Desktop applications
Windows, macOS and Linux. A desktop app rather than a browser tab, because it has to keep tracking when the network drops and keep capturing when the tab would have been closed. It updates itself.
Time tracking with a record that holds up.
A timer, a project, and a screenshot every so often while the timer runs. That is the whole idea. It turns “six hours on the rebuild” from a claim into something you can show.
Screenshots are the sensitive part. Who can see them and how long they are kept is in the privacy notice.
What problem this solves
An hour you cannot evidence is an hour you end up discounting.
If you bill by the hour, the awkward conversation is always the same one. The client looks at a number and asks what it was. You remember roughly. They remember differently. You knock something off to keep the relationship, and the discount comes out of your week, not theirs.
A timer alone does not fix it. A timer is a number you typed. The timer plus a trail of screenshots taken while it was running, attached to the project they belong to, turns the conversation into five minutes of looking at the work.
The same thing works internally. A small team reviewing a week honestly needs something more specific than a total, and something less invasive than asking people to narrate their day.
The sensitive part, said plainly
It takes pictures of your screen.
While a tracked session is running, TimeTracer captures the screen at an interval your workspace administrator sets. It does not capture when the timer is stopped. The desktop app shows you that a session is running while it is running.
Links to the images are signed and time-limited, so a URL that leaks stops working rather than becoming permanent.
Whoever administers your workspace can see them, and nobody outside it can. If you want the whole list of what is collected, why, how long it is kept and how to have it removed, that is a document and not a sentence: the TimeTracer privacy notice.
- When
- Only while a tracked session is running.
- Who sees them
- You, and your workspace administrators.
- Where they live
- On our own systems. The privacy notice has the detail.
- Links
- Signed and time-limited, not permanent URLs.
- Turning it off
- A setting, not a special request.
What you get
A desktop app, a dashboard, and the parts in between.
A web dashboard
Projects, sessions, screenshots and reports in the browser. This is where a week gets reviewed and where an administrator looks at what a session actually contained.
Live session view
A running session appears in the dashboard as it happens, over a persistent connection rather than a page you keep refreshing.
Digests by email
An optional summary email. Off unless you turn it on.
Browser notifications
Opt-in push for a running session and for the things worth interrupting you about.
Your data, exportable
Time data comes out in a form you can use elsewhere.
Who it is for
And who it is not
It suits you if
- You invoice by the hour and have had the awkward conversation.
- You run a small team that bills client work and needs the record to be checkable.
- You want the evidence to exist for your own sake, not only the client's.
It does not suit you if
- You want to monitor employees rather than evidence billable work. The product can be used that way. We would rather you did not.
- You bill fixed-fee and nobody ever asks what the hours were.
- Your team has not been told that capture is on. Tell them first.
Pricing
Not published yet
There is no published price for TimeTracer yet. Email timetracer@muslimspot.com and you will get the current answer.
When there is a price, every charge will be visible before it happens. Renewals will not be a surprise. Cancelling will take no more steps than signing up. We will charge for the work the product does rather than for what you could be pushed to tolerate.
There is no promise that a price never changes. The commitments in full.
Questions
About TimeTracer
- How often does it take a screenshot?
- Only while a tracked session is running, at an interval set by whoever administers your workspace. Stop the timer and it stops. There is no capture outside a running session, and the desktop app shows that a session is running while it is.
- Who can see my screenshots?
- You, and the administrators of the workspace the session belongs to. Nobody outside that workspace. Screenshot links are signed and time-limited, so a copied URL stops working rather than becoming a permanent public link.
- Can I use it without screenshots?
- Yes. The timer, the projects and the reports work with capture turned off. You lose the visual record, which is the thing the product exists for, so most people do not, but it is a setting and not a condition of use.
- Does it work offline?
- The desktop app keeps tracking when the network drops and uploads when it comes back. It is a desktop application, not a browser tab that stops when the connection does.
- Can I get my data out?
- Yes. You can export your time data, and you can ask for everything to be deleted. The privacy notice sets out where the data is held and which other companies are involved.
TimeTracer is available today.
Questions about TimeTracer go to timetracer@muslimspot.com.