Time Reporting From Outlook - Major Update Of Workgroup Version

The major update of TimeCard for Outlook will soon take its second step. The first step was taken when version 5 of TimeCard Single was released in November. The second step will be taken very soon, with the release of TimeCard Workgroup V5. Today I can show you the slide presentation.

Tag appointments with time reporting data
When you use TimeCard you work with the Outlook calendar as usual, but you also tag each appointment with values for one, two or three tags defined by the TimeCard administrator. Thus the appointments are converted into time sheets, and they can be reported to a database directly from within the Outlook calendar

No central installation
New for version 5 is that no central installation is needed for TimeCard Workgroup. If the organization uses an Access database for sharing and reporting, it has to be placed in a shared file server, but if the organization has an SQL Server the TimeCard database can be placed there.

Instead of having a central installation folder for the TimeCard files, there will be an installation on each computer, under Program files, and everything is shared via the database that is also used for reporting time.

Third step: SharePoint
As no central installation is needed in version 5 of  TimeCard Workgroup, we can now add an option that many current users have asked for: SharePoint. When a SharePoint site is used instead of a database, users can connect to this site via the internet and report from anywhere.

To be even more mobile, you can make use of a SharePoint calendar instead of the Outlook calendar! That will be the fourth step, and I will tell you more about it later.

Excel statistics
Version 5 of TimeCard Workgroup will have Excel reports instead of the earlier statistics tool. It will be easier for new users to learn and give good functionality.

On top of that we can make TimeCard show all statistics to administrators, which other users will only see their own statistics when pressing the same button. No permission settings are necessary. How much you can see will depend on if you installed TimeCard as an administrator or a user.

There will be three default reports per tag. When the Expenses feature is enabled – so that not only hours but also expenses can be reported via the Outlook appointments – there will also be a fourt report per tag that shows how the expenses have been distributed.

All Excel features may be used with these reports, and custom reports may be created from the TimeCard data. The custom reports will be refreshed with new data each time the statistics tool is run, just like the standard reports.

I hope my Excel tutorials will be a good help when users want to explore the TimeCard statistics reports.

New design
Please have a look at the slideshow below. If you are already using TimeCard you will notice that the design is new. I hope you will like it as much as I do!

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