News from Timesheets MTS Software: May 2012 Archives

Along the same lines as the release of Version 3.3.0 of Timesheets Lite the new version released today is focussed on performance of the software when using larger databases. Version 3.3.1 has improved the speed of report generation considerably (some reports generation speeds have improved by more than 1000%). Here's a detailed list of the changes.

• Various reports have been optimized for generation speed and data displayed. Where possible only projects with actual activity during the reporting period are now displayed. Reports improved include the Detailed Activity Report, the Weekly and Two Week Timesheet, the Employee Project Grid, the Common Activity Report, and the Project Completion/Details reports.
• Fixes to the headers of the Weekly and Two Week Timesheet reports where there is no employee activity.
• Resized the Welcome Wizard screen to show all the buttons correctly.
• Welcome Wizard now detects if a user is trying to connect the software to a pre version 3 Timesheets Lite database.
• Welcome Wizard will now run again if a user cancels out of the wizard.
• Fix to the task timer for regions where the decimal separator is something other than a period (.).
• Added the time description to the timer status box on the timesheet.
• Tooltips added to the project and time descriptions in the timer status box on the timesheet. Useful if the description is larger than the available display area.

As users of Timesheets Lite prior to version 3 start using the new version they've highlighted some issues with the software dealing with larger databases (think 5-10 years of historical information). With some help from these users we've managed to track down and address a number of performance issues in the last week. These have been incorporated in Version 3.3.0 of the software which is now available on the web site. Here's a detailed list of the changes made.

• Completely changed the database connection routines which copes much better with larger data sets. This should fix up the "cannot open more tables" error that was seen from time to time.
• A lot of time spent optimizing load speeds for large project/time/employee record sets.
• Significant load speed improvements on all manage data screens, the add/edit time screen, the report configuration screen, and the invoicing screen.
• Some more fixes for the import data wizard.
• Removed the tooltip popups from various lists which has improved load speed considerably.
• Busy cursors added to various areas of the program including loading data on the manage data screens and the report configuration screen.
• Timesheet column widths are now remembered properly.
• Timesheet column order is now remembered.
• Fixed the last column of the Two Week Timesheet report which was not displaying the time format correctly.
• Added an "All Dates" option to the report configuration screen.
• Added the period dates to the summary lines at the bottom of the timesheet.
• Changes to the "Show Activity Column on Timesheet" now takes place immediately rather than on software re-start.
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• Timesheet totals at the bottom of the timesheet are now for the month/week of the currently selected timesheet day rather than for the current calendar month and week.
• Fixed the common activity report which was not displaying correctly if there were more than 7 activities defined.
• Updated the tips.txt file.
• Added catch to allow exiting from the software if the timesheet summary thread doesn't ever exit.