to allow a higher number or something), and the user can page through 7 days/page at a time to get to older records if need be (which I don't imagine people would need to do very often). We could consider making it a User specific setting to be able to set the default # of days shown (but the max would still be limited by the Admin settings).

A side note on this: In the long run I'm not sure that the Time Activity records would actually need to be kept forever since they ultimately are translated into Add Time data, which is what billing is done off of, etc. So we eventually might want to build in a function to purge old (and Closed AND Recorded) Time Activity records via the Admin section. The command could default to Purge records older than 13 months, which would be sure to leave a full year of data in case it was needed, but there could be a field to change the number to whatever # months the Admin user wanted. It occurs to me that some users might choose to use the Time Activity functionality without using the Add Time functionality (and thus their Time Activity would never be Recorded), so it'd probably be good to have the option in the Admin section to Purge even Time Activity records that are NOT Recorded.

As I've indicated above, I still think it would be handy to have Add Time links interspersed with the various objects (Projects, Tasks, Task Lists, Tickets, Messages, etc.) which would either just take the user to the Add Time form with Name and "Task" prefilled as I talked about in my earlier post, or if they have Unrecorded Time Activity (for the Object for which they clicked on an Add Time link) then when they arrive at the Add Time page they would have their associated Unrecorded Time Activity listings visible like described previously, and the Object/Task that the Add Time entry was defaulted to would not be changeable (since if they could change it at this point that would make things wonky in that there would be no Object to associate the Time Activity with, which would not be good). Oh wait, now that I write that I'm remembering that in the Add Time screen if nothing is selected then the Time is just associated with the project, so maybe it will be fine to let folks change that. I'm going to leave my prior sentences since it seems like something worth reflecting on.

A small visual change which will accompany backend changes is on the Add Time form where it currently has a drop down box of "Open tasks" we would want to change that to something else (perhaps "Project Activity"?) and the drop down would of course allow selection of more objects (eg, adding Tickets and Messages, and anything else that Time Activity can be attached to).