Team vs. Personal Time tracking

Team Time Tracking is a workgroup practice (a set of methodologies and tools) which effectuates the organizational aim to meet the working plans by delivering actual results on-time. In team time tracking you need to keep control on how effectively working hour are allocated and utilized by every person in your team so that their performances can be consolidated into a report of a higher level that shows you the overall picture over your project.

Personal Time Tracking is a practice that can be employed by any individual, whether in home or professional practice, to investigate how effectively the time flows by. It is a question of experience how you prefer to measure and fill your time with value, but while it is assumed that a man who is rigorous in planning his tasks can accomplish more, it is absolutely not necessary to plan just every minute of your time, but you rather need to set correct priorities.

Requirements for Software:

Good example of teamwork practice is an approach practised in many companies (whether big, small or medium), so reasoning from this assumption we can outline the following requirements which are critical of satisfaction for teamwork software:

• Staff tracking schedules: timesheets, timetables of tasks & shifts, calendars, etc;
• Agile monitoring capabilities: possibility to call for reporting on work at any moment of time;
• Real-time tracking for teams: data should be delivered from the “field” to superiors and analysts immediately, without any delay, and therefore instantly recorded into the system;
• Time tracking of employees’ matters: daily working hours, wages and overtimes, productivity, etc;

Requirements for Software:

Needs of personal tracking can differ from one individual to another, and perhaps we shouldn’t mention about categorizing, prioritizing or sorting your tasks, which are must have for every good piece of software, but here we would like to outline something that really makes sense.   The best software should include the following capabilities:

• Personal time tracking online access: when you are a person who travels a lot, let’s say a businessman or student, it is desirable for your individual solution to be accessible through the Internet;

• Personal free tool: everyone searches for free software, and there is a big number of free (or semi-free) programs that can satisfy basic needs (along with exposing you as a user to risks of different unfixed “bugs” disrupting your data); 

Software that can be used in multi-user time tracking practice:

VIP Task Manager is software that is specifically designed for time and tasks management, whether in team or for sole individuals. This is not personal time tracking freeware, but a commercial effective tool that enables both individuals and project team members to benefit from using it. It can be used for an agile time tracking, as it provides you with three agile modes to manage workloads of employees – Task List, Task Tree and Calendar. Directing your staff’s efforts can be facilitated by using VIP Task Manager – client-server software for assigning tasks to doers in real-time regime via LAN or Internet, reporting statuses of delegated tasks, controlling progress over them and productivity of team members, etc.