sophiedennis's dashboard

I would like to speak out in support of Toggl here.

I have personal experience of losing cloud-based data as a former Magnolia user - which suffered catastrophic data loss in January 2009. Relying on *any* web-based service's continuing availability is risky, regardless of whether the service is based on open-source software or not. Anyone using web-based services to store critical data - whether it's timesheets in Toggl, email and documents with Google, or a hosted blog at WordPress/Blogger - should take responsibility for keeping an accessible backup of their data in case something goes wrong with that service.

The real issue is whether you have access to your data in an open format. Toggl do not require you to export your data in a proprietory format, or even cumbersome XML. You can download all your task data as a CSV at any time.

I download a CSV of all our timesheets at the end of each month (using an ungrouped task report), and have set up weekly summary reports which are emailed to me as an extra backup. No, I can't manipulate the CSV data as neatly as I can using Toggl's reports, but that's part of the value of Toggl's service - along with its excellent tools for recording timings in the first place. Nonetheless if something catastrophic should happen to Toggl, I still have my data, it's in a standard easy-to-access format (CSV) and with some work could readily "make sense" of it in a spreadsheet.

If you are really worried you are, of course, free not to use Toggl. There are other timesheet solutions out there you are free to choose instead. Just as Toggl are free to release their software in any way they choose. I consider the quality of the tools Toggl provide - for free - to be invaluable and well worth using for as long as the company are willing and able to make them available.

Thanks!

This was on my wish-list too. We're ditching our over-expensive accounts software and I was wondering if I could use Toggl to keep proper track of what we've billed and what we haven't. Just looked at the new Tags system for this, and it looks perfect.

Thanks again for a great tool guys!

Sophie

Just seen the new reports in v1.2. Looks fantastic and just what was needed. Great work!

Same problem. Timer unable to login. Lost all my hours for last two days recorded using Desktop. Not happy.

Invoicing might be a feature which would prompt me to upgrade to the premium plan, as we've recently ditched our OTT accounting package and gone back to manual invoicing (!). However, I'm a fan of picking a core purpose and sticking to it - in your case tracking time - and not getting distracted by becoming an invoicing app/project management app. But how about doing the 'heavy lifting' for people to get your API integrating Toggl data with Basecamp, Freshbooks, Blinksale etc...

I think more flexible and customisable reporting would be a big improvement. I've made my own work arounds for some of the issues - I give every project a project number, then I can filter task reports based on that number to just give me the time of each project. I like to view project stats by task, not user (so I can double-check if there is anything in there that should/shouldn't be billable), so I'd like the option to set the 'project statistics' screen to sub-divide by task instead (or have the 'task' screen aggregate by project). As it is I need to use two different reports.

I'd also echo Offlead's request to be able to view all time spent on an individual project, without worrying about whether you've accurately caught the whole timeframe. If this was visible right there on the 'Project' screen - so I could just login and get an instant view of total time spent on a project against planned time - that would be fantastic!