Our experience shows that almost 50 percent of all bookings are entered after the fact. In concrete terms: about half of the time a team is supposed to log is not recorded at the moment it occurs - but later (for example before the weekend).
Pure timer tools are not ideal for exactly this booking pattern: start, forget, correct, or start over. The classic Redmine booking form is not suitable either (one entry per day, per issue).
With the Redmine Timesheet Plugin, we provide a plugin that supports both patterns equally: a weekly timesheet as a grid and a timer for real-time recording.
Two ways to the same goal
Practice has shown that there are two kinds of time recorders in any team:
The real-time tracker. Starts with the issue, clicks Start, works, clicks Stop. The timer is visible in the account menu on every Redmine page, can be paused, resumed, and switches automatically when changing issues. By design only one timer per user runs at a time, to avoid inconsistent multi-bookings.
The Friday catch-up booker. Opens the timesheet on the weekend or right before the time billing is due, and sees a weekly grid: issues on the left, weekdays on top, hours in the cells. Issues are added through auto-completion, hours are entered, the form is saved. Done. Already booked entries are updated, empty ones are removed.
More than just data entry
Three features that make the difference in everyday work:
- Linked totals. Every daily, row and weekly total in the grid is a link to the filtered standard view Spent time. From overview to detail in just two clicks.
- Copy previous week. A single button is enough to take over issues, activities, hours and comments from the previous week into the current grid. That saves time.
- “All users” team overview. A read-only weekly matrix with all bookings per user and day - ideal for team leads.
If you also use our Redmine HRM Plugin, the timesheet automatically shows the daily and weekly target hours from the assigned working calendar, a progress bar per day, and an over-hours indicator as soon as the daily target is exceeded.
What you get out of it
A single booking does not take any longer than before - but per week and per employee, the plugin saves noticeable time, because there is no longer a need to switch back and forth between issues and days, repetitions are avoided, and the weekly review runs directly from the grid. Important: anyone who wants to catch up an entire week on Friday now has the right tool for the job.
Conclusion
Time tracking in Redmine does not get better just because there is the option of running a stopwatch, but because the user gets a clear weekly grid view that probably matches actual booking behaviour much better.
The Redmine Timesheet Plugin offers two ways to record effort bookings against issues: real-time tracking for some, a weekly grid with convenience features for others.