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Working on a FOSS tool to convert raw work time data into a clean report for your boss or client. Any interest?
(lemmy.sdf.org)
It's almost done (it would take one or two weeks to clean it up for FOSS release). It's a CLI tool. It works great for my use case, but I'm wondering if there's any interest in a tool like this.
Say you have a simple time-tracking tool that tracks what you do daily. The only problem is that there are gaps and whatnot, which might not look nice if you need to send it to someone else. This tool fixes pretty much all of that.
Main format is a JSON with a "description", and either "duration" or a "start"/"end" pair. It supports the Timewarrior format out of the box (CLI Time tracking tool).
Hey, thanks for the comment. I get that it might be used for something shady, but that’s not the intention. The primary goal is to clean up raw time-tracking data into a format that’s easy to present to clients or supervisors, especially for contexts when small gaps or irregularities should be absent.
I imagine most professionals aren’t expected to account for every single minute of their workday. For example, if you’re switching tasks or taking short breaks. It’s more about reporting general productivity or overall progression of tasks, not trying to inflate hours.
Anyone aiming for 'time fraud' could probably find easier methods. My focus is to make life easier for people who already track their work but want cleaner, more digestible reports.
Appreciate the feedback though, helps me make sure the use case is clear! :)
Pretending the most important use of bit torrent is Linux ISO's is the kind of cya that people giggle at.
If a candidate I am interviewing has a tool to change their reported hours to me or clients on their public GitHub? That person is radioactive no matter how many times they say "but don't do anything naughty wink wink"
Am I missing something? It looks like OP has to track their time and send it to a client or superior. What is wrong with making a tool to track your time over using excel? I'm sure if they wanted it through a specific end point they would have provided that.
The logic in the flowchart appears to take in data and mainuplate it based on normalization and ratios to fill the day. So it outputs a report with time that doesn't precisely match the tracked data, but looks nicer for the boss.
Exactly! My tool is designed to work with existing time-tracking tools by processing their output. You can think of it as a post-processor that helps clean up and format the data.
Since there are already plenty of time-tracking tools out there (both CLI and GUI), I wanted something that could act as a flexible add-on for them.
I guess if, as this person says, the intended use is made clear then presumably so long as the original logs from which the report was generated are retained then there shouldn't really be an issue. Make your nice, digestible reports that normalise over a workday and give a more grand overview of progress, and if they smell a bit too rosy or you just sometimes need a more granular accounting of time then clients/bosses can request the original raw data from the contractor/employee. Maybe this software itself should include some ability to retain a log of the processing that was done so that the relationship between its generated reports and the source data can be more clearly audited if some kind of a trust issue arises.
The hope I guess would be that you make it clear that this is a more executive summary style of report that you've added as a courtesy because it's more useful in context and that's hopefully enough for whoever you're reporting to but if they want more transparency or detail it's all there for them too.