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.

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.

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.

Task Decomposition

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"

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.