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Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL

Added by Anna Labinskaya over 16 years ago

Hi all!

We are now considering moving from Trac, and Redmine looks really compelling.

2 features we couldn't fine in Redmine:

1 -- A button to start/stop counting time spent on a ticket. With Trac we are using WorkLog plugin (http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/WorkLogPlugin). We are also used to a similar functionality in XPlanner. Basically need a means to record start time before I start work on a ticket and then record end time when I'm done with it -- instead of manually logging the amount of hours post factum. This "2-phase" time logging helps saving efforts on memorizing the start time for each task :-)

2 -- Trac allows to create new reports writing arbitrary SQL. This way some specific helpful reports can be created. Looking at Redmine, I'm not quite sure now whether this is actually required as Redmine provides various views/reports out of the box. But just in case -- maybe there's someone else interested in custom SQL reports.

But the start time / end time would be really helpful for us. Could not find mentioning of something like this in issues/docs/etc. here. Recognize that it could be done with 2 custom fields but ideally would like to have end_time-start_time recorded into Hours field for a given date.


Replies (12)

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Thomas Lecavelier over 16 years ago

Interesting feature. The workflow I see for it should be:

  1. The timelog button is binded on the "log time" permission.
  2. When hit, the button has for effect to fill the "spend_on" column of the log entry, but not the "hours" one
  3. When hit again to stop, the button has for effet to compute the diff between the spend_on value and the current timestamp
  4. The button is hittable again, and the entry is updatable has usual. If a new button hit occur, it create a new timelog entry (and don't update the last one)

Does this sound good?

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Anna Labinskaya over 16 years ago

Thomas, thanks for the quick reply!
Yes, this would be what is needed.

Exactly, need to be able to create multiple timelog entries and probably also still be able to log time how it's currently implemented (entering date and hours).

BTW, I could not find how to edit or simply delete timelog entries. Deleting might be helpful especially with the timelog button. Say, if I started the counter today and forgot to stop it and then stopped it next day -- it would add up with non-working time. If I could just delete such log entry and manually log a correct smaller number of hrs, that would solve the problem.

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Eric Davis over 16 years ago

BTW, I could not find how to edit or simply delete timelog entries. Deleting might be helpful especially with the timelog button.

There are two icons for each timelog on the Timelog Details page (The demo user doesn't have permission but you can see the placeholder in the final column here ). You need to make sure the user has permission to edit the timelog entries, either:

  • Edit time entries
  • Edit own time entries

Eric

timelog.png (6.24 KB) timelog.png Example of edit and delete icons for timelogs

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Anna Labinskaya over 16 years ago

Ooops, sorry ...
Also just found how to edit/delete log entries.
Just I didn't have the permission when I looked previously.
Thanks!

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Anna Labinskaya over 16 years ago

Hi Thomas/Eric!

Artem Vasiliev has implemented the start/end time feature and submitted it as a patch: #1650

It's not a button to start/stop the counter -- instead we've got 2 fields to enter start and end time respectively. (We've discussed and agreed that the 2 fields should be fine to start with.)

When someone of Redmine developers has time to look into it, we'll appreciate if you could integrate the patch or tell us what you think.

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Paolo Sulprizio over 16 years ago

Hi Anna.
Consider the issue #772 which could resolve the problem in a more flexible way...
Anyway is interesting the possibility to have a new type custom field: the timestamp! And a specific button (the "Now" button) associate to it when it is editable.

It would be very interesting also to have a page (implemented as plugin) in which there are all the facilities to track time quickly.

What do you think about?

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Anna Labinskaya over 16 years ago

Hi Paolo!

Thanks for pointing to the #772, it should be helpful to be able to record/track additional data in time logs.

I'm not quite sure that with custom fields we could get the logged time periods ('end time' minus 'start time') recorded into hours spent on a ticket to show it in reports. Or how could it be done? (I might have missed.)

Can you clarify about timestamps?

For time tracking -- does #1671 look like a solution?

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Paolo Sulprizio over 16 years ago

Hi Anna!
I think that custom fields could be useful only to log start and end time of the log. It wouldn't resolve the duration problem... But I think that it should a reporting problem (duration = end - start). But think about improving the useful Eric Davis's Timesheets plugin adding the possibility to choose the columns, also with simple operation between them!

About timestamps... Difficult to say, but let's imagine... each type of field has its own edit control. For example a List type, when in edit mode (when you are updating an issue) is traduced in a combobox. A date is traduced in a calendar widget. And so on... The new feature could be a Timestamp type that is traduced in a widget composed by a textbox plus a "Now" button. But probably is simpler to permit to choose as default value for Timestamp type the "now" value.

#1671 is not for my needs. I would like a simple page to submit a timelog entry quickly from mobile or pc. It should permit to select from a combobox or an autocomplete textbox the issue among the open issues assigned to me (or better a specific custom query) and to set duration of timelog and if I need also the other custom timelog fields.

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Eric Davis over 16 years ago

Paolo Sulprizio said:

But think about improving the useful Eric Davis's Timesheets plugin adding the possibility to choose the columns, also with simple operation between them!

I'll gladly take any patches for my plugin. I'd like to try to merge a few of the plugin's features into the Redmine core soon, that way everyone can benefit from the filtering without having to know how to setup the plugin.

Eric

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Artem Vasiliev over 16 years ago

Hi all!

Btw if somebody interested in trying both #1650 and #1671 and some more we've set up our fork of Redmine at GitHub with all our changes:
http://github.com/artemv/redmine_tt/tree/master

Best regards,
Artem

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Martin Bosner about 16 years ago

Hi!

Are there any news on this ticket?

A simple start/stop button is still missing and really required :(

Martin

RE: Start/stop counter for time spent on a ticket and simple custom reports defined as SQL - Added by Thomas F. about 12 years ago

Hello,

there is a plugin, the Redmine Time Tracker [1][2], but unfortunately it is only available for Redmine up to version 1.3, i guess. I'm actually using version 2 with the new Rails version, which is 3, i guess.
Also, there are several forks of the redmine_time_tracker ([3][4] and several other), which all attempt solving the problem of a missing start-/stop-button for Redmine v2.x. But i got none of them work properly... Either the server (webrick) shutdown itself after doing a migrate on the new plugin or Redmine worked as expected, but the plugin did not appear anywhere.

For the moment, i'm using the standard method of logging time. But when i do have some time again, i will try and look a bit deeper to get this working. In the meantime: if anyone has experienced one of those time trackers to work in Redmine 2.x: please dump a message here and tell us what you did, as i also consider this a big, important feature (always can't remember when i started working...)

[1] http://www.redmine.org/plugins/redmine_time_tracker
[2] https://github.com/delaitre/redmine_time_tracker
[3] https://github.com/hicknhack-software/redmine_time_tracker
[4] https://github.com/maple/redmine_time_tracker

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