I built this to get a little better sense of how I spend my time at my desk. It started as a part of 1PPM but took longer than expected to get into shape.
I've been keeping track of how much time I send "working" (in front of my computer) and productive time that's not billed (learning, reading, networking, pro bono) for the last month or so. There's no great way in Harvest to see this kind of break-down. There's also not an easy way at a glance to see total billable time for the week or month, both of which are important for me to keep track of.
This uses browser storage to keep track of saved information, such as auth data and total hours worked (if you choose to log those). While this works well to get started quickly and keep your data private, it's also a little fragile since it can be wiped clean easily and no simple way to export what's there. Also, because of how Harvest's authorization works, you have to re-auth daily. I made this a little easier by saving the auth data needed and redirecting when the auth token expires.
Last thing to note is that this needs a valid, public URL for Harvest to authorize you so you can't run it on your local file system. If you're using Harvest, it's likely you have access to a server or have a local version running so I'm guessing this isn't going to slow many folks down.
Enjoy!
On the server you'd like to run this on, pull down the latest (adjust the path you're downloading to):
git clone git@github.com:joshcanhelp/harvest-billable-time.git ~/public_html/harvest-billable-time
Now, open the index.html file in your browser. You should get an auth error and be given a form for your client ID.
You get your client ID from Harvest itself like so:
- Login and click Settings on the top right of the admin screen
- Scroll down and clikc the Authorized OAuth2 API Clients button
- Click the green New Client button
- Give your app a name, then drop the URL from your browser into the "Website URL" and "Redirect URI" fields.
- Click Save Settings
Copy the Client ID number, paste it into the form from above, and click Authorize. You should see a screen from Harvest, click Authorize and you'll be redirected back to the app with today's totals showing:
Click on Weeks to see the weekly total and load more weeks:
One thing to note here. If you get an error when loading new weeks, it's likely because you have an archived project in your timesheet. You can re-open the project and re-load the list to see that week's data.
By default, you'll see your billable hours and non-billable hours in a status bar of the day and then rolled up into a week. If you're tracking time on accounting, bookkeeping, pro bono, or other unpaid work along with billable time, you'll see that break-down.
But this tool is meant to go one step further and show your wasted time as well. That means you'll need to keep track of total hours worked during the day. If you're dilligent enough then a start and an end time would probably work but if you take coffee/tea/water/food breaks and talk to your family breaks and go walk around the block breaks (all of which help to fend off the Work From Home Crazies) then you'll probably want to keep a little closer track.
I track total time in front of a computer manually. When I sit down in the morning, I write that time down immediately. Maybe I read a few sites, maybe I shuffle around papers, or maybe I get right to it but the day's timer is already running. If I take 15 minutes off, I'll keep the "timer" running and just note that I was away for 15. If I stop for an extended period of time, I'll write an end date for the first period, then another start date when I'm back. Notes and archives without this app look like this:
This is definitely extra work but I see it as worth the time to remind myself both that I need to hit a certain number of hours and show myself how much time I lose to the internet.