Time tracking blog

Does your business operate with mobile crews? If so, this new feature is sure to please. You can now clock in other users via a text message (if you are an admin or manager of those people).

All you have to do is send your text message as usual, but add @username for each user that you want to perform the clock-in/out for. Let’s view a few examples. If you’re new to text messaging with TSheets, be sure to check out our wiki page on Time Entry Using Text Messages.

• You want to clock in user1, user2, and user3 to the ‘construction’ job code – easy:
  • t in construction @user1 @user2 @user3

• You want to switch user2 and user3 to the ‘cleaning’ job code:
  • t in cleaning @user2 @user3

• You want to add a note to all three users’ timesheets (make sure you don’t put the usernames after the ‘notes’ keyword, else we’ll just include them as part of the note and only put it on your own timesheet):
  • t @user1 @user2 @user3 notes Everyone worked hard today

• You want to clock user1, user2, and user3 out:
  • t out @user1 @user2 @user3

• What if you want to include yourself in the list of people you’re clocking in or out? Just use @me to indicate yourself:
  • t in construction @user1 @user2 @user3 @me

This is a really powerful feature and we believe you’ll agree that it is a real time saver. Have a crack at it and let us know what you think!

Service Outage Notifications
Recently we’ve received requests from people wanting a way to instantly find out when we’re having any sort of service outage. As mentioned in the previous post we’ve set up a Twitter status page. Want to receive instant text message alerts whenever we update our status page? Here’s how.

1. Create an account on Twitter

• Go to http://twitter.com/
• Click the big “Sign Up Now” link
• Follow the instructions
• When it asks you to find your friends you may click the “Skip this step” link at the bottom of the page
• When it asks you to “Follow” people from the list of Twitter stars you may click the “Skip this step” link at the bottom of the page

2. Linking your cell phone to Twitter

• From your Twitter home screen, click the “Settings” link at the top right of the page
• Click the “Devices” tab
• Enter your cell phone number, check the box allowing Twitter to send you text messages, and click save
• Send a text message to Twitter (40404) with the confirmation code on your screen
• Great, you’re phone’s linked to Twitter!

3. Requesting text message alerts when we post updates

• Go to the TSheetsStatus Twitter page
• Click the “Follow” button
• Click the new cell phone icon that shows up where the follow button was

You’re done! Now whenever we post any sort of service issue you’ll instantly be notified via text message.

Quick Update
Yesterday afternoon our primary Text Message number, 68398, quit working. This was caused by a power outage at a major telecommunications datacenter that affected much of the city of Bellingham, WA. You can read the news article here: http://bit.ly/4iX3Iv

We Have A Backup Number!
Last time we had a text message outage we told you we were working on a backup plan. Well, we’ve got it. TSheets’ new backup text message number is 313131. It works exactly like our other 68398 number. There are two small things to note:

• You might need to send a text message with just the letter “T” to 313131 it before it will allow us to send replies to your phone.
• If you include the word “stop” anywhere in your text message it will unsubscribe you until you send another text message with just “T” in it.

Please continue to use 68398 as the primary number for texting to TSheets, but let everyone know about the backup number too.

Want Instant Notifications of Outages?
We have setup a new TSheets Status page on Twitter where we will be posting TSheets outage notifications in real time. You can even set it up to send you a text message anytime we post an update to that status page if you’d like. Here’s the URL: http://twitter.com/TSheetsStatus

• 2009-10-23: Status Update: Our primary 68398 number is working again!

What went wrong?
Midnight on Aug 26th our text message provider stopped forwarding your text messages to us. It turns out that they preformed a software update that caused all sorts of problems that affected not just TSheets, but several other companies using their services. We received no advanced warning that this software update was going to take place, and now almost 24 hours and dozens of phone calls later, they still don’t have things completely fixed. We are very disappointed with our upstream providers (Tatango and 4Info) and couldn’t be more sorry for the inconvenience this is causing.

It’s working! (mostly)
One of the things changed by our provider’s software update is they are now intercepting all text messages with the word “start” or “stop”. Since 95% of the text messages sent to TSheets are “t start” or “t stop”, none of those messages are getting to us. To work around this we have setup the new words “in” & “out” to replace “start” & “stop” respectively. So if you would have previously texted “t start at 0800″, you will need to replace that with “t in at 0800″ instead.

Confirmations may not work
If you happened to text “t stop” to us during the last 24 hours, chances are that we won’t be able to send messages back to your phone. Our provider is intercepting the word “stop” and blocking your number so that we can’t send messages to you. We don’t have a work-around for this yet, but will keep you posted.

A backup plan
Be assured that we are completely committed to restoring a reliable system for tracking your time via text message as quickly as humanly possible. We are working through the night researching other text message gateway providers and alternatives to get a reliable system in place. Expect another announcement in very the near future with backup number you’ll be able to text to.

Please call or email if you’d like more details or just feel like venting.

Brandon

• 2009-08-28: Status Update: Our provider will be applying a patch tonight. Read my update in the comments below.
• 2009-08-31: Status Update: Things are back to 100%! Read my update in the comments below.

We wanted to take a moment and introduce you to a feature of ours that has surprised us in its popularity.  Sending a text message is something that nearly every cell phone owner on this planet has done at least once in their lifetime.  And if you haven’t, I’ll bet that you’ve at least received a text message at some point.

Did you know that you can use a text message to clock in and out of TSheets?  Check out this video to see how easy it is.

Something you should know – when you install the Texting Addon in your TSheets account, you gain the ability to assign short codes, or aliases, to all of your job codes.  This means that instead of texting “T start Project WannaPayMe”, your life is simplified by being able to text “T start pw”.  And we even make it easy to print out a nice little SMS Cheat Sheet that contains a list of your job codes and their corresponding aliases, so that you can stick it in your wallet for easy reference when you’re traveling about.

Of course, we need to mention that you’re responsible for any charges on your phone plan related to text messages, but most plans include it nowadays.  Also, right now our texting addon is only available to customers who are able to send texts to a US short code.  However, we have plans for a way to accommodate all of our international customers out there.  Stay tuned!

The ability to send text messages to track your time has long been a staple in TSheets’ plethora of time keeping options.  However, if you have long job/task names you run the risk of developing something akin to ‘CrackBerry Thumb‘ with all of the typing involved!  I am extremely slow at typing text messages into my phone, so this latest feature comes with a huge sigh of relief.

Now you can assign aliases or ‘SMS Codes’ to your jobs/projects within TSheets.  This allows you to retain your long, descriptive job/project names and have an extremely short and simple label for use with your text messages.

First, make sure you have the SMS add-on installed.  Then, to assign SMS Codes to your jobs/projects, open up the Job Codes management window (in the left-hand menu in the main interface).  Edit a job code, and you’ll see an additional field available now called ‘SMS Code’.  You can type up to 10 letters or numbers in here, no spaces.

Key Point! If you are using a tiered job/project model (i.e. Clients -> Projects -> Tasks), the SMS Codes you assign at Level 1 automatically get prepended onto the codes at Level 2, and both are prepended on to those at Level 3, etc.  See the following example.

Here I have a job code named ‘Animal Training’ at the top with an SMS Code of ‘at’, and then a child job code underneath that named Cheetah with an SMS Code of ‘c’, and finally another child underneath that named Running with an SMS code of ‘run’.  You can see that the codes inherited from the parent job codes are reflected in the edit window for any given job code, so it makes it easy to see what you’ll end up with.  So, for this example, the SMS Code I would use to clock in to the ‘Animal Training / Cheetah / Running’ job code would be ‘atcrun’.

Once you get all of your SMS Codes set up, wouldn’t it be nice to have a cheat sheet to refer to while trying to remember them all?  We thought so too.  You can access a printable SMS Code Cheat Sheet by Clicking on the ‘SMS Integration’ link in your account and clicking on a link in the resulting window.  If you are an administrator who hasn’t set up their own phone for SMS within TSheets, you can access the printable Cheat Sheet by going to My Account -> Addons -> SMS -> Preferences, and clicking on a link from there.

Happy texting!

So we have a bug that may affect you if you use SMS to track your time.  If you have been strictly tracking your time via SMS (text) messages from your cell phone, you may have noticed that on your reports, your clock in/out times may be off by an hour since Daylight Savings Time changes occurred.

Don’t worry, it doesn’t change the amount of time you’ve recorded, it just affects how it shows up when editing or reporting.  Read on for details of why this is, and for what to do to fix it.

WHAT THE BUG IS
When you clock in to TSheets, we automagically detect what time zone you are in and record it in your timesheet record.  The problem is, we don’t have a good way of detecting your time zone when you’re clocking in from an SMS text message.  So, we look at what your time zone was the last time you clocked in, and just use that one again for the new record.  The problem is, if you only use SMS text messages to clock in/out, then you’ll forever be stuck in the same time zone, since we always grab whatever your last timezone was and stick it in the new records.  This leads to the problem where Daylight Savings Time comes and goes and your timezone may shift an hour – but SMS clock-ins continue to use the ‘old’ timezone which existed in previous records.  So now reports look odd because everything could appear off by an hour.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO FIX IT
The fix is actually quite simple.  All you need to do is log on to TSheets.com from your computer, and clock-in, then clock-out.  When you do this from a computer, we’ll be able to correctly detect and record your timezone.  From that point on, any clock-ins via an SMS text message will use the newly recorded timezone and everything in the reports will be right again.

If you have questions or you don’t have the luxury of sitting down at a computer any time soon, call us. We will fix it for you and/or walk you through how to remedy the SMS bug from a desktop.

You can also call or Email us to let us know if you’d like your timesheet records since the DST change to be adjusted to reflect the correct timezone.  You’ll just need to let us know what your timezone is, so we’ll know what date DST occurred and can get your timesheets fixed up for you.

WHAT WE ARE DOING TO FIX IT
Programming like crazy!  It is a bigger issue than just a few tweaks to the program & “poof” problem solved. Because it is a complex problem, it’s going to require a complex solution – but rest assured that we’ll have it resolved before our next DST change, so you won’t be required to do anything next time.

SUGGESTIONS?
We are open to making this work for everyone, if you think you have a solution, let us know!
As soon as we have this resolved, we will post here so it is always available.

Thanks,
The TSheets Team