Time log

[Tiger]

It's low tech I admit but has anyone here heard of these products: pencil and paper?

 

brought it up as early as the 5th post ReMark, no takers :wink:

 

But like I said, if it works for you then all is good. It's an interesting discussion though, and yes, a time-log system like yours Patrick would probably be very useful for me, to keep track of what I do everyday and can debit my clients accordingly. But I know myself, I would not have the disciplin to keep up with it and keep it current and such. Luckily my clients are not the kind that monitor every hour I work.

[Patrick Hughes]

But I know myself, I would not have the disciplin to keep up with it and keep it current and such. Luckily my clients are not the kind that monitor every hour I work.

 

It's funny how things are viewed differently by different folks. Or perhaps my view is heavily skewed. The discipline aspect of keeping track of things was a huge motivator in my developing the program. Essentially with this I no longer need to discipline myself in keeping track of my time.

 

If a notepad works for you I would say go for it, but I might mention that at the end of the day, or week/month or whenever, CadTempo will easily export reports to an Excel spreadsheet.

[Glen Smith]

That was also my motivation in writing JobTimer, I spent an inordinate amount of time writing down start and stop times for each task. As the only CAD guy in our office, when any of the Engineers have CAD questions they come to me and ask. So I may have 4 or 5 different jobs in any given day. The time may be spent at my station or in someone elses office. At the end of the week, I had to spend a fair amount of time doing minutes to decimal conversion and math to correctly attribute the time and get it in the right format for the time card.

 

Jobtimer reduces all that to remembering to click a different radio button when I change tasks. The application is even written so that it changes the name on the Task Manager bar to the name that you enter for the task, so you can check what task you are logging to as simply as looking at the task bar.

 

I like Patricks CADtempo program description, but it would miss any time that I spend on a project not on my own machine. Or (at least from my quick reading of the description) in any other application besides AutoCAD.

 

Glen

[ReMark]

That's a lot of time keeping which in itself then should be a task separate from that which is spent on the project right? Then you would have to account for time in project related meetings, time spent with a coworker discussing problems/solutions, field time, design time, CAD time, time on the phone with the client, time writing/sending emails, sending files, etc. Makes my head spin.

 

And what if you forget to click that radio button and don't tell me you have never forgotten.

 

When you fill out your time sheet is it in hours, minutes and seconds?

[Patrick Hughes]

I like Patricks CADtempo program description, but it would miss any time that I spend on a project not on my own machine. Or (at least from my quick reading of the description) in any other application besides AutoCAD.

Glen

 

Hi Glen,

 

I'm not 100% sure if CadTempo would catch the time you spent on another workstation. If you were to open a drawing on a different computer but you were logged in as with your username it would (or should) catch your time. The program looks at the user name and the drawing name you work on.

 

You can configure the program to work with other programs and file types as well, xls, pdf, doc, dwf, etc...

 

I hope I haven't offended any one in explaining the program here. I try not to spam but the original posters question seemed to be a good fit.

[Glen Smith]

And what if you forget to click that radio button and don't tell me you have never forgotten.

 

Same thing as if you forgot to write down the start time or end time - you guesstimate. I have in the past added notes in the name field - "only 15 mins rest job 2". Which at the end of the week helps me fix the totals.

 

When you fill out your time sheet is it in hours, minutes and seconds?

 

Funny story that - the first week I submitted a time card having used my program I just took the output, (to the hundredth of an hour) and put it in the excel time card. My supervisor came back laughing and had me round it to the 1/4 hour.

 

As for CADTempo catching my time at other locations it would not work. The help I am giving is over the shoulder, talking people through how to do certain things with CAD. "How do I use that quick select thing again?" "I want to replace this block with that block, can that be automatic?" and so on. So I would not log into the other workstations.

 

I've got most people in the office trained now, "let me toggle my timer" is a frequent refrain, and a couple folks are starting to tell me the job name or number before they ask the question.

 

I ain't saying it's perfect, or that it will work for everybody - or even anybody else - but it works better than my previous systems.

 

Glen

[ReMark]

"Let me toggle my WHAT?" LOL

 

Back in my "billable hours" days we were told to be 38 out of 40 hours to a project or job number. We could round-off to the nearest quarter hour. I kept a log book that I wrote everyhting down in. Some engineers did their time sheets from "memory". Yeah, right. Where I work now we produce mostly for in-house use. The managers aren't as stringent with their requirements although we must still bill to a project number, if there is one, or to a general "engineering-catch-all" number otherwise. Isn't it amazing when someone "works" a 40 hour week and "bills" all 40 hours? I guess they did not have a cup of coffee or take a "potty" break. Dedicated souls they are!

[woodman78]

LeeMac, I tried to run your timreact lisp but gor errors in doing so. Do I place the lisp in my support path and add it to the acaddoc.lsp???? I get an error on running it. I want to edit it to save to one file for all users saved on a networked location.

[Tiger]

Isn't it amazing when someone "works" a 40 hour week and "bills" all 40 hours? I guess they did not have a cup of coffee or take a "potty" break. Dedicated souls they are!

 

That is what I do. I have to do it. No seriously, if I don't report all my 40 hours a week as billable, my boss will go into my reports and move the numbers around till the are all on projects. Makes me really respect my boss.

[Lee Mac]

LeeMac, I tried to run your timreact lisp but gor errors in doing so. Do I place the lisp in my support path and add it to the acaddoc.lsp???? I get an error on running it. I want to edit it to save to one file for all users saved on a networked location.

 

Hi Woodman,

 

I think I need to improve it a little - will be back with better code

[woodman78]

LeeMac, Was just wondering if you had a chance to look at this. Thanks.

[alanjt]

Content removed.

[The Buzzard]

I want to preface this with the fact that I'm fully aware of how ugly this code is. This was one of my first Lisp routines (at the time, I really could only write macros) and my very first reactor. Once in a while, I'll think about rewriting it, but I have much more important things to worry about, it works just as I need it to and I don't really care. I'm beyond embarrassed to post this, but I don't care to rewrite it and I want to help.

 

A separate .xls file is created for each day. Every time a drawing is opened and closed, it will write a line to the .xls file stating:

Opened/Closed, Date, Time, File path and name, duration of time open (if closed)

 

This will not account for unused time. I considered worrying with reactors for that, but it just really wasn't a big concern. This started as a way to just have a list of what jobs I worked on each day. I just added a little extra to it.

 

Everything is saved to c:\\CADLOG

 

The easiest way to use the data at the end of the day (for timesheets) is to open the file in Excel and sort by columns D, C, B.

 

It's not a perfect system/solution, but I've been using it since March of last year posting time has never been easier.

 

 

Screenshots...

[ATTACH]17595[/ATTACH][ATTACH]17596[/ATTACH]

 

 

Alan,

 

I just loaded it thru my acaddoc.lsp so it will load with each drawing opened. Works great and cannot get much simpler than this.

 

Thanks

[alanjt]

Alan,

 

I just loaded it thru my acaddoc.lsp so it will load with each drawing opened. Works great and cannot get much simpler than this.

 

Thanks

 

It's pretty simple and not very smart, but it saves me from having to worry about keeping up with everything on a sheet of paper. Glad you like it.

[Lee Mac]

Nice one Alan

[alanjt]

Nice one Alan

 

Thanks.

I really should clean it up, but there's just so many other, more important things to worry about.

[Lee Mac]

Alan,

 

I hope you don't mind, I thought I'd have a go at tweaking your LISP...

[alanjt]

Alan,

 

I hope you don't mind, I thought I'd have a go at tweaking your LISP...

Right on.

Basically the same thing. Looks nice.

[Lee Mac]

Right on.

Basically the same thing. Looks nice.

 

Cheers mate - I thought it'd be better to have a directory that the user can change (so I stored it in the registry, instead of hard-coding it), and I also made use of menucmd for date/time conversion.

[alanjt]

Cheers mate - I thought it'd be better to have a directory that the user can change (so I stored it in the registry, instead of hard-coding it), and I also made use of menucmd for date/time conversion.

 

I saw no use for giving the user an additional command to allow them to change the directory/ set in the registry. Yours still defaults to the defined directory. From yours, you are giving the possibility for creating multiple directories on one's computer. Menucmd is a nice way to do conversion, but virtually the same thing.