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Last updated on 10/11/2009.
Q: What is the Time 2.0 Service?
A: The Time 2.0 Service is an easy to use online time tracking and
reporting service for business and personal use.
Q: Who was the Time 2.0 Service created for?
A: The Time 2.0 Service was created for individuals and businesses in
need of an intuitive, maintenance free time tracking and
reporting. The Time 2.0 Service is designed to support the time
tracking and reporting needs of accounting firms, law firms,
professional consultants, trade contractors and in-house corporate
service organizations.
Q: How does the Time 2.0 Service differ from other time tracking services?
A: The Time 2.0 Service differs from most time tracking services in the way that it
tracks time utilization. The Time 2.0 Service provides an intuitive interface for capturing
meta-data about your transitions from one activity to another.
We call this meta-data time entries. (See FAQ about time entries below) This method of time utilization capture
is much more accurate than traditional time sheet interfaces.
Q: How does the Time 2.0 Service work?
A: We've set up a How It Works page to address this frequently asked question.
Q: How much does the Time 2.0 Service cost to use?
A: The Time 2.0 Service is provided free of charge to individual users.
For a small monthly fee (see Terms of Use page
for more information), you can utilize the Time 2.0 Service's
business account features. The Time 2.0 Service's business account
features include the ability to add additional users to your account.
The ability to create account level categories and the ability to
generate time utilization reports for multiple users at the same time.
Q: How do I pay for the Time 2.0 Service?
A: On the first day of each month, a PayPal invoice is sent via email
to the super user of active Business accounts. The amount
invoiced is equal to the number of active users on the first day of the
month for the given business account multiplied by the posted rate per
user count. The posted rate per user count can be found on the
Terms of Use page.
Q: What is the difference between a business account and a
personal account?
A: The Time 2.0 Services provides users with two account structure
choices. The first is a personal account. This type of
account provides time entry and reporting functions for an individual.
The second type of account is a business account. This type of
account provides time entry and reporting functions for an organization.
See the Compare Account Features page for a detailed break down of business versus
personal account features.
Q: Where can the Time 2.0 Service be used?
A: The Time 2.0 Service can be used anywhere a browser and active
internet connection are available.
Q: What types of browsers does the Time 2.0 Service
support?
A: The Time 2.0 Service is built and tested primarily on Microsoft
Internet Explorer and Apple Safari. The Time 2.0 Service has also been tested on
Firefox. If you notice incompatibilities with your browser,
please report them to time2dot0.support@xilution.com.
Q: When is the Time 2.0 Service available?
A: The Time 2.0 Service is generally available for use 24X7X365;
however, Xilution, Inc. does reserve the time period between 8:00 pm
and 12:00 pm U.S. Central Time on Sunday nights as a window for system
maintenance.
We will notify users via a message with outage details on the Time 2.0
Service's Home page.
Q: Does the Time 2.0 Service offer an API (Application Programming Interface)?
A: The Time 2.0 Service offers business subscribers programmatic access through SOAP
compliant web services. See theWeb Service Interface page
for more information.
Q: What is a time entry?
A: A time entry is the Time 2.0 Service's means of capturing time
utilization information. To track time, a user creates a time
entry at the start of a trackable activity. For instance,
let's say I was working on project A but am now switching to
project B, I would create a time entry in the Time 2.0 Service through
the Time Entry page that states that I "transitioned" to
Project A at a given time. The time entry allows me to capture a
description of what I was doing while applying time to a given
category.
Q: What is a category?
A: A category is the Time 2.0 Service's means of applying context
to time utilization. The Time 2.0 Service offers two types of
categories. The first type of category called an account category is created at the
account level. These categories are available to all users in a
given account. The second type of category called a personal category is created at the
user level. These categories are only available to a given
user. This arrangement allows individuals and organizations to
maintain their own distinct categories.&nbps; The Time 2.0 Service recommends
that you use a dot-delimited category naming pattern (a.b.c).
Q: How do I track time per client, project and/or task with
the Time 2.0 Service?
A: The Time 2.0 Service works best when you use a dot-delimited category naming pattern (a.b.c).
This provides you with an extremely flexible interface for capturing
time utilization. For instance, if you track time by client, project and task,
use a category naming structure like this client.project.task. The
Time 2.0 Service uses regular expressions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression) to filter time utilization
report data.
Q: Why dot delimited category naming structure?
A: The Time 2.0 Service will function with just about any
category naming structure you can dream up. We like the dot delimited notation for
report filtering purposes.
Q: What is a time summary roll-up?
A: If you are using the recommended dot-delimited category naming pattern (a.b.c), a time summary
roll-up up shows how you use your time at a higher level. For instance, if you spent an hour
on category a.b and an hour on a.c, the time summary roll-up would show that you spent one hour
on a.b and a.c each. The time summary roll-up would also show that you spend two hours on category a.
The time summary roll-up feature is available to both personal and business level accounts on the
Daily Time Summary page by clicking on the
Roll-up Time Summaries link.
Q: What category name should I give to personal activities?
A: We suggest you use the dot delimited notation to categorize personal time. For instance,
use personal.home for capturing time entry data when you transition from work to home.
Use personal.lunch for capturing time entry data when you transition from work to lunch.
Q: How do users enter time utilization into the Time 2.0
Service?
A: Users access the Time 2.0 Service via the Log
In page. The Log In Page provides the user with two options, 1)
create a quick time entry (default) or 2) go to the Home Page.
By selecting option one, the user is taken directly to the Time Entry
Page. The user will see a time entry automatically created for
them. By selecting option two. The user is taken directly
to the Home Page.
To create a new time entry, the user should navigate to the Time Entry page. The user can then
enter a time, select a category and enter a description for a new time
entry. To create the time entry, the user should click on the
"Create Time Entry" button. I will become available
once any of the time, category or description fields have been filled.
Q: How does the Time 2.0 Service report
time utilization?
A: The Time 2.0 Service reports time in two ways.
First, the user can see a quick per day snapshot of their time
utilization by viewing the Time Summary Page. This will show how
the user has used their time between 12:00 am local time (as
determined by your browser's settings) and 12:00 pm for the
selected day. The user can browse to different days through the
time controls at the top of the Time
Entry page or Time Summary page.
Second, the user can generate aggregated reports of time utilization
by visiting the Reports page.
This page allows the user to select a range of dates, define a
category filter and select a report type. Super users can select
multiple users to include in the report generation.
Q: How do I add, modify or deactivate users from my Time
2.0 Service account?
A: Account super users can add, modify or deactivate account users via
the Manage Users page.
Q: Is Time 2.0 available on my mobile device?
A: Yes! We offer a mobile web version and an iPhone client.
We plan to release a Blackberry client during the fourth quarter of 2009. See our
Mobile Clients page for more information.
Q: Can I access the Time 2.0 service on behalf of
another user?
A: If you are a super user, you can access the Time 2.0 Service on
behalf of another user. The Time
Entry By Proxy page allows for the look up of other users in the
account. By clicking on another user in the table, you can use
the Time 2.0 Service as if you were that individual. This
is a handy feature for supervisors that want to review an individual's
time usage or office administrators that track time information on
behalf of others in their organization.
Q: How do I deactivate my Time 2.0 Service account?
A: To deactivate your Time 2.0 Service account, please send an email
to time2dot0.support@xilution.com
requesting that your account be deactivated. In order to better
support our existing accounts, please indicate why you have decided to
deactivate your account.
Q: What is the duration of a Time 2.0 Service user
session?
A: Time 2.0 Service sessions will timeout after 10 continuous hours of
inactivity.
Q: I really like the Time 2.0 Service and would like to help spread the word. How can I help?
A: Add a link to your website. We greatly appreciate the referral!
Q: What is the inspiration behind the Time 2.0 Service?
A: The Time 2.0 Service is the product of a frustrated software developer.
Like many other software developers, he worked for a company that required him to
submit weekly time utilization reports in time sheet format. These time sheets
asked the developer to enter time utilization to multiple tasks on a per day basis.
The challenge with this method lay in the fact that the developer would frequently switch
between a number of tasks throughout the day. Providing his employer with accurate
time utilization reporting was extremely difficult. In order to meet his employer's
expectations, the developer would make notes about his transitions
between tasks. These notes would include the time of the transition, the
task the the developer was moving from and the task the developer was moving to.
At the end of the week, the developer would aggregate
the time allocated to each task per day and enter this information into the time sheet program.
The developer thought there had to be an easier, more accurate way to capture time
utilization and report it to his employer. The developer, being a creative, ambitious guy,
wrote a program that captured the same information that he was logging in his notebook.
The program was written to quickly and accurately aggregate this task transition meta-data into a meaningful
format for reporting to his employer. The developer thought the concept
could benefit many more people, so he decided to share it with the world as an
online service.
Q: When was the Time 2.0 Service first launched?
A: The Time 2.0 Service was first launched in 2007.
If you have a question don't see addressed here, please do
not hesitate to send an email to time2dot0.support@xilution.com.
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