Timesheet Software Weblog

Version 2.6.11 of Timesheets MTS has just been uploaded. Changes made to this version include the following:

• Added periods to default data file for 2018 and 2019.
• A fix put in place for a 'multiple step' error generated when adding a new contact while using SQL Server as a backend.
• A fix (and extra logging) put in place to try to sort out the 'file not found' error being seen by some Windows 10 users.

A new version of Timesheets MTS was uploaded today. Changes made in this release include:

• To future proof the software as new versions of MS Office are released all Excel code has been changed from early binding to late binding.
• The Project Detailed Billable Report now displays a message if there is no data returned from the report.
• Fix put in place for the Project Detailed Billable (Grouped) report to include projects that do not have a project manager set.

A small updated has been posted to Timesheets MTS today. Version 2.6.9 includes a single change, the ability to sort by project number has been added to the Project Detailed Billable and Project Detailed Billable (Grouped) Reports.

A new version of our timesheet software has just been uploaded. Changes to this version include:

• A fix has been put in place for the Daily Time Report if using Timesheets MTS with a SQL Server backend.
• There was a problem with selecting employees on the Payroll Timesheet Report. This has now been resolved.
• A small calculation error on the Project Gantt Report has been solved.
• Some users were getting an 'invalid NULL' value error when running the Project Performance Report. The source of the error was located and fixed.

Timesheets Lite Version 3.5.9 has just been released. It includes two major changes:

• The login screen has been redesigned to remove the intermediary password entry screen,
• All password entry text boxes have been replaced with a generic control to fix up screen freezes in Windows 10. This problem only occurred if the Windows tablet data entry service was running or the Windows On Screen Keyboad (OSK) was displayed.

Timesheets MTS version 2.6.7 has been released. It includes the following three fixes:

• The project filter on the Daily Time Report now works.
• The project list on the Daily Time Report form now defaults to only show open projects.
• Fixed an error that occurred when trying to login and the maximum number of allowable database connections was exceeded.

We've just released version 2.6.6 of Timesheets MTS. Changes made to this minor release can be seen below:

• A fix to a startup error some people were seeing, especially on Windows 10 when the file that contains the start up tips could not be found.
• Time periods for 2016 and 2017 have been added to the default database.
• Fix to the Project Charge Rates screen when editing an existing charge rate and the regional decimal separator is not a period.
• Fix to a spurious Error Number: 0 that some people saw while logging in.

We've just released Timesheets MTS version 2.6.5. This includes a number of enhancements that have been suggested by users of the software.

1. All Customers option added to the WIP Reporting screen. This displays WIP for all customers, adds a column to show the customer name with each WIP item and includes the customer column when printing the WIP Report. WIP Invoicing is not possible when the All Customers option is selected.
2. The height and width of the WIP Reporting screen is stored and remembered each time the screen is accessed.
3. Contacts now have a "Deactivated" flag. Deactivated contacts do not appear in various contact dropdown lists and list views.
4. A button has been added to the Contact Maintenance screen that allows you to close all projects associated with the currently selected contact.
5. A new checkbox has been added to the Project Maintenance screen called "Active Customers". When checked only projects from customers who are not deactivated will be displayed.
6. The Current Projects Report can now be filtered to not display projects from deactivated contacts (as well as filtering out closed projects).
7. <CUSTOMER_CONTACT_MANAGER> data field added to both simple invoice and invoice template printing.
8. Check All and Invert Selection options added to all lists on the Activity Reporting criteria screen.
9. The Activity Reporting criteria screen has been re-sized for easier use.
10. The Login screen now remembers the size of itself if you re-size it.
11. A QuickFind box has been added to the Login screen. Enter a few characters into the box to quickly find the user with that name. The wildcard * can be used to find characters in the middle of the user's name.
12. Fixed the Validation Timesheet that would display the incorrect total time if the report was not run for all active Projects.
13. Fix to the Right Click menu on the Timesheet screen that wouldn't start the task timer even though a time item was obviously selected.
14. Fixed the Daily Time report where an apostrophe was present in the description.

In most places it's now 2016 and if you're a Timesheets MTS user you might be receiving an error message when trying to record a timesheet entry. The message probably says something like this:

No period is defined for this date.
Someone with Super User privileges must define a period covering this date

In 2015 Timesheets MTS automatically created a period that covered all of 2015 but now that we have seen in a new year a new period must be created to cover it. This is easily done by logging into Timesheets MTS as a super user and going to the Tools->Options->Periods menu and adding a new period to cover the new year. Or you could create several periods to cover the year and even create new periods to cover next year and the year after.

If you were wondering why Timesheets MTS has time periods then there's two reasons. The first, is to stop users entering timesheets entries into the future. The second is to stop them from changing (or adding) timesheet entries to previous periods (because they've been locked for accounting purposes).

Today sees the release of version 3.5.8 of Timesheets Lite. This release addresses some small issues that have been raised with us in the last few weeks:

• One user reported that the task timer seemed to slow down somewhat (up to 10%) when his CPU was under heavy load. This was odd as the timer code was designed to be independent of actual update interval (which we realize is never constant). Upon examination of the code we identified two areas where a latency of 10 or 20ms could have resulted in the timer running slower than expected. This is despite the fact that we could never replicate the behavior in our offices. We've eliminated those areas of potential latency and user who reported the issue has tested the fix and informed us that it appeared to have rectified the timing issue.
• Fixed a problem when re-connecting to an Access database using the database connection wizard.
• A bunch of extra logging added to the DatabaseDriver class in an attempt to address the above issue (but it turns out the fix worked anyway).