Version 3 is here!

If you've been to our website in the last month you've seen the changes and the news. Version 3 of Timeless Time & Expense and Timeless Project Tracking are now available.

Version 3 was released quietly on July 16th. We decided to launch quietly for a couple reasons. 1) It is summer and we didn't want to be forgotten due to vacations and 2) we wanted to make sure our systems were working to efficiently process upgrades. An 'official' announcement email will be sent in early September.

But, don't let that stop you. If you'd like to try or buy it now you'll find information and downloads on our website. Free and discounted upgrades are available for license users of previous versions.

One last note about our new website. We'd like to mention Sarah at PulpPixel who designed the new site. Sarah was fabulous to work with and as you can see, does a great job. Our final design exceeded all our expectations.

A feature I never thought I would use

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

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

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

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

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

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.