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Time tracking function requests

  • 29 August 2023
  • 6 replies
  • 73 views
X

Hi  Team,

We have recently adopted Smokeball. 

The real-time time tracking through the timers has a few limitations. It would be great if you could add the following:

  1. Show the total amount of time tracked on the list of the timers. At the moment you can’t see how much time you have recorded until after you add the time. Being able to see the total time throughout the day is really handy and has always helped me encourage productivity without having to finalise the time entries, as you may jump back and forth between different tasks so it is not practical to add time to SB all the time. Also a lot of firms have daily targets.
  2. The ability to manually adjust the time tracked through the timers. We are humans. There will be situations where eg we go away from the desk to grab a coffee but forget to stop the timer, or reversely, we stop the timer but then we get back to work and forget to restart the timer. At the moment we cannot make any manual adjustments to the timers. The only thing we can do is to add the time and make the manual adjustments then which is incredibly inconvenient, especially if you are gonna start a new timer for precisely the same matter doing precisely the same work. You could end up with quite a few lines of entries on the day day for the same client, which will make the invoices look messy.
  3. Show the codes. The timer does not allow us to put in the codes. We can only add the codes when adding time. But then once you put in a code it overrides the description entirely in the ‘subject’ field which is really frustrating. I appreciate that there is a separate description box. But it is the ‘subject’ field that goes directly into the invoices, and therefore that is the most logical place to add our descriptions. 
  4. Time finder: We would really like to disable that function but we have been told we cannot. 

Many thanks in advance for your help.

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Best answer by atharkhan 25 January 2024, 23:09

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6 replies

Tony Hastings
Rank
Userlevel 1

Hi @x.liu 

Most of the issues or requests you are making here are solved by using our AutoTime system, which is available for you to use.

For example, it will create time entries as you use Smokeball, showing you updated totals as you go. It will also pause and restart timings on different pieces of work automatically to avoid the issues you outlined. You will still have the ability to adjust any entry as required.

You may have tried AutoTime in the past and found that you preferred to use the manual timers but based your feedback here it may be the best solution for you.

If you would like to try it out please see the below link to our guide to getting started:

https://support.smokeball.com/hc/en-au/articles/5860708227863-Getting-Started-with-AutoTime

Alternatively, reach out to our Support Desk directly on 1300 335 553 to arrange a session where we can go through the setup and any queries you might have.

X

Thanks @Tony Hastings 

It is great to know that the SB team is keeping an eye on customer feedback.

I respectively disagree. Auto timer doesn’t change the fact that that time tracking section does show any grand total for all entries for the day, you cannot make any manual adjustment to the entries or the fact that it does not allow the codes to be added to the entries up front. 

These are very common and basic features for any time tracking platforms.

atharkhan
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

@x.liu - Smokeball time tracking is not perfect by any means but it is relatively better than what I have previously tried out.  At best you are going to lose 20+ percent of time if you rely solely on AutoTime.  However, there are tactics that can help you. 

The tactics/workarounds are specific to each type of application: 

For example, it helps to understand that if you do not immediately tag an email in Outlook, it will only “hold on” to the time that you are spending on an email for a very short time.  So, always try to tag immediately.  Secondly, make sure that you keep your mouse in the preview pane for Outlook.  If it is off the preview pane, Outlook will not capture your time reading an email.  A good way to deal with this is to check the box in Outlook that launches replies in a new window. 

Similarly, in Word/Excel/PDF, you may want to hit save every few minutes to make sure Smokeball realizes that you are still working on a document.  

Keep your energy efficient options to a minimum. You do not want Windows to stop polling just because the mouse and keyboard are inactive.  

-Athar.
A

it would be very helpful to be able to be able to see your list of matters worked on for a particular day when reviewing time entries for the day; right now, you have to scroll down manually to see whether you have more than one entry if your intention is to combine entries.

X

Thanks guys for sharing your thoughts.   :)

@atharkhan Thanks for sharing. My original post is not about the auto timer. I actually do not like it. It is an option but like you said at best you lose 20%. It can perhaps be used to help find lost time but we do not trust it as the primary method. The team should be trained to be in the habit to properly track their time anyway. 

SB has the capacity to automatically save changes made to the files without a user having to manually saving them every a few minutes. We have SB’s confirmation that each and every time you click on save, a new version of the file is created in the log. Therefore, if you ever have to go retrieve an earlier version the practice you mentioned could potentially be a nightmare. 

Don’t get me wrong, as a off-the shelf matter management platform, SB is generally a good option for small teams. It is also an added advantage that the data is held in AU, as a matter of fact, right here in SYD. So we don’t have to worry about data sovereignty. 

I’ve taken the time to put a long post about the requested features as SB is coming short in this area compared to the other platfomrs I have used in the past and I hope that this can help the team with future product desgin. 

Thanks again everyone. 

Ben
Rank
Userlevel 6

Hi @x.liu 

Thanks so much for the detailed and thoughtful feedback here. I very much look forward to reading your post when you’re ready to share it. It’s great to be able to drill into the details with those of our firms who have a bit more technical/product expertise.

I’ll get the feedback about Autotime vs Conventional time tracking in front of the right members of our Product team now. As always I can’t promise timelines or solutions, software development rarely works that way. What I can promise is that the team here pay a lot of attention to insights people like you can bring to the table when they’re spec'ing out improvements to Smokeball. 

I would also suggest booking a call with @Tony Hastings on our training team. We were looking through your feedback and wanted to be sure we were on the same page about how you and your team are tracking time. It’s hard to be certain with the limitations of a forum thread. 

Based on your description, it looks like you’re using all the right options for your approach, but actually seeing your workflow and firm setup would ensure we’re not trying to solve Problem X. It would be a real shame to find out that we’ve overlooked a few simple tweaks or customisations that could get you on track sooner rather than later! 

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