Timesheet?

[osarrat]

This spreadsheet feature is great (I didn't know that Zimbra was able to do this ! ), but it won't be enough in comparison with a real timesheet solution.
For example, there is no tab and no possibility to get data from another spreadsheet. So, it won't be possible to easily sum up the time spent by different people on the same project.

[Nik Okuntseff]

To make it simpler, this zimlet might be just an interface to another open-source timesheet management system

Sounds like a good idea. We will be doing a time tracker gadget for iGoogle for - Anuko Time Tracker - may be a similar thing can be done for Zimbra. Like minimalistic features for quick and convenient use with a possibility to go to the time tracker site for advanced features such as reports, invoices, etc.

[osarrat]

It would be great if something could be coded with Anuko Time Tracker !

In my opinion, to reply to krabina's suggestion, here is the "roadmap" of features I would expect of such a Zimlet, which is a kind of reflection of the priorities I see :

1. : just an interface to edit and consult the time sheets of the currently logged user. The idea is to save time, and no bother the user to log in two different web-apps for its daily usage. The user should be able to record how he spent his time between several projects, and even had new project if the mother application has granted this right to the user.

2. : a bit more "mash-up' version... this version should be able to automatically use a calendar event as a time spent slot in the time sheet solution on a chosen project. Something like a right-click on the calendar event which could assign it in the specific project would be great.

3. : a version which integrates the tasks of Zimbra with the projects of the time sheet solution. For example, if there is a specific and planned set of activities to perform in a project, it should be possible to automatically or manually had them to the tasks list of the user.

[gbs1230]

Looking at the Anuko docs it is a PHP app with a MySQL on the backend. I will take a closer look but I would suggest that creating a Zimlet with that should be pretty easy.

Ideally to achieve the integrations listed in the requirements on this thread I would say that it would make more sense to configure Anuko to use the same database as Zimbra. That shouldn't be too hard either with PHP.

Well worth a go. Now just to find the spare time.

Anyone got anything else that is actually progressing on this one (with Anuko or anything else) ?

[blaise]

I think a good idea would be to use a calendar called Timesheet to keep trace of interventions. A zimlet would be needed (and also some database stuffs) to add some informations like client name, project name, task name and if it's billable or not. After that an other Zimlet will be needed to treat the informations and some reporting stuff (billable hours worked for a client by projects and task per month for example, ...).

I think this system will be more modulable and will be more integrated into zimbra (for example all informations can be stored into the main box off the calendar entry. for example :

Subject : <client> - <Short description of the job done>

And on the body part :

Project : <project name>
Task : <task name>
Billable : <yes or no> (this line can also be computed directly from the project name for example)
Comments : <more desciption, will not be printed on the standard reports>

[krabina]

I think this is an excellent idea. This would result in an ical-resource of time recordings hat could be used to pass on the data to other applications for analysis...

The question is whether or not one calender can handle lets say 10 entires a day by 20 employees is 200 entries a day?

- Bernhard

[osarrat]

I like this idea of using an iCal resource too !

I'm not enough familiar with the development of zimlet to know how much easy it could, and it appears to me more complex than a simple "data entry" zimlet which writes information in another database. But it may be not so hard to develop.
If it is possible to make this iCal resource only editable through the zimlet, then storing information and retrieving it would be only some text parsing (text would come from the event comments). The best integration of the zimlet would be that the zimlet would be automatically executed to modify a "timesheet event" when the user clicks on such an event, making for him transparent the fact that he's not able to edit directly the title and comment text of the event.

And I agree with you that this solution will be more modulable. If the basic timesheet information is stored in Zimbra and is accessible through an iCal ressource, then the timesheet external solutions would have just to parse the iCal stream (many libraries already available).
The only thing I fear now in this solution is that the information will be duplicated : one copy as an iCal resource in Zimbra, another in the external solution. To face this, I think that the solution in Zimbra should provide a webservice or any other form of integration to enable the locking of the iCal resource on a time slot. I think that this feature is required, because it could be crucial to project manager to lock for example the time reporting of the past weeks of his team members.

It would be good to have the opinion of the feasibility of the integration of thie solution with an external timesheet solution, from the point of view of someone working on such a timesheet solution (like Anuko for instance... ).

Anyway, it is good to see that the collective brainstorming is producing a better and better specification for this timesheet feature!

[krabina]

Any news regarding this issue? Did anyone get Zimbra to work together with an open source timesheet program? Or did anyone write a calender based zimlet for a timesheet within Zimbra?

-Bernhard

[Michael REMY]

i would be interested in every zimlet which could link a task to another one with/without difference contact/ressource.

[blaise]

Hi,

I am working on a Zimlet for Timesheet Next Gen (Timesheet Next Gen | The Next Generation in Timesheet tracking).

The Zimlet part work well (need to make some name changes and code cleaning) but I need to make a big modification of Timesheet Next Gen before to have something usable.

Does someone with knowledge of javascript/Dojo/CSS can help me?

I am actually working on complete redesign of the different pages, ...

When I will be finished with this I will begin to code and when I have something usable will propose a beta version here.