MAG Softwrx Inc official blog

A feature I never thought I would use

2009-06-08T08:45:00.009-06:00

We often get requests for new features. They are sometimes features we personally do not really think are important, but we keep track of them over time and if there is enough demand we will add it to the product (as long as it fits with the direction we want the product to go). We recently added a feature to the Windows version that fits that description.

The request was for a periodic alert to remind users to verify what they were tracking with the timer. The thought was that often people forget to start the timer or to change the timer when they changed what they were working on. While I understood this would increase the accuracy of the time tracking, I just couldn't see myself ever using it. To be 'nagged' all day about what I was working on was just not I wanted from my time tracking tool. However, since enough of our customers did not feel the same way, it was added as an optional feature.

During this beta cycle I am using most features whether I want to or not. The timer alert, as it has come to be called, has really impressed me. It could have been added as just a message box to remind the user to check what they are doing. But that was not how it was implemented. I won't go into specific, but the implementation melds the alert with the recent and favorite lists, plus configuration options to create an unobtrusive feature I find very useful. Coupled with the user option to Display time entry when starting timer, this feature drastically reduces the interruption when starting a forgotten timer.

If you would like to see this or any of the other new features in version 3.0, sign up to participate in the beta program. Even though we are nearly release, we still appreciate involved beta testers.

Version 3.0 is almost here

2009-05-03T23:29:00.007-06:00

If you haven't already seen it, check out the latest in time tracking with Timeless Time & Expense 3.0 and Project Tracking 3.0.

The expanded beta program has been going for a couple weeks. Things are going well and we are working on all the other things that need to be done for a major release.

I suppose the common belief is that a successful software product is all about writing code. While doing that well is extremely important for the life of the product, there are so many things that need to come together to release the product. Whether good or bad, most of these items happen at the end of the release cycle. Right now we are working on application help, updating our order processing for upgrades and a new website design - just to name a few. This makes for a very busy time around here and for even shorter blog updates.

That said, know that we are nearing release. However, you can still participate in the beta program. If you are interested sign up here. We can always use more beta testers.

Timeless 3.0 Beta news

2009-02-10T12:09:00.008-07:00

As I write this our build machine is grinding away building what we hope will be our first internal beta of the Windows version of Timeless Project Tracking 3.0 and Timeless Time & Expense 3.0. That is not to say we are almost done. There are still a few significant task remaining such as conversion of old files, integration with other software and of course, help and documentation. However, it is still a significant milestone considering we started development of the Windows version on September 20, 2008.

In other beta news, we have had local client using the web interface of Timeless Project Tracking 3.0 for over a month now. In is going well and we plan to open the beta program to additional testers. If you are interested sign up here.

If you would like to see it, you can try the Timeless Project Tracking 3.0 online demo. The first thing you will notice is that we don't have all the new graphics yet. They are being worked on as I write this.

Stay tuned for further updates. We plan to send a Coming Soon newsletter in March to existing customers. Look for it in your inbox for more details of what's new in Timeless Time & Expense and Timeless Project Tracking 3.0.

Instant project feedback as a motivational tool

2008-12-07T20:49:00.026-07:00

I really had planned to post this blog entry much sooner but we were making such good progress with the Windows version that I kept putting it of. That's not the only thing that was being delayed. We had a whole list of minor tasks which need to be done long before a product release to ensure a smooth launch. The Thanksgiving holiday provided a natural break to address some of these without disrupting development. So here I am again with updates and a sneak peek of what we have been looking at lately.

We've been using Timeless Project Tracking 3.0 since my last blog post. It really has been good. A good number of minor bugs and a few functional changes were identified, but overall it has been very smooth. One interesting side effect is the how motivating the status dashboard is. It is almost embarrassing, but the visual feedback of seeing the burndown chart going down in highly motivating. There's nothing (in day to day project tracking anyway) like seeing the sudden drop in a burndown when you complete something far ahead of schedule. On the flip-side it is kind of depressing watching the burndown go up because of the tasks you missed when developing the project plan.

On the subject of decreasing burndown charts, as I said earlier, the development of the Windows version is going well. Some our estimates for tasks have been high. I was quite surprised by this as the estimates looked pretty accurate, if not optimistic. In retrospect, we have been working on web interfaces so long we forgot just how much easier Windows development is. Sure, for simple web pages the development is just as easy, but for complicated web applications that work like a desktop application there are still significant differences.

I hope you enjoyed the brief sneak peak. As I said before, if you would like to be included on our pre-release email list sign up now. I promise we will have a online demo of the web version available soon.

A big milestone is just the beginning

2008-09-21T00:39:00.006-06:00

Well, we hit a big milestone last week. We upgraded our internal Timeless Time & Expense Web installation to version 3.0. This wasn't a 'developer-install', this was a real upgrade installation just like our customers will have to go through. We believe in using our applications just like our customers do. This means a feature complete application down to the installation. (Okay, we're not perfect. The documentation was not included).

As usual, it doesn't take long using the new features where you start to see the next enhancements. I was laying out the work items and assignments for the development of the Windows version today. I was using new 3.0 project management features for this for all of about 10 minutes when I wanted something more. Don't get me wrong, the new features are great and a big improvement but everything can be made better. Most of these will wait until 3.1 or later, but we hope to slip a couple into 3.0.

In any case, it was a significant week. Sometime in the future, we plan to give a limited sneak peek of the new version. Sign up to receive pre-release email notices when it is available.

I love automated unit tests - part II

2008-09-06T21:05:00.005-06:00

We recently reached the milestone of being feature complete in the web interface for Timeless 3.0. The next step was to create the installation so we could start our in house alpha testing during the development of the Windows version. But since we allow the choice of Access as a database option for small teams using the Windows version, we felt it was best to create the database and verify our business layer worked before integrating the SQL scripts into the web installation.

If you've ever developed an application to work with SQL Server and MS Access, you know there are differences. There are slight SQL differences, but the big one for us was differences in the way they handled paramertized queries. SQL Server uses named parameters and does not care about the order while the OLEDB provider for Jet only cares about the order of the parameters. As you can imagine this can cause significant testing.

Thankfully, our automated unit tests solved this problem. We still had to make the code changes, but it was a lot easier than trying to change it during UI development. It also meant we wouldn't be making changes to the web version during alpha testing just to accomodate Access in our Windows version.

As a side note, our test suite executes around 40,000 commands against SQL Server and around 42000 against MS Access.

I love automated unit tests

2008-06-02T00:13:00.007-06:00

Did I mention that I am a big fan of automated unit tests?

As we develop Timeless Time & Expense 3.0, we are anticipating many things we would like to do. Some of these will not be available on 3.0 release date. Some are not even definate, but we are preparing for them now. One such item is a hosted version of Timeless Time & Expense.

Unfortunately, we put this off a little too long. We really should have done it months ago, but somehow other 3.0 development took priority. The key to a hosted version is running many organizations in the same database. This means adding another key field on nearly 60 tables. Were it only that simple......

Adding a new key field means a change to every foreign key and every data access call. Even that isn't so bad. The real problem is testing it. That is where a suite of automated unit tests help a ton. When developing the original web version, we created automated unit tests for all database and business logic. During the 3.0 development we expanded the tests for all new functionality. So even though we started this a little late in the project, it only took a week and a half to implement and test. Without already established unit test, this would likely have set the project back months.

An additional challenge was making sure the new logic really did only access one organization. After all, when your application only works with one organization at a time, how could your be sure it wasn't crossing the line somewhere? In new development, this wouldn't be such a concern. But when the change is to an established application it is a scary and daunting prospect.

Again, automated unit tests come to the rescue. With unit tests, we can simulate things that would take months to test through the UI. Only the last half week was spent adding the new unit tests. With that small time investment, we can be confident we can deliver a hosted version plus be ready for the next big change.

Task Decomposition

2008-03-14T00:04:00.017-06:00

It is well known that breaking down your project to smaller task items leads to more accurate estimates and better project management. With estimates, it is hard to understand all the work involved when your tasks are large leading to overly optimistic estimates (and late projects). Small tasks are easier to fully understand and consequently more accurate estimates.

When managing projects, a large task can be out of control long before you know it - too late to save your project and reputation. Problems with a large task will not be a concern until it goes over budget - possibly weeks or months after task initiation. Problems with a small task will show up much sooner and provide time to react.

This is why project management software provides a detailed work breakdown structure. It is difficult, if not impossible to effectively manage a project without it. But because most time tracking software is designed for accounting and billing - they do not track at a detailed level and thus increase the project overhead to monitor project status.

One of the features of Timeless Time & Expense that many customers overlook is the ability to customize the work item hierarchy to suit their needs. Extending the work item hierarchy with your custom levels provides the breakdown to accurately track and estimate work tailored to your environment.

This offers a perfect balance between the limited client-project-task hierarchy of most time tracking software and the unlimited un-named hierarchy of project management software. The detail level provides tracking for project management and the ability to summarize information provides the high level data for accounting and billing.

"More than a spreadsheet"

2008-03-13T23:59:00.001-06:00

I was reading a user review for Timeless Time & Expense on of the major software download sites the other day. It was a short review, not much more than a single line that said "more than just a spreadsheet". It reminded me of the early days of Timeless Time & Expense.

Time tracking at its simplest is a piece of notebook paper using a line for each time entry. Like most time tracking systems this usually degraded to a once a week memory exercise. The next step for most was the use of spreadsheet software. This wasn't much better. Each project entry required a fair amount of typing and the memory exercise remained. With cut and paste it was faster to fill out the timesheet at the expense of accuracy.

Since many software developers we required to track their time it wasn't long before many tried to solve the problem. They typically created a 'better' spreadsheet. Dropdown lists were added to select clients and projects. This reduced the errors by limiting the selections to valid values. It was a litte faster and easier so more likely that time would be entered before the end of the week avoiding the same old memory excercise. But it was still just an automated piece of paper. The more detail you needed, the more time it took to select the correct information. This means it is only efficient for tracking time for billing - not for project management. Effective project management requires more detailed time tracking.

This is where Timeless Time & Expense was born. Detailed time tracking for project management requires a different paradigm - one taken from project management. To effectively manage a project, tasks must be broken down to a level of detail which allows the tasks to be easily estimated and tracked. This naturally results in a tree hierarchy with many levels of parent-child relationships. This is the paradigm Timeless Time & Expense uses. A paradigm that is as easy to use with two levels as it is with twenty (more on that in a future post).

This ease of use for our customers come at a price for the developers. In the limited, spreadsheet approach reporting is simple database queries. With a dynamic project hierarchy, it is much more complicated. Luckily, we have developers who are up to the challenge and are currently working to expand and simplify reporting for Timeless Time & Expense 3.0.

Web 2.0 abuse and misuse

2007-05-29T11:15:00.002-06:00

You've heard of "Web 2.0", that ubiquitous and over-reaching marketing term plastered on everything from average websites to moldy bread. How does it apply to everything and is it related to "Jake 2.0"? I can't tell you much about the "Jake 2.0" part, but I have my ideas about the rest.

What seems to make "Web 2.0" so useful in marketing is that it seems to have no meaning. In reality, most don't know what it means, and all the rest have their own unique definition - most likely one that describes their own product. I've seen it used to describe everything from a UI button to an entire company. The most popular definitions deal with social networking or the Ajax based web sites.

Our own product Timeless Time & Expense Enterprise Web uses Ajax extensively, but I wouldn't call it Web 2.0 because it is just a web application. We have been doing the same thing in the desktop world for years. The term Web 2.0 is often used to justify applications with minimal functionality. Or even justifying forcing the user to 'tag' their application data when 'tagging' is really for disparate data you do not control. I did say it was a marketing term, didn't I?

But I digress. In my opinion, if you had to apply Web 2.0 to anything, it would have to be the social Internet phenomenon. Though I hesitate to call it social. In some respects it is highly anti-social with the main goal being popularity. The web has always been about popularity (how many incoming links do you have?), but it becomes more direct with the social Internet custom of voting, friends and favorites.

That said, some of us used our spared time and got our feet wet in this Internet popularity contest. The site is MyCampaignPlatform.com. The site allows you to create your own campaign platform for the 2008 Presidential election. Done right, you will probably learn more about the issues that you thought you would and be more prepared to vote in the election. In true social Internet fashion, you can even include your own YouTube or Google video and vote on other platforms.

Mobile version

2007-05-09T23:53:00.001-06:00

In keeping with the mobile theme, this blog entry is small and simple.

We recently released a Mobile web interface for Timeless Time & Expense Enterprise Web. It was a sharp contrast to the highly functional standard interface. By their nature, mobile interfaces have to be simple for a couple reasons.

There is just not a lot of screen real estate to work with.
Due to the wide range of devices, the interface has to be simple and not rely on java script to enhance the user experience.

It was a different project - partially due to the simplicity and partially due to the challenge of compacting similar features to a small screen.

To try the mobile interface, visit our demo site using your mobile device.

Here we go again

2007-03-29T15:07:00.000-06:00

It has been an interesting year. After many years of small changes to Timeless Time & Expense for Windows, we decided to embark on a major project to add a Web interface for Timeless Time & Expense Enterprise. Outside of minor fixes and the constant marketing of an application, it is complete.

While functionally is basically the same as the desktop version, creating the web version was a new adventure. We take a lot of pride in the usability of our applications, so it was no small accomplishment to provide the same usability in a web application. It was exciting in its own way. Sometimes I sit back, look at it and smile.

However, it is not as exciting as adding really useful new features - new features that simplify and change the way people work. That's what makes us excited about Timeless 3.0. It is too early to talk specifics, so don't try to make me. I can tell you this release will be a mix of user requested enhancements and new features to further define the product in a crowded market. As usual, we have more usability enhancements for both the web and desktop to make both even easier to use.

It is early, but if you are interested in receiving beta information, sign up for the Pre-Release mailing list. We have only begun development of Timeless 3.0, so don't expect to receive anything any time soon.

I will just have to contain my excitement until then.

What's the point?

2007-03-11T11:40:00.000-06:00

This entry is a result of internal discussions we had when pondering whether we should be blogging. Blogging has been in the mainstream for quite a while. In a business environment, it's been seen as a way to increase communication with your customers. But what's the difference between blogging and our online community? Is it really important to have another place to say the same thing? I've come to the conclusion it is largely a matter of perception.

First, blogging is seen as more new and hip. In some respects it demonstrates you are at the forefront of technology. In reality, blogging is not technologically advanced, but again, this is perception we are talking about (I pray MySpace never becomes the next method of business communication).

Second, by blogging's nature, communication takes on a different tone. It provides a more casual communication channel. You can talk about things more informally and in a more 'unofficial' way. Since different people react differently to different communication styles, the message has a better chance of reaching its audience with multiple communication channels.

But blogging is much more a one way communication compared to an online community. In the community, we would like to foster discussions driven by our user. In the blog, we have control.
Don't expect to see all the same information in this blog.

It's hard to say just what you will see in this blog in the future. Maybe that's the point.

Nexus

2007-03-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

It's interesting the way things come together.

Here it is, my first official blog entry. But is it really?? Back in the day (1997-ish) the Internet was where the 'everyman' could publish his thoughts and be heard. It really wasn't that way, but it sounded good.

On my pre-blog ISP hosted personal website, now lost in the bowels of the Internet, I ruminated on the state of browser applications. As I said then, it was not good. Web applications were all the news and what everyone wanted. They could be run everywhere on any desktop. There would be no installation or configuration issues. All would be good.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. When users realized what web applications would be like, they were really disappointed. It this all I get for all that hype?? They wanted more, they wanted a desktop application in a browser. With the technologies of the time, this meant downloading embedded objects and worse, browser limitations and configuration issues. We were right back where we started, only with a hobbled development and user experience.

Leap forward to 2007. The combination of technologies and ideas referred to as Ajax fulfills the promise. In addition to the smaller uses of Ajax showing up all over the web, we now have web applications with the functionality of a desktop application. And best of all, they can be used by the majority of web browsers in use today. With the new technologies we were finally able to develop a web application that rivals and sometimes exceeds our desktop application. (I may talk more about that in future entries.)

It's been ten years, and the subject of my first blog entry is the same as my first 'pre-blog' entry. It's been ten years since the original release of Timeless Time & Expense.

Worlds colliding or the nexus of the universe?????