Outlook Calendar TimeCard With Enhanced Meeting Request Handling

Do your team members use the Outlook calendar for time planning? Do they send meeting requests to each other every now and then? In that case you should take a look at TimeCard, the kalmstrom.com application for time reporting from the Outlook calendar. Today TimeCard has been updated with a new feature for smooth meeting request handling.

Tag Outlook calendar appointments with time reporting data
With TimeCard the team members use normal Outlook calendar appointments to report time and expenses. They just tag their appointments with Customer, Task, Project or other data selected from dropdowns, and that makes the Outlook appointments ready for reporting to the central database – still from within the Outlook calendar. To make it even easier for the team members the administrator can set some values as default, for example internal time.

Meeting request data automatically added
If one team member sends a meeting request with TimeCard data to other members who also use TimeCard, the same data is added automatically in the calendars for all the members who accept the meeting.

Say that Mr. Wachowski requests a meeting with Mr. Anderson and Mr. Smith to discuss a quotation for the ABC company. He tags the meeting request with ABC and Quotation. Mr. Anderson and Mr. Smith both accept the invitation, and that means that they will not only get the time and the place in their own calendars – with the new version of TimeCard they will also get ABC and Quotation without having to add it.

Reporting inside the Outlook calendar
No more work has to be done for the time reporting of this meeting. Everything is already there in the appointment. The reporting dialog is opened with a button that TimeCard adds to the Outlook calendar ribbon/toolbar, and with a click on another button this and all other appointments each team member wishes to report will be sent to the central database with all the data included.

Free upgrades for Members of kalmstrom.com Community
If you are a Community Member and already use TimeCard, you are welcome to upgrade your installation to get the new meeting request feature.

Is your organization a Member, but for another kalmstrom.com application? In that case you may use TimeCard too, without paying anything extra for it. We strive for a long relationship with our customers, and therefore we give free use of our products to Community Members. Just contact the kalmstrom.com sales department, and we will be happy to send you a registration key for TimeCard also.

Try it for two months
To give organizations a chance to try TimeCard with a monthly time report, we offer evaluators a trial period of 60 days with the same extensive support as we give to our Community Members. Welcome to download TimeCard for the Outlook calendar and give it a try. I am sure you will like it!

Use Outlook Meeting Requests For Time Tracking

With TimeCard for Outlook regular Outlook calendar appointments are tagged with time reporting data and used as time cards. Thanks to a sponsorship this data will now be automatically filled out when users accept a meeting request.

Select time reporting data from dropdowns
When you have TimeCard installed and you open an appointment in Outlook, it has dropdowns where you can select Customer and Task – or whatever values you wish to report on.

Categories in the settings help you to get more background information for the statistics, but you don’t have to bother with them in each appointment. Also the time reporting is done inside Outlook, and there are no double entries.   
  
Meeting requests with time reporting data
If one TimeCard user tags an appointment with TimeCard data and then sends a meeting request, the TimeCard values are not transferred to the calendar of the person who is invited. In the next version, though, we will add a possibility to handle meetings in an even smoother way than before.

When the new feature is enabled and a meeting request is sent to another TimeCard user, the TimeCard data from the invitation will be added automatically for the invited person when the meeting is accepted. Say Yes to a meeting, and you will at once have it ready for the time report!

Sponsorship speeds up development
The organizations who subscribe to the kalmstrom.com applications – we call them Members of the kalmstrom.com Community - are often very dedicated and interested in helping us improve the products. We get a lot of good suggestions, and when a Community Member is prepared to pay part of the development costs for a feature we want to add we usually make it a priority.

In this case we are grateful to Premium Member Hay Group, who sponsors this latest enhancement of TimeCard for Outlook.

Release by the end of April
Premium Members of the kalmstrom.com Community get their own copy of the kalmstrom.com product they use, a copy that has the Member organization logotype and does not need to be registered.

kalmstrom.com will give Hay Group the updated version of their TimeCard copy in the beginning of April, and it should take less than a month to update the other Premium Member TimeCard copies and also create a new version of the standard product. I will come back with another blog post about TimeCard for Outlook when all TimeCard users and evaluators can try the meeting request feature.

Use TimeCard And Report Time And Expenses Directly From Your Outlook Calendar

The kalmstrom.com Outlook application TimeCard is available in both a Single and a Workgroup version. Today we have released a minor update to fix a bug that showed when users opened a meeting request in a new window.
Tag appointments with time reporting data
When TimeCard is installed in a PC, the Outlook appointments get dropdowns for Customer, Project, Task or whatever is decided on by the user, and from these dropdowns the correct values for each appointment are selected. Also expenses can be added to the appointment. That way the Outlook calendar appointments are converted into timesheets that can be reported to a database – still from within the Outlook calendar.

TimeCard Single for one person
The Single version of TimeCard is intended for one person only. This user keeps everything in the PC, where TimeCard creates an Access database for the time reports. The settings dialog is reachable directly from Outlook, and it offers many possibilities so that you can easily configure TimeCard for your own personal needs.



TimeCard Workgroup for organizations
The Workgroup version of TimeCard has central reporting, to a Microsoft Access or SQL Server database. Later this year we hope to also add the option to report directly to a SharePoint site. The TimeCard administrator makes a central configuration and decides what properties should be reported on, but each user can also make personal choices and select to only show certain values – to not have so many to choose from.

Extra long trial
Many big companies and organizations have shown an interest in evaluating and using TimeCard Workgroup, but to really get a chance to try how it works for the employee time reporting many have needed more than the usual 30 days trial period. We therefore allow 60 days for TimeCard – for practical reasons also for the Single version.

Welcome to learn more about TimeCard! And if you already use TimeCard and have had a problem when opening meeting requests I recommend you to upgrade. Community Member organizations and Single Support customers have free upgrades, as always with products from kalmstrom.com Business Solutions.

Release of TimeCard for Outlook 4.4 With Report On Behalf Of

kalmstrom.com Business Solutions is happy to announce the release of TimeCard V4.4. The main new feature, Report on behalf of, is by its nature only for the workgroup version of TimeCard, but as there are some smaller improvements also we have published a new Single version too.

Report on behalf of
The latest new feature has been sponsored by the South African Community Member Hollard, and we are grateful for their support and confidence. The Hollard assistants and secretaries often need to report on behalf of other people, and with the new feature they can do that and still get the correct name into the statistics. Some of these people do not even have TimeCard installed!

It is very easy to use Report on behalf of. The administrator needs to check a box in the Common Settings dialog, and then a new dropdown with names will show in the Reporting dialog. So just go into the calendar you wish to report from, and report as usual. TimeCard shows by default the owner of the calendar as the first alternative in the new name dropdown, so normally you never need to touch it.

More info about TimeCard enhancements
I have written two earlier blog articles about the Report in behalf of feature, "Report on behalf of" feature added to TimeCard for Outlook and How TimeCard Can Report Time For People Who Don’t Even Use TimeCard, so please study them if you want to know more. Also refer to the TimeCard Revisions page for a full list of the improvements in version 4.4.

Free upgrades
Members of the kalmstrom.com Community are entitled to upgrade their TimeCard Workgroup installations without cost. For Member organizations with many users we will be happy to supply an MSI package for the client upgrade. Just contact our support department, and they will send you a download link.

Try TimeCard!
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions gives as much as 60 days of free trial for TimeCard Workgroup, so that you really have time to test the reporting properly.We give support to evaluators, so very welcome to contact us if you encounter problems with the trial or have questions about TimeCard.

First users in a Swedish town
Peter Kalmstrom, the creator of the kalmstrom.com Office applications, made his first TimeCard for Outlook when a Swedish town ordered a time reporting system that would be reliable but also easy for the users to learn. As they were already planning their time in Oulook calendars it was a natural step to build on that platform, and since Peter was an Outlook expert even at that time he could create what the clients needed. They have now been happily using TimeCard for over ten years, through update after update, and seen more and more features being added to "their" product. And our work will continue!

Microsoft's Weapon against Apple gives new marketplace for kalmstrom.com

This week Microsoft has presented their plans on a Windows Store, that will come with Windows 8. This is very interesting news for the kalmstrom.com team. Next year, when the new operating system is launched, it will be possible to buy applications for Win 8 based PCs and tablets online directly from within the system.

Windows Store - A New Sales Channel For kalmstrom.com
For Microsoft the motive is of course to take up the fight with Apple and App Store, but for kalmstrom.com the Windows Store gives new possibilities. We will explore them thoroughly and certainly find the best way to take advantage of them for the kalmstrom.com Office applications. Windows Store will be global, and Microsoft invites us developers to sell our apps in 231 markets and in more than 100 languages. At release 20 languages will be supported. I am not sure Swedish will be among those first 20, but I am positive that English will!

Better than App Store?
At a first glance Windows Store seems to have some advantages over App Store. We are happy that users will get a chance to try the apps first, just like they can with the current kalmstrom.com products. For our success it is also important that Microsoft will give developers a bigger share of the sales than Apple, that we can use third-party payment partners and that we will be allowed to sell the apps from our own platform also. We cannot do that with the iOS apps we now market on App Store.

Perfect for TimeCard Single
TimeCard Single seems to be very well suited for Windows Store. Today the kalmstrom.com time reporting tool for Outlook is mostly used by big organizations, but I am sure more one man companies would find TimeCard Single  valuable if they only knew about this kalmstrom.com Outlook-addon. It is very convenient to keep track of how time is spent directly within the Outlook Calendar, and by using Windows Store we can give many more single users a chance to do that.

Peter is enthusiastic
Our CEO, Peter Kalmstrom, is excited over the news and already full of plans. His aim is to have something ready for the Windows Store when it launches with the Beta version of Windows 8 by the end of February. By that time we will have learned much more about the Store in Windows 8 and be well on our way to explore this new sales channel.

How TimeCard Can Report Time For People Who Don’t Even Use TimeCard!

TimeCard “Report on behalf of” feature
In an earlier blog post about TimeCard I introduced a new feature that will come with the next version of this kalmstrom.com application for time reporting from within the Outlook calendar. The new TimeCard feature is called “Report on behalf of”, and it allows one person to report the time other people have appointed in their calendars.

No TimeCard installation
The kalmstrom.com team of course wants everyone to use TimeCard, but with the new feature it is actually possible to report time also for people who don’t have TimeCard installed on their computers. It could be for example someone who needs to use a Mac instead of a PC. Let’s call this person Linda.

Shared calendar
In this case a person with TimeCard installed - I will call him Jack - must have access to Linda’s Outlook calendar. This calendar may very well be on Microsoft's cloud based Office 365, if Linda and Jack are not connected in a local network.

Add person to the TimeCard database
For this to work Linda has to be added to the central database used for TimeCard reports. If Linda is not there the first time Jack reports her time, he will be asked if he wants to add her. Adding persons to the database may also be done manually or with a little tool for add/edit/delete users that the kalmstrom.com team has developed and will send to Community Members on request.

Tagging appointments with time reporting data
As Linda has no TimeCard application installed, she cannot tag her appointments with the values that convert them into timesheets. Instead John will to that for her. This is easily managed, since the values for Customer and Project ‒ or whatever John’s and Linda’s company has chosen as metadata visible to the end users ‒ are selected from dropdowns.

Reporting time
When John has tagged Linda’s calendar appointments with TimeCard values he simply clicks the OK button to report her time. When Linda is added to the database and Jack has entered her calendar, her name comes up as the default name in the User dropdown John can choose from when he reports time. To be sure everything is right he is also asked if he is sure he wants to report time for Linda.

Staying in Outlook
As TimeCard is fully integrated in Outlook John never has to leave it when he reports time. After reporting Linda's hours he may go to a new calendar and repeat the process for another person ‒ or continue working with other tasks in Outlook.

"Report On Behalf Of "Feature Added To TimeCard for Outlook

TimeCard is a popular Outlook tool for time reporting, both for single users and within organizations. Users just select some extra info from dropdowns in their Outlook appointments, and then they report both time and expenses to the database directly from their Outlook calendars.

Reporting for others with TimeCard
The South African insurance company Hollard is a Community Member that appreciates TimeCard. However, they had a problem when an assistant wanted to report time for someone else. This is possible in the current version of TimeCard, but the application will post the Outlook login name at the reporting occasion under Person in the database. To get the correct name on the report, an assistant who reported for the boss had to log in as the boss.

Sponsorship of new TimeCard solution
Hollard wanted to give their assistants a possibility to report time for several people more easily. The kalmstrom.com developers offered an elegant solution, and Hollard agreed to pay part of the development cost with a sponsorship. This way Hollard gets exactly the feature they need at a low price. They can also feel sure the new feature will be upgraded to support new Microsoft technology, since kalmstrom.com will add it to the standard product and offer it to all users.

New dropdown in the TimeCard Reporting dialog
Organizations who don't need the "Report on behalf of" feature simply avoid checking the box for it in the Common Settings dialog. Then their TimeCard applications will work just as before. If the box is checked, a new dropdown will appear in the Reporting dialog, like in the image here to the right. It will contain all the users from the database, and the logged in user will be the default choice.

Simpler procedure for "Reporting on behalf of"
With the new solution the Hollard assistants may quickly report time for other persons in this way:

1. Select the other person's calendar
2. (Mark appointments with metadata if this is not done)
3. Click the TimeCard Reporting button in Outlook to open the Reporting dialog
4.  (Make changes if necessary)
5. Select the right name from the dropdown
6. Report time and expenses by clicking the Post button

Each report will have the correct name, and the procedure is fast and easy.

For all TimeCard users
 We are sure more companies will like the "Report on behalf of" feature. Today a new TimeCard setup was sent to Hollard for their approval, and when the sponsor is satisfied we will release an updated TimeCard for all users. That way many people will benefit from this sponsorship!

New iPhone version and new kalmstrom.com app

Yesterday Apple presented their next iPhone,
4S. On the surface it does not look so different from earlier versions, but underneath we find a faster and more powerful smart phone with a voice control feature, a new wireless system and a better camera.   

Today only 5 % of all mobile phones are iPhones, but we think this figure will increase. Therefore kalmstrom.com Business Solutions develops apps for the iOS operating system used in iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. We stick to areas that are interesting to our regular customers, and soon we will release the iPhone app iCalendarTimeCard. With this app you can filter, edit and create new appointments with assigned TimeCard categories and thus make them ready for report.

I am sure iCalendarTimeCard will be popular among TimeCard users who don't spend all their working time at the desk, and it will of course be free to Community Members and TimeCard Singel Support customers!

iCalendarTimeCard Design Nearly Finished

 In an earlier blog I told you that kalmstrom.com and RampUp are developing an iPhone app for TimeCard users. TimeCard makes it possible to tag appointments in the Microsoft Outlook calendar with time reporting data. That way reporting of both time and expenses can be done from inside the calendar, and no double entries are needed. With TimeCard in the iPhone also, time tracking will be even more quick and simple.

The new kalmstrom.com app is called iCalendarTimeCard and the development work goes well forward. Today I can show you how the calendar day view with appointments will look in iPhone. It will be easy to open and edit the appointments only using a finger, and you can add new appointments in the same smooth way. Dates and times are taken from the iOS gear wheel, and we generally use Apple recommended controls. It will be interesting to test the finished product!

New kalmstrom.com App Under Development: iCalendarTimeCard

Today I have great news for users of TimeCard, the kalmstrom.com application that lets you report time from inside the Outlook calendar. We have made an agreement with Ramp Up, who also helped us with TimeCard Mobile, to create a TimeCard app for iPhone. It will be called iCalendarTimeCard.

TimeCard Mobile has served well for several years, but now it feels a bit outdated. It is time to give TimeCard users a better alternative for their smart phones, and we will start with the iPhone app. Next step is to make iCalendarTimeCard work for iPad and iPod touch also, and then we will turn to Windows Phone7.

With iCalendarTimeCard it will be possible to filter, edit and create new events with assigned TimeCard categories in iPhone. Since neither iPhone, Windows Mobile nor Android supports the categories field, we will also support an addition to the body field for the TimeCard properties.

The iCalendarTimeCard Add Event screen will be similar to the default iPhone calendar – but with additional dropdowns for the TimeCard properties and with the kalmstrom.com design and colors. In this first step reporting will have to be made from TimeCard, but later we wish to create a TimeCard for smart phones that can be used stand alone. We have that in mind during the development, but we will take one step at a time.

I am sure iCalendarTimeCard will be an excellent tool for the many TimeCard users who don't spend all their working time in front of a computer. And of course it will be free of cost to Community Members and TimeCard Singel Support customers!

kalmstrom.com Selected For Excellent Win7 Development

kalmstrom.com products were selected when CNET wanted to show applications whose developers have been extra skillful in taking advantage of the possibilities that Windows 7 gives them. As there are nearly 3 million developers building on Windows out there, we feel we have the right to be proud!
Around 100 applications were chosen, and only 17 in the group Business Related Software. No less than 3 of those 17 come from kalmstrom.com! Both the Workgroup and the Single version of TimeCard are included, as well as HelpDesk OSP, the kalmstrom.com application that connects Outlook to SharePoint or Office Live. We will do our best to live up to the honor and be in the frontline also in the future.

Update of TimeCard for Office 2010 Users

Today kalmstrom.com has released a minor update of TimeCard, both the Workgroup and the Single versions. Minor, but still important if you use Office 2010. An evaluator reported a problem that had slipped through our testing: the metadata values in the dropdowns did not refresh if you first selected a marked appointment and then a blank appointment. We do our outmost to test all scenarios before we release a new version of a product, but it is virtually impossible to test all contexts. Therefore we are very grateful for bug reports, and we fix the problem as soon as possible.

If you evaluate a kalmstrom.com product and get problems, please contact us instead of giving up! In many cases the answer is in the documentation, but it might be difficult to take in all information in the beginning. And sometimes you have found a bug, and your report will not only help you but also other users.

We recommend Members who use Office 2010 to upgrade their installations. The rest of you should not have this problem, so there is no need for an upgrade this time.

TimeCard Single Integrated in the Outlook 2010 Ribbon

The Single version of TimeCard, is now updated for Outlook 2010. The ribbon integration is the same as for the Workgroup version, refer to the blog of 5 August. The image above shows the Start tab of the calendar with the TimeCard buttons in the ribbon.

The Single version is very popular among self employed people. One of them says: "I have configured TimeCard to assist me in keeping real time records of which client I was working on, the processes involved and the document type that I output. In this way I am able to provide clients with detailed analysis of the work I have done, the time involved and references to all documents associated with the time/processes." He even avoided a court process once thanks to his TimeCard records! Read the whole testimonial. It feels good to market a product that can help so many.

TimeCard Embraces Contextual Tabs In Outlook 2010

The Workgroup version of TimeCard has been updated to take advantage of the Outlook 2010 Ribbon (32-bit). If you earlier have used Outlook 2007, the difference is not so big, but Outlook 2010 has something called Contextual Tabs. This means that you while still in an e-mail folder can select an appointment in the To-Do bar, and the Calendar Tools will be visible ‒ with the TimeCard dropdowns and the Expenses button.

The new release has also a new feature, the possibility to map e-mail domain or ID for TimeCard metadata which earlier was introduced in the Single version (refer to the blogs of June 22 and 28). Members, you are very welcome to upgrade your installations.

Have you not tried TimeCard yet? This application for time reporting from inside the Outlook Calendar is suitable for both big organizations and single users who work for themselves. It is one of our most popular products, so why not see how it can help you also?

New Demo for the TimeCard E-mail Mapping Feature

Tha kalmstrom.com team tries to always keep the manuals up to date with new releases, so the TimeCard Single manual was updated with info about the E-mail mapping feature at the same time as the new version was published. Now we have also made a video demonstration about the improvement. Welcome to watch number ten!

Updated TimeCard Gives New Possibilites For Appointment Subject

Today we have had another release, as the Workgroup version of TimeCard was updated. This tool for time reporting from inside the Outlook Calendar has many users, so I know the new feature is welcome. It is now possible to write a subject of your own and still have the TimeCard data automatically added to the Subject. If you check the box for this alternative in Personal Settings, you may now have it all – both the metadata and you own comment. They are separated with :: to avoid misunderstandings, and the metadata always come first. Welcome to upgrade, Community Members!

TimeReporting for the Lazy with TimeCard for Outlook

In April the kalmstrom.com team released an update of the Workgroup version of TimeCard, the application that lets users report time and expenses directly from inside the Outlook Calendar. Today also the Single version has the same improvements and also an additional feature.

A Single user pointed out to us that she wanted to see the default values in the appointment also, when she had enabled default values for empty fields in Personal Settings. Earlier new appointments were not marked with the default values, but they were added at time of appointment posting. Now users who wish to see the default data when they create a new appointment just have to check a box once in the Settings. This box is only active is default values for empty fields is enabled, of course.  

We are always grateful for suggestions that will make our products even more efficient and smooth. The users are the experts on this, and if at all possible our development experts will do their best to make the suggestion reality.

TimeCard Workgroup Updated after Member Request

Today we have released an update of the Workgroup version of TimeCard, the kalmstrom.com add-in for reporting time and expenses directly from the  Outlook Calendar.
A Community Member had problems with duplicate entries, and it turned out that the TimeCard users in this company only reported their appointments once a month. Then the reporting takes some time, and if the connection was lost during the reporting there were duplicate entries in the database.
Therefore our developers have changed TimeCard so that the appointment POST status is updated after each database entry, not when they are all reported. The users in the Member organization – and others too, of course – can upgrade and continue reporting once a month, an everyone is happy! In this update also a few smaller problems were fixed. For details, refer to the TimeCard Revisions page.

Export Appointment Data to Excel With TimeCard for Outlook

TimeCard Single has been updated with the same new features as big brother Workgroup received last week. The possibility to export the first 255 characters in the appointment body to Excel will give great possibilities to Single Users. With the appointment body alternative checked in Personal Settings, you get more data to the Excel spread sheet and do not have to go into the database to get the extra info you need.

With TimeCard you report time and expenses directly from inside the Outlook Calendar. Welcome to download the updated TimeCard Single. Support customers may upgrade their installation without extra cost, and evaluators have as much as 60 days to try TimeCard.

Use Any Character When You Report Time and Expenses With TimeCard

I am happy to announce that the kalmstrom.com developers now have added full Unicode support also for TimeCard, our application for reporting time and expenses from inside the Outlook calendar. The update of the workgroup version was released today, and we will soon publish a new single version also. At the same time they fixed some non critical bugs ‒ see the revisions page ‒ that our QA engineer found, or that were reported to us from customers. As usual we are grateful for all reports about issues with our products. They work in such complex environments that it is virtually impossible to test them all.

Community Members and Support Customers are welcome to upgrade their server installation. Once it is upgraded, the clients will be upgraded automatically if they are connected to the server. Have you not tried TimeCardyet? Please do. Reporting time and expenses directly from the Outlook Calendar is easy for the users, and the drop down selection of data minimizes the risk for errors. The integrated statistics application, OLAP Reporting Tool, is of course also updated for full support of Unicode.