UPDATE: A newer version of Activity Tracker called “Activity Tracker Plus” is available. Activity Tracker Plus is more reliable and robust. It also includes a social client “Activity Tracker Plus Social” that will let you share your daily log on your blog or any opensocial social networking platform including orkut, hi5, Friendster, MySpace etc in real time.
Activity Tracker is available for iGoogle, Netvibes and Windows Vista sidebar.
Thanks lifehacker for featuring us !!
Thanks webworkerdaily for naming us as one of the 15 iGoogle productive gadgets !!
Looking for “Todo List with Google Maps”… It’s here
“Activity Tracker” is a punchclock google/Netvibes gadget that can track your daily activities. You are using google everyday.. so why not have this gadget show up on your front page .. so you don’t forget to record your time. It is now available for Netvibes too. You can use if for anything you want - Consultants can use it for time reporting, students can use it to track time spent in their homework and others can just use it to analyze how they spend their time. It provides a very simple interface and all you do is punch-in when you start an activity and punch-out when you are done. And of course.. if you are a person who very easily forgets to update your activity - check out the alert feature (available in 4 languages) .
(To add this gadget to your igoogle.com page, just click on “Add to Google” button below the image)
(To add this gadget to your Netvibes page, just click on “netvibes” button below the image)
(To learn more about the Vista version, read my blog here . To add it, you can just click the “vista sidebar” button below the image.)
It provides loads of cool features that no other gadget provides:
- Available for both your iGoogle and Netvibes page.
- Very simple and intuitive interface - Add your activities and simply punch-in when you start the activity and punch-out when you are done. The gadget takes care of the reporting part.
- Graph - Get a graphical view of all your activities. Find out how much time you spent in each activity and a visual picture of where you spend most of your time.
- Print - Print out the list of activities along with the graph.
- Export as .csv - Export the list of activities as a .csv file for accounting purposes. You can use it to fill your time cards.
- Log - Get a log for each activity. Provides you detailed upto the minute log for all your activites. You have the option to print or export as comma separated file. The log also provides the hours in decimal making it easy to calculate the pay. It also provides a weekly report for the activity. The log also includes any notes that you might have specified for each activity.
- Add Notes to each activity log -For each task, you have the ability to add a custom note each time you punch-in. Hence you can have as many notes as there are logs. The log is limited to 50 characters.
- Drag and Drop - Re-arrange your tasks in any order you want.
- Expand & Collapse the task view - All tasks remain collapsed in the main view providing more room and a cleaner interface. You can expand each task by clicking on it. You can have all your 100 tasks and not worry about clobbering your iGoogle page. If you want to see the total time spent in all projects, just click “Graph” and you should see details about all projects.
- Keep tasks expanded at all times - For users who prefer to keep the tasks expanded always, you can do so by checking the “Keep Activities expanded” check box.
- Editing - Forgot to punch-out. No Problem !!. Just edit the activity and enter the actual time. In addition, you can edit the last entry time and delete or add any new entry if you want. You can also edit the notes for each activity. It provides you complete control over the log entries.
- Do you keep forgetting to punch-in or punch-out. No Problem !!.. Set an alert. Just click on the alert link and set your interval. The gadget should remind you periodically to update the activity. You also have the option to select the type of voice.
- Automatic toggle between different activities - When you punch-in a particular activity, the gadget automatically punches you out from the other activity.
- Reset - A new week starts .. Want to start all over again .. No Problem. Just click on Reset and it should reset all your logs.
- Internationalized - Available in different locales.
Continued in next page…
Hey Mahin,
This is cool. It would be nice , if you can insert the starting time in the graph too.
cheers
Bemly
thanks for a great gadget. this is awesome. very simple and effective. don’t know why i keep clicking on the graph always
this is awesome. I luv the alert feature… now even if i get carried away in this internet world, i always get alerted to update my timesheet. On the other hand i’am very unhappy that it reminds me constantly that i spend too much time browsing
..
This is friggin awesome !!!. Thanks .
Great work! I’ve found this tool to be very useful.
One small problem I noticed:
If I have two browsers open, both on my iGoogle homepage, and I click “In” to start activity on one of the two browsers, and after a while switch over to the other browser, forget that I was in already and click “In” on the same activity on my other browser window, the time will start and start counting from the incorrect time. (It should actually just ignore my second attempt to click in as I was already in on that activity).
A brilliant peace of software! I love it.
I’m writing a little review of your product for russian users and have encountered some problems when:
1. activity name contains cyrillic symbols and I click ‘Graph’ or ‘Log’ I get the page which uses utf-8 encoding, but it is not specified in HTML code so I need to switch it in browser manually
2. again, clicking ‘Graph’ or ‘Log’ gives question marks instead of month when the browser’s default locale is set to ru_RU (even after manual switching to utf-8)
If you wish to perform any additional testing or have questions feel free to mail me.
Thanks.
Hi Ali and 9Val,
thanks very much for trying out. I will look at the issues that you pointed out.
thanks again,
Mahin
Mahin,
Now the second problem is solved while first still exists and became a little bit harder - now it uses utf-8, but text is wrong, any encoding switching does not correction
Perhaps I’ve got it. It seems to be double utf-ed, i.e. like it was originally in utf and after that was again utf-encoded…
This is great. i’m luving it. very simple and has everything i needed. and best of all it goes well with all my other google gadgets. thanks !!
The problem with international characters should now be fixed. Enjoy !!
Hi,
This is great. Any chance you could create it as a Vista sidebar gadget too?
Thanks.
I am working on making this gadget available for Windows Vista sidebar users. I will update this page once it is done.
Luv the gadget - a great way to track time across projects. Is there any way to collapse the view only partially, so the only thing visible are the activities and the In/Out buttons? That would allow me to see more projects on the screen and remove the LOG, CLEAR LOG, RESET, etc. buttons until I need them. Thanks!
Thank you for sharing!
I was pretty excited stumbling upon Activity Tracker (as this is pretty much the only way to find widgets - searching is futile or non existent. You might want to complain to Google) Anyway, it is cool. But I think useless. Unless I can adjust my start or end time at any time, even during the ‘Activity’ then it is useless. I never remember to ‘punch in’ on time and if I can’t set the actual time (like 30 minutes later or the next day) then what good is it, especially considering I have difficulty remebering when I started even 30 minutes later because I am so wrapped up in my work. You see… I NEED software like this to function.
Hi Ed,
Currently you can do the same by editing the total hours spent on an activity. I will look into providing a feature where one can edit the start time/end time.
thanks,
Mahin
I’d like to have more than one of these active on a tab. It doesn’t work. I’d like to be able to name each one.
Luv it!! This is great work just what I was looking for. Really looking forward to a Vista Sidebar version.
Just wondering if it were possible to have a setting where you can enter your timezone (eg I’m 10 hours ahead of GMT). The times in the logs don’t match the times/days that the tasks were done because the tool uses its server’s clock. When I look at my logs, it’s 10 hours out, which makes it a pain in the bum when it comes time to putting the info into an invoice.
Other than that, this is the first time I have ever consistently used a time tracking process of any kind - it’s so easy. Everything else takes up too much time (!).
Thank you so much - you gadget is an integral part of my Google dashboard - I run my business using it. Thanks!
Hi Michelle,
I already have code in the server to detect your timezone. I think the code was not able to detect your timezone and defaulted to GMT.
Thanks for the quick reply. Must have been a temporary glitch - the times are OK now. I really like how punching into one activity automatically punches you out of your last activity. Is it possible to download all the task logs in CSV at once?
Thanks so much. This is an awesome gadget and I’m going to run my business on it. I use a Macbook Pro now (because of Vista) and would like to be able to use this on my Dashboard, and have it sync whenever I go online. Don’t even know if this is feasible, but I can dream. Fantastic tool!
Does not work on X64 bit Vista. WHen clocked in the time just remains at 0.
This is such a cool gadget!! Is it possible to show a tally of the hours punched in for the day to see if we have enough chargeable hours in a day? Also, is it possible to show the time in 12 hour clock instead of 24 hour clock? Thanks!!
hmm.. 64 bit vista should not matter. Can you confirm that it was 0 even after an hour ?
Mindy - I will note that down for my next feature release.
thanks.
Love this gadget, just what i was looking for. Is there any way to tweak the color scheme or skin?
thanks, keep up the good work
Eric
Looks like Michelle asked the same question Nov 6th…
I love this gadget, especially the log feature. I export both the summary log and detailed logs to my computer each week, however, its very time consuming to export the detailed logs individually every week. Is there some way to export all of the details for all of the logs into one file, similar to the summary graph feature? The only problem with the summary is that it only gives the total time spent on a task, and not when it was spent. -DLT
Greetings-
Great little gadget, just what I needed. Is there anyway we could support OpenOffice Calc as an export option?
Thank you for your time and effort on this gadget, I genuinely appreciate it.
Does this also work for Google Desktop’s sidebar? I can’t find it in the list of sidebar apps (though there are several other time trackers there)
Scott - Sorry. it doesn’t work as Google sidebar gadget.
Any plans to add it?
like mindy said, an option for a 12 hour clock would be great! thank you for this amazing tool.
Scott - not right now. But if many users are requesting for it, I plan to.
Mahin, thanks! This may finally allow me to start tracing my time. It is intuitive and the toggle feature makes it even better. The edit feature was giving me trouble but I think I figure out the user errr part - I also moved to use it under IE and there it seemed more stable.
A suggestion: ability to see a log across all activities, ordered by In Time. That would allow me to fix entries more easily when I forget to punch out/in but still have sme recolection of what I was doing.
Thanks for putting this out. Great work!
This is a brilliant gadget, thank you for this!! So easy to track your time..
May I request functionality..
I see that the gadget simply adds the time on each activity and continues to append the data over many days.
It would help if I could run a report at the end of the week and it would detail how long I’ve spent per day on a task
i.e. Monday, [amount of time] spent on [task 1], [task 3], [task 5]
Tuesday, [amount of time] spent on [task 1], [task 2], [task 6]
Wednesday, [amount of time] spent on [task 1], [task 3], [task 6], [task 7]
?
Mahin, I too would encourage you to have this gadget work for Google Desktop’s sidebar? Thanks for a great tool.
i think an activity tracker for google desktop would be very helpful too. thanks for the handy tool.
Great gadget/widget! Any way to redirect the graph tool to build off-line?
Mahin,
I would love a google desktop version of this gadget. It would be much easier to access instead of having to have a browser open all the time.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Sacha
Mahin,
My vista sidebar gadget is crashing when I choose “edit.” Any thoughts? 1.2.0
Great tool, Mahin. Thanks very much.
One suggestion: in the next version (soon hopefully!) could you add the ability to export the log for all tasks, rather than one at a time? It seems others also have expressed the opinion that this would be very helpful.
Thanks again!
I’ve loved your product - excellent for reviewing why I am putting in overtime with my supervisor. However, I need to track one more week after a few days, one of my activities has gotten stuck and no matter what I do, it shows out of this one activity - for 10 days. I have tried resetting, clearing the logs, deleting the activity but nothing has worked so far. An help would be appreciated.
Barbara
Mahin, this is exactly what I always dreamed of since I´ve started working as a freelancer. There is nothing remotely as intuitive, fast and yet multifunctional. Thank you so much. If I may still request improvement, I would stress
a) the google-desktop-function because I´m using XP - would that be an offline function or would I still have to be online?
b) the export-all-at-once function
I’ve just started using this gadget and I must admit it makes time keeping a lot easier.
Could you tell me where the logs are stored and what the file names are. I would like to take a copy of the logs before resetting them at the end of the month.
Thanks
JohnH
I am often working on multiple projects at the same time, it would be great if I could have several activities running simultaneously, so I know how long each takes.
I am a software consultant and support many of my clients remotely. While running a program or diagnostic on one machine, I am often also looking at another machine.
Activity tracker is great, but I can only have one activity at a time logging time.
The tool is great, though. Best I have seen yet and I have been looking a long time.
Hello,
Thanks for the wonderful software, and for addressing the issue I posed a loooong time ago. I’m switching back to using Activity Tracker from my old kitchen timer after deciding to use my computer to study, rather than having it locked away to avoid distractions.
I’ve noticed a time zone issue. Everything is fine with the “Started” and “In Time” on the actual interface and the detailed logs. The problem is with the new “Show Summary” option. Even though it says I time in at “In Time: 00:56″ (which is technically Tuesday) the minutes are still being added to Monday’s record.
Thanks again for the wonderful piece of software!
Mine’s not working at the moment, it says “New Feature Update” in red where my categories were and no options to resume using it as normal.. anyone else getting this?
I like the sound of the new changes, similar to what I requested in my previous post, thanks
Just want to make it work now lol
Hi Mahin
Great product, which I now use all the time. One small problem I have encountered. As a company we are looking at using Google Apps as it offers neat collaoration tools. I loaded punchclock successfully, but it is the older version. For the life of me I cannot see how to do the upgrade!!
Thanks in advance for any help.
Mahin,
Just downloaded gadget today. Great concept! A couple problems though. 1-Cannot export to Excel or Google docs. Attempts to load but no data appear on the worksheet. 2-Lost all data when moving from graph (opened in a Firefox window) to iGoogle page (opened in second Firefox browser window). Yikes! Glad it was only my first day using the gadget.
Any suggestion how to resolve exporting prob?
Thanks,
David
If you click “log” in an activity, it takes you to a page where you can see the export icon. This exports your data in CSV (Comma seperated format). I am working on an option to export all your data to Google calendar
Regarding problem 2: When you click browser back button, I think the browser gets data from the cache instead of hitting Google.Can you try again by clicking “Shift+Refresh”. Also make sure you wait for atleast 1 second after punch-in or punch-out as depending on your network speed data might take a while to save to Google servers (for IGoogle gadgets).
Mahin,
I think this is a helpful gadget for time tracking. But even better is a person like you who is willing to share this wonderful staff.
I have just tried your gadget this morning and find it would be very usefull in tracking my time and activities: personal and work. But I do have one question for you. How can I export all the logs for all the acivities so I can save time instead of exporting each log for each activites.
Your reply is much appreciated.
Good on you Mahin
@ Khouth Chhea
Exporting all activities in one click will be included in next version of activity tracker.
Just wanted to say, I love this app.
However, I’ve recently decided to switch to the Google Desktop Sidebar instead of Vista Sidebar (seems to use less memory, and has more apps available, though it definitely has problems of its own).
So, add my vote for a Google Desktop version.
I was able to add Activity Tracker to my iGoogle page but it is not working - I have no add button, only links for “Alert| | | Graph|
Help?” - any suggestions?
Never mind - figured it out! NoScript was blocking googlecode.com… sorry about that
Is anyone else having a problem with the Activity Tracker on iGoogle today? It takes a couple of minutes to load my home page, and when it finally does, only the Alert, Graph, and Help? links are showing up; none of my activities. The page lags with a message “Waiting for screeperzone.googlecode.com…”.
@ArcherID: there were some temporary network issues connecting to googlecode servers.
It works now. Thanks for the reply. BTW, I love the tool. It’s perfect for tracking my billable hours.
When I did a new entry for an item today from the edit item interface, it saved, but did not show up in “graph”. It shows up in “log”.
Does this happen to everyone?
kind of a problem if you forget to record your time on something….
I just installed the Vista sidebar and am really excited to use it as time goes on. As an entrepreneur I spend my time on a thousand different things, and now I can track just how well I’m using my time in the office.
I love the graph that compares where I’m spending the most time. I’d love to see a time-line feature so I could see what times of the day I’m really productive and when I’m distracted by less important tasks.
This is a godsend piece of software! I just wish there was a way to use it with WinXP. Maybe a port to Stardock’s software goodies?
IMPORTANT: There is a temporary issue with IGoogle Activity tracker gadget.
I have raised this issue in Igoogle developer forum
http://groups.google.com.ng/group/Google-Gadgets-API/browse_thread/thread/34f9391602b40cb3
Thanks
IGoogle users please follow this link
Backup your data.
http://screeperzone.com/2009/04/03/activity-tracker-sorry-this-gadget-uses-the-inlining-feature-which-is-no-longer-supported/