Recently in New Releases Category

Timesheets Lite has just been updated to version 3.5.1. There's just a few things to mention about it here. First there was a very minor performance tweak made to the Employee Timesheet report. Secondly, the Detailed Activity Report has been pretty much re-written (again) with an aim to improve performance especially when the database is on a network. The final change is to fix a minor bug with the routines that import data from old versions of Timesheets Lite.

I've just released a minor update of Timesheets MTS taking the software to version 2.5.6. Here's the details of the changes made:

• Fixed a bug that could stop the program starting up properly if it was closed while minimized.
• Removed a rather pointless check when saving a non-billable time when the parent project/task were billable and non-billable fields were switched off via user preferences.
• Adjusted the form height of the add/edit times screen.
• When a project or task is copied the creation date and start/end dates are set to the current date.
• The right click "start timer for selected time" menu now works properly.
• The summary hours reports now only reports on projects and employees with activity during the report period.

I've spent most of the last week working on improving the performance of Timesheets Lite when it's using a network shared Microsoft Access database. Version 3.5.0 is the result. Here's a list of the changes in this new release:

• Much data on the Add/Edit Time screen is now pre-emptively cached to speed up loading.
• Many hours spent improving performance of the timesheet display when multiple times are displayed (think the unlikely case of 50+ times in a single day).
• Much time spent optimizing the process for loading large collections of times. This should result in much improved performance right across the whole program.
• Much time spent optimizing the time data object to pre-emptively cache project, employee, and activity data. Again should result in improved performance.
• Several single table queries have been replaced with cross tab queries to reduce the number of database accesses. Again, should result in program wide performance improvements.
• Most of the queries used by the employee timesheet report have been optimized or changed to cross table queries to speed up report generation.
• Time spent on the generation speed of the Detailed Activity report.
• Filter text box added to the Manage Projects screen.

I've spent the last couple of days working on Timesheets Lite focussing on improving performance in some key areas and adding some tweaks that have been suggested by users of the software. The result is version 3.4.7 of our employee timesheet software. Here's a list of the changes in detail:

• The time task checkbox has been removed from the Add/Edit time screen and replaced with a time task button.
• The icons for the Start / Stop timer buttons on the main timesheet have been changed.
• The login screen now only displays active employees.
• Added the "No Employee Posting" setting to the Project Information screen. When set the project cannot have times posted to it by Normal employees. Project managers and super users can still post times to the project.
• When setting the common activity of a time the description of the activity will automatically be added to the time description if there's no existing description.
• A couple of tweaks made to configuration file handling to speed up access for non-existent configuration settings/values.
• Complete re-write of the way various lists are populated. Those with very long project/employee/activity lists should see a decent speed improvement in screen loading time.
• Fix to monthly timesheet total when editing a timesheet for an employee other than the current logged in employee.
• Fixed the title on the Employee Timesheet report.

I've just uploaded Timesheets MTS Version 2.5.5. This new version includes the following changes:

• The project expense report now includes the expense incurred date.
• The current projects report can now display closed projects as well as open projects.
• The employee abbreviation field is now colored yellow as it is a required field when creating a new employee.
• <PROJECT_CUSTOMER_REFERENCE> field has been added to the detailed project task template.
• Fixed a bug with projects managers not being able to edit the projects they "own" when project manager security is turned on.
• Project charge rates are now hidden from project managers for projects they do not "own" when project manager security is turned on.
• Fixed up some resizing issues on various screens, including the project maintenance screen, the user maintenance screen, the contact maintenance screen, and the who is logged in screen.
• Project budget amounts are now updated correctly when task level budgets are changed.
• Current timesheet date is now displayed on timesheet travel, expense, and issues tabs.

Another new release of Timesheets Lite today. Version 3.4.6 now allows super user employees to edit the timesheets of other employees. The other minor change is to set the selected timesheet day to the current day when an employee first logs in. This will only really effect users who have multiple employees using the same computer to record their timesheet data.

Add / Edit Time Screen with Colors!

Happy New Year to all Timesheets MTS Software Blog readers! I've taken the opportunity given by the usual slow Christmas/New Year period to spend several days working on Timesheets Lite. I added a few new features in this release but most of the time was focussed on performance issues for users with very long project and employee lists. It was an interesting exercise that taught me two things. First, I am kicking myself for the truly dumb ways I tried to handle large datasets and the impact this had on performance. Second, I am amazed by some of the performance improvements I've managed to eke out. The best improvement is in the speed of display of the Employee Login Screen. Testing against my reference database gave a loading speed that was 80 times faster than previous versions.

Anyway, enough chatter, here's the details of all the changes.

• Common activities can now have a fore and back color. These colors are visible on the Manage Common Activities screen and on the activity drop down on the Add/Edit times screen.
• Project fore and back colors are now displayed on the project drop down on the add/edit time screen. See the screenshot above for what the add/edit time screen can look like.
• Use Non Billable Fields checkbox added to the Interface Options screen. When checked employees can mark a time as non-billable and will see a non-billable column on the employee timesheet.
• Project colors are applied correctly to the Manage Projects screen after an existing project's colors are changed.
• An internal system has been added to allow the addition of new tables and columns to the Timesheets Lite database.
• Much time spent working on the load speed of the employee login screen. Good performance improvements seen.
• Internal loading speed of employees improved greatly. Should reflect in better report generation times.
• Much time spend working on the Add/Edit Time screen for users with very long project lists (1000+ projects). Much of the data is now cached or pre-emptively loaded. While the first load of the Add/Edit Time screen may be a little slow for very long project lists subsequent loads will be much faster.

Timesheets Lite version 3.4.4 was released yesterday. This included two bug fixes. The first fixes a problem with the task timer. If the timer was paused and then the stop timer button was pressed the incorrect time could be recorded. The second bug occurred during the process for importing data from old versions of Timesheets Lite. A hard crash could happen if a user clicked the Cancel button when choosing an old Timesheets Lite database to import data from.

There's a few bug fixes in the latest release of Timesheets Lite. This includes a fix to the Print List buttons on the Manage Your Data screens. These screens are the Manage Common Activities, Manage Customers, Manage Employees, and Manage Projects screens. The only other change to this version was removing an instance of the old application icon from the Import Data screen.

As I am writing this Timesheets LIte Version 3.4.0 is being uploaded to our servers. Here's the details of the changes made to this version.

• Added the Non Billable Ratio Report.
• Added the Time Requirement Report.
• Added the Project Activity Summary Report.
• The employee password field on the Manage Employees screen is now masked with the * password character.
• Changed the application icon.
• Fixed the a field value on the Internal / External Time Report.