Team Work In TimeCard Workgroup For Outlook V5

I am proud to announce that version 5 of TimeCard Workgroup has been published. This Outlook add-on was one of my earliest solutions, first developed for a Swedish town. It has been a joy to see it grow to the fully fledged time reporting tool we have today, thirteen years later.

Report where you plan
 The idea behind TimeCard is that you should report your time from the same place as you plan it. Then there will be no double entries, and the reporting will be quick and more correct. I developed TimeCard as an Outlook add-on, because many people already know Outlook and use the calendar to plan their time.

TimeCard makes it possible to add time reporting data to the Outlook appointments and to report the hours directly from the calendar to a database. A version for SharePoint calendars will be released in the beginning of next year, and it is built on the same idea – don't use a separate tool for reporting, when you can report from your planning tool.

Documentation update
As I have already given a presentation of the new version in an earlier blog about TimeCard Workgroup V5, I will not repeat myself here but instead show the updated introduction demonstration. On the TimeCard Workgroup Demonstrations page you can find more demonstrations, both for administrators and users.

The TimeCard Workgroup manual has been re-written, and we have also created a separate user manual where the administrator information has been removed.

Easier
I am really satisfied with version 5. The new design will make the central as well as the local configuration easier, and expenses feature now gives summaries in the Excel reports.

The user roles are made very clear: either you are an administrator and can see and change the global settings and the statistics for all – or you are a user and can only see your own personal settings and your own statistics. All depends on what setup file you have used when installing TimeCard Workgroup.

Many pieces put together
It never stops delighting me to see how the kalmstrom.com team members work together towards a common goal. We are now 15 people, and we have all been engaged in the TimeCard development. There are of course responsibility areas, but we often engage in each others tasks and the spirit is helpful and encouraging.

 The last weeks of a major product update, when everything is put together, are often hectic. That is the main testing phase, when our QA team keeps the developers busy with bug fixing and Kate "bullies" everyone to  try to get the new documentation ready in time for the release. Thank you all for your skill and dedication!



Upgrade or try
Current subscribers should already have received an e-mail from me, where I tell about the new version. Should you have missed it, please contact us for information and to request a new key for TimeCard V5. The new key is necessary to register version 5, but the upgrade should not be a problem. TimeCard will know that you have an earlier version and upgrade it when you run the installer.

Premium Members of the kalmstrom.com Community have also received their updated copies of TimeCard Workgroup.

Have you not tried TimeCard yet? If you need a tool that helps you keep track of how your staff spend their time, I suggest that you download the solution and try it for 30 days. With verseion 5 we have made the evaluation easier, as you can now make use of example data to see how TimeCard Workgroup works when in use. You are always welcome to contact us if you have questions!

By Peter Kalmstrom
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions