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Would it be possible to input elapsed time in hours, instead of intervals, on the timesheet?

Some of our developers seems to be more comfortable with inputting 3 hours instead of 08:15 to 11:15. In the current interface they need to find each case and edit it, and input the time under elapsed time.

Can an alternative interface be implemented?

Actually inputting elapsed time, instead of intervals, is more in line with Joel's old article on Painless Software Schedules, but that is just a side note :-)

Fog Creek Case FC1923256

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1 Answer

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I always recommend that people use the "Working On" feature, usually in conjunction with the AutoAssign plugin, rather than manually enter time. You can even find a System Tray application to change your "Working On" here. The benefits come down to efficiency and accuracy; you don't spend time editing your timesheet and you don't risk messing up your EBS through typos.

To answer your question, though, I think this fits better as a plugin rather than a native feature. We have to carefully balance the complexity of FogBugz, both in code and in user experience, with the value that each feature provides. This is twice as important when new features introduce new settings and new knobs to twist. While this feature adds value, I'm not sure it adds enough to counter-act the complexity it would generate. As a plugin, however, it can selectively add value to only the people who want to see it.

But maybe I'm wrong! We're always willing to take a second look at a feature that gets a lot of up-votes or that is frequently requested (make sure you up-vote the question and not the answer). Many of the features we implement start as suggestions posted here.

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I totally understand that you guard the user experience - it's why we like FogBugz. I will just have to wait and see if others is going to up-vote this question. Or convince a developer to create a plugin. Thanks for you answer! – Emil Rasmussen Jul 29 2010 at 11:50
I dont want to use EBS, just be able to log time. Especially in the case where I use FB for support type work. – Louis van Alphen Jul 30 2010 at 9:08
I understand your arguments, but I can't see why you don't use hours, instead of time intervals, which is much simpler (one field per registration, instead of two, where one should keep track of the clock) for our developers. Or at least gives the user an option to swich or thoose, how to enter timer when editing timesheet. – Casper Feb 10 2011 at 20:38
This was the only reason, that we couldn't get our developers to get used to FogBugz, since most of the uses a pice of paper to track their day - because of a very changeable day, with many meetings, phone calls, support, debugging and of cause development tasks. With this relative simple feature, everyone would be happy. And we would go back to FogBugz. :) – Casper Feb 10 2011 at 20:38

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