Innovative time management with Fanurio

Master Data

In the next step, you create the master data. To do this, press the button on the far left of the buttonbar to create a new customer. In the separate dialog that now opens, enter all relevant customer data in the individual tabs. Then press the Create button. The new customer now appears on the left in the tree view in the main window.

The next step is to enter your first project. Open the dialog for this by clicking on the second button from the left in the buttonbar. Fanurio breaks projects down into individual tasks, which it processes chronologically. Before you create a project, you will therefore need to consider which subtasks it includes.

If, for example, you have to travel within the scope of the project, then the travel costs can be recorded directly in the project (if the invoicing module is activated) and later invoiced to the customer. The dialog for entering a project is clear-cut. In addition to the customer, you only need to enter a project name, which can be supplemented with comments in a free text field if required.

If you have already created some customers, select the project's name from a selection list in the project's entry dialog. Then click on the third button from the left in the toolbar to switch to the entry dialog for tasks. There you first enter a name and then select a corresponding category in a selection field, assuming you have created this category during the initial configuration.

If there is no suitable category yet and it seems worthwhile to categorize the task you just entered, then create a new category with the New link to the right of the task. Enter some information about the task in a free text field. Then you can record the time you spent working on the project; first define the start of the task, its duration, and any breaks in the Time: line using the New Time link.

In the task window, instead of showing the start time, Fanurio shows the duration of the task. In the Estimated time: field, enter a time estimate if required. If there is a due date, this can be defined with a mouse click using a displayed calendar. Then click on Done in the lower right-hand corner of the window to complete the task entry. In the main window, Fanurio now displays the entered task in a tabular view in the right large segment (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Thanks to several tabs, Fanurio can also be used to manage extensive tasks clearly.

In the Tasks tab, Fanurio only shows you the date and the expected time for completion of the task. More detailed information on the individual project tasks can be found in the Timesheet tab. This tab also contains a task description, if you entered one, and the scheduled start time for the task.

To enter further time entries, tap on the small + button bottom center in the program window below the timesheet. To the right, you can see how many tasks a project contains and how much time has been allocated to complete them.

Stopwatch

If you want to record the times for individual tasks automatically, start the timer by clicking on the Start New Timer button in the middle of the main window. While you are working on the task, the timer runs in the background. To take a break, press Pause timer, and after completing work on the task, click Stop timer.

While you are working, the application window can be minimized by clicking on the Switch to Mini Timer entry in the View menu for the timer display. Clicking on the enlarge button on the right in the mini timer lets you restore the original program window.

As soon as you stop the timer, Fanurio displays an input window in which you type the necessary information about the task you just completed. Then press the Add button, bottom right. Fanurio then adopts the corresponding entry into the timesheet. At the bottom right of the window, the software totals the time for all entries so that you always have an overview of the time spent on the current project.

In the timesheet, Fanurio summarizes the individual processing times for each task. If there are several time entries with the same task name in the timesheet, they are not displayed individually. Instead, the times are totaled for the entry. In this way, you can quickly gain an overview of which tasks are taking longer than expected.

If you open the Tasks or Timesheet tab instead of the Projects tab, you can see the available data over the entire width of the window. The project tree on the left side of the project view, which groups the projects by customer, is not shown in these views.

However, the Client:, Project:, Task:, Date:, and Finish: links let you filter the task and timesheets, thus improving clarity, especially when working with a team or with many entries in the tables.

Reports

For accounting, Fanurio offers the ability to group activities and their time requirements in reports, print these in a visually appealing way, and save the results in PDF or HTML format so that the reports can be opened across platforms and applications.

In the Reports menu, choose one of the available alternatives: Project Report…, Time Report…, or Task Report…. In each of these cases, Fanurio opens a new window with a settings bar on the left and the report on the right in the larger window segment (Figure 4).

Figure 4: For a better overview and customer presentations, Fanurio creates graphical reports.

The application displays the project and task reports in a clearly structured table, while the time report visualizes the collected data graphically in a bar chart and a pie chart. Top right in each report window, there are three buttons that you can use to close the window, print, and export the report.

In the export dialog, you can specify a view option next to the format and location if you have designed your own report templates. By default, Fanurio uses the integrated templates, which can be manually supplemented with customized layouts. Then select the desired template from the Template: option's drop-down menu.

Links in the report windows allow Fanurio to limit the selection: Reports can be sorted by project or by date. If there are several templates for a report form, select the desired template from the Template list on the left side of the report window.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News