Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

[DynamicIT]

Hi Team,

For our own in-house use, we have developed a bit of software run from a command line (i.e. batch file or scheduled task) to compile a basic HTML report on an individual's Charged House for today (so far), yesterday, the day before, a 5 day average of charged hours, and a 90 day average. Days with 0 charges (i.e. weekends, sick days) are ignored, and today is not included in the historical average.

The current format is as follows (picture in your mind an HTML table):
- - - - - - - - - -
Billing Report For: Josh
Date 09/17/2014
Time 04:52 p.m.

Today - Previous Day - Prior Day - 5 Day Average - 90 Day Average - Daily Target
2.60 hours - 5.10 hours - 5.20 hours - 4.04 hours - 2.70 hours - 4.00 hours
- - - - - - - - - -

The HTML layout is customisable. Underneath the numbers there is an optional coloured line indicating whether you have met, are close to, or have missed your target. No installation is required. Just unzip the folder and modify the path to your CommitCRM database in the batch file.

If anyone is interesting in evaluating this for their own internal use, please let me know. Email mike@dynamicit.co.nz

We are also fine-tuning a bridge between CommitCRM and the Xero accounting package and plan to use it internally at the end of this month.

Cheers
Mike

[raymond]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

Nice one Mike!

Have you looked at the report: Monthly Hours Summary by Employee? That's what we use for this info.

I know folks have been asking about Xero support for some time...

//ray

[DynamicIT]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

Hi Ray

Yes I check that report occasionally.

My aim was to have the guys more self-managing with their hours. This emailed to them daily (perhaps twice daily?) reminds them to enter times, confirms they are on target, and potentially confirms they are on target for a bonus if their average hours are at a certain point.

Cheers
Mike

[DynamicIT]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

I've asked my developer for a final version 1.0 build of this utility as the last test build is working nicely.

The numbers now have optional colour coding as when the emailing utility was converting the HTML file into HTML content for the email, the coloured underlines were not coming through in Outlook 2013. GMail and Office365 webmail show the underlines properly.

I've had one request to try it. If anyone else is interested, let me know. The HTML output is easily customised as the output is based on a simple HTML template, so adding a logo, disclaimer, header/footer etc is quite painless.

Sample image (JPG file): https://dynamicitnz-my.sharepoint.co...0e62b32a355b0a

[raymond]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

how are the averages working? what's happening with weekends and holidays? How about days the employee is in the office but does not clock any billable time?

thanks --

//ray

[DynamicIT]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

It's a pretty simple beast.

Days with zero charges are ignored in all cases (covering weekends, days off for illness or annual leave). On a Monday for example, the previous day will be the Friday for most people and the Prior Day will be the Thursday.

5 Day Averages are calculated the last 5 days with charges. 90 Day Averages (this number is configurable) are based on days worked in the last 90 calendar days.

If there is demand, a future version could possibly include handling of half days (e.g. working Saturday Morning) and days with zero charged hours.

Cheers
Mike

[raymond]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

Simple is good. Our biggest gripe with the CommitCRM reports is that they do not account for days worked without billable time. This happens to us from time to time -- for various reasons, a tech is on-site but doesn't actually bill anything which means the averages are off. I've inquired about getting Commit to add a feature where we can manually add "hours worked" for the day but that hasn't been high on the proverbial feature list (if this were a field that could be added, we then could even run efficiency reports telling us billable hours vs. worked hours).

cheers!

//ray

[Support Team]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

@ray we're cooking something in this direction...

[DynamicIT]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

Fantastic.

If techs reported start and finish times for their day in CommitCRM (and we told them that their pay was based on these reports), and if at that time my little app is still useful, we could extract these times and use them for better reporting on (for example) half days worked.

I expect to make a public beta version of the above available within 48 hours.

Cheers
Mike

[DynamicIT]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

After a bit more testing and some refinements from the developer (and a few days in bed sick), I have rolled this out in-house this morning. For those who have requested a copy to try out, I'll send it off to you in 24 hours.

[DynamicIT]

Re: Add On - Daily Billed Hours HTML Report via Email

Initial feedback from my team is positive. The report is sent to them as the body of an email at 11am, 2pm, and 5pm so they can see how they are tracking throughout the day.

We are now considering a modest bonus system for exceeding basic hours.