Visual editing of Tracked Time Topic is solved

[tomatoma]

I'm looking for:

1. a visual way to view/edit/add the Tracked Time with TDL. This would be the purpose of a new tab wich I called "Visual Tracker"
2. the possibility to add Tracked time (activity) in the Visual Tracker for activities not included in the Task Tree (see the proposed workaround if this is not possible)
3. the possibility to insert the actual time spent on the activity for each chunk of time (e.g.: worked on Task 1 from 10:00 to 12:00, but the actual time spent working on that task was less than 2 hours, say 1h 30 min)
4. the possibility to have TDL compute the % Complete, according to the initial Time Estimate and the actual time spent on the task. See next point in case one updates the 'Total Estimated Time to Execute the Task'
5. the initial Time Estimate is often wrong (it's a guessed time). While working on a task one can realize that it's going to take more time or less time to complete the task wrt the initial Time Estimate. Every time a chunk of time is added to the Time Spent on a Task, it should be possible to insert an estimation of the remaining time to complete the task. 'Actual Time Spent' + 'Last Estimated Time to Complete the Task' = 'Total Estimated Time to Execute the Task'. '% Complete' = 'Actual Time Spent' / 'Total Estimated Time to Execute the Task' * 100
6. other features such as colouring the chunks of times in the Visual Tracker according to some rules, an option to limit the time visible in the Visual Tracker (and Week Planner too) to a desired time range (e.g. I'm generally not interested to view the time before 8:00 and after 18:00)...

Something like that:

Tracker.png (24.83 KiB) Viewed 591 times

I'm aware of the "Edit > Add Time to Task Log File' menu option": it's what I called "Log Task Time" from the name of that window.
This window might have some more options, as suggested above

Thanks

[abstr]

Firstly, I agree in principle that this would be a beneficial feature for the software.

Note: What follows is me 'thinking out loud' so not everything I say needs you to respond.

1. a visual way to view/edit/add the Tracked Time with TDL. This would be the purpose of a new tab which I called "Visual Tracker"

Currently, entries are added to the time log simply by seeking to the end of the file and writing another line, because this operation needs to be as fast as possible for the software to remain responsive.

Allowing individual entries at any location to be edited would require something 'crafty' to achieve similar performance. My initial idea would be to store all the offsets into the log file for each line/entry so to update any given entry would require:

1. Open the log file
2. Move the file pointer to the beginning of the line after the line to be updated
3. Read all subsequent lines/entries into memory
4. Move the file pointer to start of the line to be updated
5. Write the modified line to the log file
6. Write the lines in memory to the log file
7. Close the log file

Note that is would be fairly quick for recently logged entries (near the end of the file) but slower for older entries which is probably acceptable.

2. the possibility to insert the actual time spent on the activity for each chunk of time (e.g.: worked on Task 1 from 10:00 to 12:00, but the actual time spent working on that task was less than 2 hours, say 1h 30 min)

Since a log file entry contains both the start and end date/times and the actual time spent in hours, this might be feasible.

3. the possibility to have TDL compute the % Complete, according to the initial Time Estimate and the actual time spent on the task. See next point in case one updates the 'Total Estimated Time to Execute the Task'

Are you aware that there are already 'Calculation' preferences that will do this?

Code: Select all

Tools > Preferences > Tasks > Attribute Calculations > Display a task's '% Completion' as being equal to its 'Time Spent' divided by its 'Time Estimate'

4. the initial Time Estimate is often wrong (it's a guessed time). While working on a task one can realize that it's going to take more time or less time to complete the task wrt the initial Time Estimate. Every time a chunk of time is added to the Time Spent on a Task, it should be possible to insert an estimation of the remaining time to complete the task. 'Actual Time Spent' + 'Last Estimated Time to Complete the Task' = 'Total Estimated Time to Execute the Task'. '% Complete' = 'Actual Time Spent' / 'Total Estimated Time to Execute the Task' * 100

Hmm... Based on my response to 3. I'm not sure why it wouldn't just be necessary to for you to update the time estimate and have the auto-calculation do the rest...

5. other features such as colouring the chunks of times in the Visual Tracker according to some rules, an option to limit the time visible in the Visual Tracker (and Week Planner too) to a desired time range (e.g. I'm generally not interested to view the time before 8:00 and after 18:00)...

Colouring the chunks with anything other than their associated task colour is trickier because, although I could add that information to the log file itself, I'd like to avoid having a view/plugin fiddling with the log file format because that opens the door for all manner of maintenance issues.

As for limiting the visible time, I've already implemented this in the Week Planner for version 9.0.

6. the possibility to add Tracked time (activity) in the Visual Tracker for activities not included in the Task Tree

Currently the design of the software requires everything (data-wise) to be associated with a specific task ID but, contrary to what I said before, there might be scope, because we won't be saving any additional information to the tasklist itself, to allow entries to be added to the log file with a zero/0 ID.

---------------------------------

If I were to proceed, this would definitely be a 9.1+ feature.

[tomatoma]

Hmm... Based on my response to 3. I'm not sure why it wouldn't just be necessary to for you to update the time estimate and have the auto-calculation do the rest...

Especially when assigning tasks to others, it is important to check the progress of the tasks and to compare the actual time spent with the initial Time Estimate, both during the execution of the tasks and at their completion.
If the initial Time Estimate remains unchanged, at the end of the task one can compare the actual time spent on the task with the initial Time Estimate: if the two times are considerably different, then one can start to ask some questions, to check if something went wrong and so on.
If the Time Estimate is adjusted according to the progress of the task, then the possibility to make a comparison of the time taken to execute the task with the initial time estimate is lost.
So, in my view there should be two Time estimates: the initial one (which remains untouched) and one which can be updated during the execution of the task and which should be used to compute the % Complete

Thanks

[abstr]

So, in my view there should be two Time estimates

Unfortunately I don't think that would be understandable to anyone except you.

Have you considered trying to implement this using 'Custom Attributes'?

[tomatoma]

Have you considered trying to implement this using 'Custom Attributes'?

A custom attribute for the initial Time Estimate is what I needed!
Thanks

[abstr]

Hi @tomatoma

I'm working on this plugin at the moment and have hit the stage where I need real data to move forward, and since I don't personally use the time-tracking functionality I need to seek data from users (eg. You).

In order that this does not leak sensitive information I have added a new menu option 'Tools > Anonymise Task Log File' which uses the following approach (also used by 'Tools > Anonymise Tasklist' which itself has been validated previously).

1. Aggregate all the unique content ('Task Title' and 'Comments') values from the log file
2. Remove all non-alphabetic content
3. Seed a random number generator with the current time
4. Replace each character in the original phrase with a randomly indexed character into the previously aggregated content
5. Preserve punctuation and numbers so that the text still 'looks real'
6. Store the randomised phrase so that the same original phrase gets randomised the same should it appear again (like names)

To use it:

1. Download this build
2. Open the tasklist for the log file of interest
3. 'Tools > Anonymise Task Log File'
4. Reply 'Yes' to the subsequent dialog so that you can verify its correctness
5. Email me a copy at todolist.forums@abstractspoon.com

Finally, once you and I have ironed out any issues, I will also post this request more widely for a greater breadth of inputs.

[abstr]

Hi @tomatoma

I won't be able to continue working on this feature without the data I have requested.

[tomatoma]

Hi,

I've sent the data you requested to

todolist.forums@abstractspoon.com

on November the 20th.
I'll try to zip the file and send it again.


This was the email:

currently the task log file is short, but it's growing day by day.
To correctly anonymise the task log file I had to manually modify the decimal separator (comma to dot) in the log file.
I also noticed that both "Corretto" and "Tracciato" in the Type column are converted to "Adjusted"

[tomatoma]

Just sent another email with a sample Log file

Regards

[abstr]

My bad. I get gmail to collate my various email addresses and usually this works well but not this time...

I have the emails now.