Time tracking blog

One of TSheets partners, Jott.com will no longer offer a free option as of February 2nd.  This will not effect current TSheets customers using Jott, as the integration services are only available to paying Jott.com customers.

The popular voice to text service moved out of Beta (does that make it gamma?) last August, and added a premium account for a low $4/month fee.  According to Jott, about 30 percent of active users have bought in to premium, no ads version of the service.

Jott.com CEO John Pollard confirmed that the free version will be history as of February 2nd, citing that the current global economic downturn, which in turn has lead to horrible conditions for online advertisers, just isn’t footing the bills anymore, and each Jott.com customer will have to pay their own way to use the service.  Pollard also notes that to meet the bottom line, Jott would have to be plastered with advertising, and that it would simply ruin the experience (and for this, I stand and salute you sir!).  This will also apply to Jott iPhone application users.  However, those of you out there using TSheets integrated with your Jott.com account are already on the $3.95/month plan, so there should be no service interruptions.

Although Jott is now asking users to pay up, that doesn’t mean they’re holding back on adding some new features.  Similar to competitors Spinvox, PhoneTag, and GotVoice, Jott will now be offering a voicemail-to-text feature.  This new feature will do just as it says, convert your incoming voicemails to texts that can be sent to you in a matter of minutes.  At the $4/month rate, you won’t get this functionality, but priced at the same amount as Jott’s competitors: $10/month.

Current Jott.com users can upgrade from their free plan before February 2nd, including a tasty 10% discount, by accessing their Jott.com account page, typing in JOTT and their phone number as the promo code for the annual plan, or PRO and their phone number for the annual Pro plan.

What if workers could clock in and out via their cell phones with simple voice commands?

“Clock me in on the 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Paving project. Note that I’m meeting with the client at 9.”

TSheets has recently completed integration with Jott, a voice to text gateway, that allows users to make simple toll-free calls to track their time.  The sentence above would clock the user in under the “1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Paving” project code, and attach the notes “I’m meeting with the client at 9″ to their work log.  Once the clock is running, confirmation is sent to the user via email or SMS text.  When the user wants the clock to stop, he simply makes another call.

Listen to an example Jott phone call:

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“… a new time tracking standard for mobile workers.”

Getting Started:

1. If you don’t have one already, setup a TSheets account
2. Click “My Account” and enable Jott from the “Add-ons” list
3. Click “Jott” from the main menu for additional instructions

Once an account administrator has completed these steps, any worker with the “Mobile Time Entry” permission can then link their accounts to Jott and start tracking their time.  Jott will ask them who they want to jott, confirm their answer, and listen for commands that tell TSheets what kind of action to take.

For more integration information, check out the wiki.

Example

You : Call Jott (866.568.8123)
Jott : “Who do you want to Jott?”
You : “TSheets”
Jott : “TSheets, is that correct?”
You : “Yes”
Jott : Beep
You : “Hi TSheets, please clock me in under the project code, meeting external, and attach the notes: meeting with Jim Stevens about bathroom remodel and proposal. Thank you.”
Jott : “Got it”

How does it work?

Jott translates your voice messages and sends the text to TSheets.  TSheets then analyzes the message, determines actions based on personalized project codes and key-words,  and then takes action for you.  If you’re not a reader but want the inside scoop, here’s my brain dump on it:

The Future Is Here

“Being able to just call in, clock in and be done gives me the flexibility I need to fight crime all around the world.”

Tony Stark (Stark Industries)

Now anyone can use their voice to clock in and out. Just like in the Marvel movie, Iron Man, you say the words and we know what to do. The Future is here.