Tracking API

Simple and free to use JSON API for time / location / whatever tracking. Read about it on Medium.com.

Demo & Visualization

You can use this JSFiddle to play around with the API and to visualize tracked actions. Feel free to customize it for your needs.

Example Usage

Follow this article to learn how to set this up as automated time tracking solution.

Time Tracking

The most obvious use case is logging how much time you've spent on a project:

1. Create a User ("Your Name")
2. Create a Topic ("Project Name")
3. Add an action each time you start working ("start")
4. Add an action each time you stop working ("stop")

You can use the collected data to analyse how much time you (or your team) spent on the project.

Location Tracking

You can also use the API to track when you arrive at or leave a location (for example the gym or your office):

1. Create a User ("Your Name")
2. Create a Topic ("Location Name")
3. Add an action each time you arrive ("arrive")
4. Add an action each time you leave ("leave")

You can use the collected data to check who's currently at the office or when you've been at the gym recently.

IFTTT Automatization

Of course you don't want to manually call this API every time. You can automatically trigger actions using IFTTT. I'd suggest using the Maker Webhooks, it allows you to fire web requests to this API. You could use the location as a trigger when you arrive at or leave the office.

Available API endpoints

All the API endpoints listed below are reachable at:

https://placetracking.appspot.com/api/v3/

Users

Adding a user

You can create users (no account required), simply by providing a name:

curl -X POST \
  https://placetracking.appspot.com/api/v3/users/ \
  -d '{
  "name": "John Doe"
}'

Make sure that you store the id of the returned user object, you will need it later (referred as userId).

Topics

Adding a topic

A topic is anything that you want to track, like time spent on a project or when you arrive at a place. You can create a new topic by providing a name:

curl -X POST \
  https://placetracking.appspot.com/api/v3/topics/ \
  -d '{
  "name": "Testing"
}'

Make sure that you store the id of the returned topic object, you will need it later (referred as topicId).

Actions

Adding an action

An action can bee seen as an event or indicator for a topic. You can create a new action by providing a name, your userId and a topicId:

curl -X POST \
  https://placetracking.appspot.com/api/v3/actions/ \
  -d '{
  "userId": 5629499534213120,
  "topicId": 5910974510923776,
  "name": "start"
}'

In addition to these 3 parameters, the API will also store the current timestamp. It's up to you what you select as name for your action, but you should define some constants for you (or your team). Common action pairs could be:

• start | stop
• pause | resume
• arrive | leave

Deleting an action

If you messed up for some reason, you just need to pass the action id to this endpoint:

curl -X DELETE \
  https://placetracking.appspot.com/api/v3/actions/ \
  -d '{
  "id": 5965499534513120
}'

Fetching actions

If you want to get a list of recent actions (which is the point of this API), you need to specify a userId or topicId (or both):

curl -X GET \
  'https://placetracking.appspot.com/api/v3/actions/?topicId=5707702298738688'

However, you can also combine them with some additional filters:

• name="start"
• minimumTimestamp=1468413570000
• maximumTimestamp=1468417170000
• count=50
• offset=25