InerTrak® version 3.5.3 User Guide
Inertron Software
© 2010 James Preston
Technical support: support@inertron.com
InerTrak is a time-keeping tool for designers, contract workers, lawyers, or anyone else who works on multiple projects on an hourly basis. It automatically keeps track of the time you spend on different projects throughout the day; all you do is click to start and stop the timer.
A project is something that you work on and for which you want to individually track the time worked. Each project in InerTrak has a name and can be assigned to a client and given its own monetary hourly rate. The time spent working on a project is kept on a daily basis. In other words, a project consists of some number of dates, each of which indicates the time spent on that date working on the project.
The terms project and client can be changed within InerTrak if they don't exactly fit your working style or terminology (See the Customizing section below). However, for clarity those terms will be used throughout this document.
Click the New Project button and enter the project's name and hourly rate. If there are any clients defined, you can select the client from the drop-down menu. If that client has an hourly rate defined, that rate will automatically be put into the new project's hourly rate field.
When you begin working on a project, select it in the Project List table and click the Start Timer button. The "Today" column will be highlighted in green and the time will start counting up. When you stop working, click the Stop Timer button.
Use the Client List page to create clients and assign a default hourly rate.
The Calendar page shows a month-at-a-time summary of projects and time worked each day, and includes weekly and monthly totals.
The Date List shows a complete list of every date in your database.
The Summary page lets you see overall totals and project totals for any specified time period, and for any client and/or any project.
The Export page lets you set up your data in a way that it can be imported into a program such as Microsoft Excel, and either export the data to a text file or copy it directly to your clipboard.
The Invoice page lets you create, print, or save an invoice for any client or project.
The Time Card page lets you create and print a time card for any client or project.
The Purge page lets you clean up your data by removing completed projects, billed dates, or dates that have no significant time.
All of the tables allow you to resize the columns, and re-arrange the order of the columns. To resize a column, move the cursor over a dividing line between columns in the table header. The cursor will change to the resizing cursor. Click and hold the mouse button and drag to the left or right to get the desired size. To re-arrange the coumn order, move the cursor over a column header, click and hold the mouse and drag the column to the desired location. The other columns will automatically move out of the way.
You can also have a table sorted by any of the columns. Click on a column header to sort ascending by that column, or hold down the shift key and click a column header to sort descending by that column. A small arrow after the column name indicates which column is currently the sort column; an up arrow for ascending, a down arrow for descending.
On the Project List page, the values in the Project, Client, Rate, and Done table cells are editable; double-click on the cell to begin editing. In the Details table on the righthand side, the Time and Billed values are editable. All of the othe values are automatically calculated and are not editable. On the Client List page, the Client Name and Hourly Rate table cells are editable. One all other pages, you cannot edit any of the table values.
Most of the pages (except for the "Purge", "Preferences", and "Customize" pages) allow you to print what you see. The Print command is under the File menu. The Page Setup command lets you define the headers and footers, if desired, to be included on the printed pages. It is important to note that the Page Setup settings are individual to each InerTrak page. In other words, the headers and footers that you set for the Date List page are separate from the headers and footers for the Summary page. This allows you to set the headers and footers appropriately for each page.
The Project List shows each project by name along with its client (if any), the hourly billing rate, the total accumulated time and the unbilled time. The "Today" column shows the time for the current day only, and it's also where a running timer is indicated.
The "Done" checkbox can be used to indicate when a project is completed. When you click the "Done" checkbox, the current date will be used as the project's completion date. The "Today" column of a completed project shows the completion date.
Each cell in the "Project", "Client", and "Rate" columns is individually editable; editable cells are indicated by a white background, non-editable cells have a grey background. Double-click on an editable cell to begin editing. Double-clicking on a "Project" or "Rate" cell opens a text box where you can change the project name or hourly rate, respectively. Double-clicking on the "Client" column pops-up a menu of all client names and allows you to select one.
To create a new project, click the New Project button and enter the project's name. Select the project's client from the drop-down menu. If that client has an hourly rate defined, that rate will automatically be put into the hourly rate field, otherwise you can enter the rate yourself. It is not required to select a client or enter an hourly rate.
On the New Project dialog, there is a checkbox to indicate that the project will be a flat rate charge, rather than an hourly rate. Enter the project's flat rate in the text box above.
When a project is flat rate, you can still keep track of time spent on the project, if desired. Such time is for "internal" purposes only, and will have no effect on the charge for the project. You might want to do this if you have a certain type of project that you do often, you charge a flat fee for, but you want to keep track of the time you spend each time you do such a project in order to check that your charge is inline with the amount of work.
Flat rate projects are billed by the project as a whole, rather than by individual dates as with regular projects. When you select a flat rate project in the Projects List, the top section of the details area on the righthand side will include a billed checkbox for marking the project as billed. That section also allows you to set the charge date for the project.
In the Project List, flat rate projects will have "FLAT RATE" in the today column. If you want the flat rate projects to really stand out, go the the Client List page. There you can assign a special color that will be used on all flat rate projects in all tables.
If you have any recurring charges, a service fee that you charge to a client every week or every month, for example, you can set up a flat rate project that will automatically make such a recurring charge.
To make a recurring charge, create a flat rate project and then select it in the Projects List. In the top section of the details are on the righthand side, click the Recurs Every checkbox. Use the popup menu to select the recurrence interval (every week, every month, or every year). Below that, click the small calendar icon to select the date on which you next want the charge to occur. On that date, a new project will automatically be created with the same name as the original project and with a charge date of the recurrence date. The original project will no longer be marked as recurring; the recurrence has been transferred to the new project; think of it as kind of "passing the baton". Only the latest project in a recurring series will be marked as recurring since it's that project that will next "pass the baton" on to a new project at the next recurrence date.
An example might help. Suppose you need to charge a client for web site hosting $50 every month. Today is June 12th.
Create a flat rate project called "Web Site Hosting", with a flat rate of $50. In the details area, set the charge date to June 1. When you next create an invoice for that client, it will include a $50 charge for "Web Site Hosting" on June 1st.
Now click the Recurs Every checkbox. Set the popup menu to "month". Set the "Next Recur Date" to July 1.
When July 1st rolls around, you will see two projects in the Projects List, both named "Web Site Hosting". One of them (the one you first created) will have a charge date of June 1 and it will not be marked as recurring (i.e. the Recurs Every checkbox will be unchecked. The other will have a charge date of July 1st, it will be marked as recurring (the Recurs Every checkbox will be checked), and the "Next Recur Date" will be August 1.
When August 1st comes by, you will see three projects named "Web Site Hosting". One with a charge date of June 1, one with a charge date of July 1 (both of these will not be marked as recurring), and the last with a charge date of August 1, marked as recurring, with the "Next Charge Date" of September 1.
When you begin working on a project, select it in the Project List and click the Start Timer button. The "Today" column will be highlighted in green and the time will start counting up. You can have as many timers running at once as you like; simply select another project and click the Start Timer button again.
When you stop working, click the Stop Timer button. If only one timer is running, it will be stopped, regardless of which project in the list is selected. If more than one timer is running, you must first select the project that you want to stop and then click the Stop Timer button. The Stop All Timers button does what it says, it stops all the running timers; it is only enabled if more than one timer is running.
When you select a project in the Project List, its detail information is shown to the right. The Details Table shows each date in the project, and the time worked on that date.
If you need to manually edit the time on any date, double-click on the time and make your changes. The new value will be interpreted in the current time format and converted internally to the exact corresponding value in hours, minutes and seconds. For example, if the time format is "hours.tenths", and you edit a time to "1.2", it will be stored as one hour and twelve minutes. If you need to enter a time of finer precision than the current time format allows, you can change the time format to "hours:minutes", make your edits, and then change the time format back. Alternatively, you can select the row and then click the Edit Time button. A dialog will appear wherein you can enter the desired time directly, or use the +1 and -1 buttons to add or subtract some time.
To create a new date entry, click the Add Date button and select the desired date from the calendar dialog. The Add Today button is a shortcut that creates a new entry for the current date.
You can attach a note to any date. The "Note" column of the Details Table indicates whether each date has an attached note. When you select a date, the note text is shown in the text box below the Details Table. To add or edit a note, simply click in the note area text box and start typing. To delete a note, delete all of the note text.
Each date can be either "unbilled", "billed", or "nonbillable". To change the status of a date, double-click the "Billed" column and select the desired status from the popup menu. There are also some other places, such as the Invoice and TimeCard pages, that can automatically mark dates as "billed" for you.
If a date is "nonbillable", its time will not be included in any calculation of a money amount.
On the Preferences page, you can turn off allowing "nonbillable" as one of the billing options. the main effect of turning off that option is that the "Billed" column will have a checkbox where checked means "billed". This is mainly a convenience if you know that you will never want to use the "unbillable" status; the checkbox makes it somewhat easier to change the status of a date.
The Client List page is where you add clients. Click the New Client button and enter the client name and hourly rate. You can edit the name or rate of an existing client by double-clicking the appropriate table cell. To set a client's color, select it, select the desired color in the color picker on the right, then click the Apply Color button at the bottom. On other pages, each project is shown in its client's color. This can be helpful in visually identifying which projects belong to which clients.
The righthand side of the page lists the owner names of everyone who has uploaded data to your InerTrak ES. You can assign a different color to each owner, just as you do to each client. The radio buttons at the top left allow you to select whether you want the projects on other pages to be colored by their client color or by their owner color. Selecting the latter allows you to easily identify projects by owner.
This page shows a month-at-a-time summary. Each day lists all projects worked on that day, as well as the daily total. On the righthand side you can see the weekly totals for each project worked during the week to the left, as well as the overall weekly total. You can also choose to see the monthly totals for each project worked during the calendar month, as well as the overall monthly total. Note that the weekly totals are always for the full seven days, even if the week crosses from one month to the next. The monthly totals, on the other hand, include just the calendar month. When you have the "Weekly Totals" tab selected, the calendar includes days in the previous and next month so that all weeks have seven days. When you select the "Monthly Totals" tab, the calendar shows only days in the current month.
This page shows a complete list of every date in your database. You can sort the list by any of columns, although sorting by the Date column is probably the most useful. This shows, for each date, every project that you worked on that day, how much time you spent on each project on that day, etc.
If the Display Totals option is checked, the list will include a total line, showing the total time and the total money, whenever the value in the sort column changes. For example, if the list is sorted by date, you will see the total time and total money for each date; if the list is sorted by project, you will see the totals for each project; if the list is sorted by client, you will see the totals for each client. Sorting by the time column is a special case: there will be just one total line at the bottom of the list.
If the Show Totals Breakdowns option is checked, each time total will be shown as four separate values: the overall total, the billed total, the unbilled total, and the nonbillable total (if the "Allow Nonbillable" option has been turned off on the Preferences page, then the nonbillable total will not be included). Each money total will similary be shown as three separate values for the overall total, the billed total, and the unbilled total (no nonbillable money total is shown since it's always zero). If the option is not checked, only the overall totals will be shown.
This page lets you see overall totals and project totals for any specified time period. The Client and Project drop-down menus let you further restrict the list. To see all the projects under a particular client, select the cilent name from the Client menu and set the Project menu to "All Projects".
If you have more than one project of the same name but from different clients, you can get a summary of all projects with that name by selecting the name from the Project menu and setting the Client menu to "All Clients". If, on the other hand, you want to see one specific project (from among several with the same name but from different clients), you need to select both the client and the project name.
Note that if you want to print the summary, the Page Setup dialog includes three additional options for each header and footer so that you can automatically include the specified date range, the selected client, and/or the selected project on the printed summary.
The Export page lets you set up your data in a way that it can be imported into a program such as Microsoft Excel. There are many options that let you select how much of your data to include, and the format of the data. The Preview area on the right is updated automatically every time you change an option so that it always shows exactly what the exported data will look like.
When you're ready to do the export, you can either save the data to a text file, or you can copy it directly to your clipboard. For the latter method, click the Copy to Clipboard button, then go into the program where you want the data, and use that program's "Paste" command. For example, to get the data into Microsoft Excel, you would want to use the "Spreadsheet" layout, and set the Separator to "Tab". Click the Copy to Clipboard button. In Microsoft Excel, use the "Paste" or "Paste Special" commands to put the copied data into the cells of your spreadsheet.
You can also, of course, print what's in the preview area, if you want, using the "Print" command under the "File" menu.
The All Dates option will include all dates in your database(subject to the other include options). The Date Range option will include only dates between the two selected dates. To select a date, click the button and in the calendar window that appears, navigate to the desired date and click on it.
| Spreadsheet | Each row will be one date, with a column for the client name, project name, date, hours, etc. You can have the data sorted by the client name, project name, or date. |
| Linear | Each row will have all the data for one project in the following format:
client, project, date, hours, [$hourly rate, $total], [billed?], [note], date, hours, [$hourly rate, $total], [billed?], [note], . . . [total_hours, $hourly rate, $total], [billed_hours, $hourly rate, $billed], [unbilled_hours, $hourly rate, $unbilled] Fields enclosed in square brackets are only included if the appropriate "Include" option is checked. You can have the data sorted by client or project. |
The Separator option lets you choose whether a comma or a tab character will be used between data items. Which one is the appropriate choice will depend on the program you will be importing the data into.
The Put quotes around data fields option is recommended if you are including notes in the exported data. Most programs that you will be importing into will correctly interpret quoted data and use the text inside the quotes. With this option off, a comma or a tab in a note will cause undesired results.
| Header Line | Includes a row at the top with column titles. Only enabled in Spreadsheet layout. |
| Completed Projects | Includes projects marked as "Done". |
| Billed Dates | Includes dates marked as billed, as well as a "Billed?" column (in Spreadsheet) or field (in Linear). |
| Notes | Includes all notes. |
| Totals | Includes a row (in Spreadsheet) showing the total for each Project, Client, or Date (depending on the sort mode), or fields for the date totals in Linear. |
| Hourly Rates and Totals | Includes a column (in Spreadsheet) or field (in Linear) for the project hourly rate and monetary totals. |
| Currency Symbol | Puts the currency symbol on every monetary amount. |
You can make an invoice for any project or any client. A client invoice will include all the projects under that client. Invoices are created using a template file that you can edit and customize. The template file must be plain text or HTML; Microsoft Word document files are not supported. Using an HTML file allows you to include text formatting and images, if desired. The InerTrak install includes some sample client and project template files -- located in the templates folder in the InerTrak install folder -- you are encouraged to use one of these files as a starting point, then edit it so that it better suits your individual needs.
To make an invoice, first select the desired client or project from the appropriate popup menu. Click the corresponding Show Invoice button to create the invoice and display it in the preview area in the lower part of the page.
Important note about HTML format invoices: If the template file is an HTML file, the preview area will show a rendered view of the final template. However, be aware that the rendering that InerTrak uses may differ from that used by a browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. Consequently, you may not see exactly what you expect in the InerTrak invoice area. If what you see doesn't look right, you can have InerTrak send the invoice directly to your browser. Hold down the shift key and click the Show Invoice button. You should then see a browser window open, containing the invoice, and you can then print it from there.
If you want to save the invoice into a file, click the Save Invoice button, and you will be presented with a "Save File" dialog where you specify the file into which the finished invoice will be saved.
After you've printed or saved the invoice, and you're sure you won't need to recreate it, you can use the Mark Dates as Billed button to mark all dates and all flate rate projects that are currently showing on the invoice as "billed". Be aware that this is not undoable; clicking the button will bring up a dialog reminding you of that, and giving you a last chance to change your mind. But once you click the Yes button, all the dates and flat rate projects on the invoice will be marked as billed.
Special keywords in the template file are replaced during processing with various data from the specified project or client. Keywords are distinguished by starting with "$(" and ending with ")". All other text in the file is passed through as-is. Some sample template files are included that should make things clearer. It is suggested that you start with one of the sample template files and edit it to suit your individual needs.
The keywords are:
| $(clientName) | The name of the client. |
| $(todaysDate) | Today's date. |
| $(projectName) | The name of the project. |
| $(projectDate) | For an hourly project, the date on which the project was started. For a flat rate project, the charge date. |
| $(projectNote) | The text of the project's note. |
| $(hourlyRate) | The hourly rate for the project. |
| $(unbilledTotal) | The total time of all unbilled dates for the project. |
| $(unbilledMoneyTotal) | The total unbilled time multiplied by the hourly rate. |
| $(billedTotal) | The total time of all billed dates for the project. |
| $(billedMoneyTotal) | The total billed time multiplied by the hourly rate. |
| $(startDateList) | This keyword indicates the start of a section that will be repeated for all of the dates for the project. |
| $(endDateList) | Indicates the end of a date section. |
The following keywords may only be used in a client invoice:
| $(startProjectList) | This keyword begins a section that will be repeated for each hourly project of the specified client. |
| $(endProjectList) | Indicates the end of an hourly project section. |
| $(startFlatRateProjectList) | This keyword begins a section that will be repeated for each flat rate project of the specified client. |
| $(endFlatRateProjectList) | Indicates the end of a flat rate project section. |
| $(clientUnbilledTotal) | The total time across all unbilled dates for all the client's projects. |
| $(clientUnbilledMoneyTotal) | The total money across all unbilled dates for all the client's projects, both hourly and flat rate. For an hourly project, money is time multiplied by the hourly rate. For a flat rate project, it is the flat rate charge. |
| $(clientBilledTotal) | The total time across all billed dates for all the client's projects. |
| $(clientBilledMoneyTotal) | The total money across all billed dates for all the client's projects, both hourly and flat rate. For an hourly project, money is time multiplied by the hourly rate. For a flat rate project, it is the flat rate charge. |
| $(clientHourlyUnbilledTotal) | The total time across all unbilled dates for all the client's hourly projects. |
| $(clientHourlyUnbilledMoneyTotal) | The total money across all unbilled dates for all the client's hourly projects. |
| $(clientHourlyBilledTotal) | The total time across all billed dates for all the client's hourly projects. |
| $(clientHourlyBilledMoneyTotal) | The total money across all billed dates for all the client's hourly projects. |
| $(clientFrUnbilledMoneyTotal) | The total money across all unbilled dates for all the client's flat rate projects. |
| $(clientFrBilledMoneyTotal) | The total money across all billed dates for all the client's flat rate projects. |
The following keywords may only be used within a flat rate project list section (i.e. between the $(startFlatRateProjectList) and the $(endFlatRateProjectList)):
| $(projectFlatRateUnbilled) | If the project is unbilled, this will be the flat rate charge of the project, otherwise it will be zero. |
| $(projectFlatRateBilled) | If the project is billed, this will be the flat rate charge of the project, otherwise it will be zero. |
The following keywords may only be used within a date section (i.e. between the $(startDateList) and the $(endDateList)):
| $(date) | This keyword will be replaced by the date. |
| $(note) | This keyword will be replaced by the note for the date (if there is a note). |
| $(money) | This keyword will be replaced by the monetary value of that date, i.e. the time for that date multiplied by the hourly rate of the project. |
| $(billedTime) or $(unbilledTime), but not both. |
If the $(unbilledTime) keyword is included in the date section, the entire date section will only be output for dates that are unbilled. Further, the $(unbilledTime) keyword itself will be replaced by the time for that (unbilled) date. Similarly, if the date section includes the $(billedTime) keyword, the date section will only be output for dates that are billed, and the $(billedTime) keyword will be replaced by the time for that (billed) date. |
In InerTrak ES, every project has an additional attribute for the owner of that project, and an additional template file keyword:
| $(owner) | This keyword will be replaced by the owner name of the project. |
In the templates folder, there are sample template files that handle this. The project_template_es.html file is just like the project_template.html file, with the addition of a new column for the owner name.
In the project_set_template_es.html file, projects are grouped by name and client; in other words, all projects with exactly the same name and the same client are grouped together into what is then considered a single "project set". The $(startprojectlist) keyword in this file loops through each project set as if it were a single project. The various keywords that deal with project totals (e.g. "$(unbilledtotal)") will be replaced by the total for the project set.
This page lets you create and print a time card for any client or project, and for any date range. The time card will contain only unbilled (and possibly nonbillable; see below) dates in that date range; billed dates are never included on the time card. So, for example, to make a time card for the "Website Design" project for client "Acme" for the 5-day week of October 4, 2004, you would select that client and project from the popup menus, set the starting date to October 4, 2004, and the ending date to October 8, 2004.
If you do not want the "Rate" and "$" columns to be included on the time card, uncheck the Include Rate and $ columns checkbox. If your preferences are set to allow nonbillable dates, but you don't want nonbillable dates included on the time card, uncheck the Include nonbillable dates checkbox.
If you turn on the Show Subtotals option, a subtotal line will be included every time the value in the column the table is sorted by changes. For example, if you have the table sorted by Project, there will be a subtotal line for each project. If you have the table sorted by date, there will be a subtotal line for each date.
The text box above the table is for your use. Whatever text is in that area will be printed at the top of the time card. You can use it for whatever you like, for example your name, a project code, general notes to the recipient of the time card, etc.
Note that the Page Setup dialog includes three additional options for each header and footer so that you can automatically include the specified date range, the selected client, and/or the selected project in the header and/or footer of each page of the printed time card.
After you've printed the time card, and you're sure you won't need to recreate it, you can use the Mark Dates as Billed button to mark all dates on the time card as "billed". Be aware that this is not undoable; clicking the button will bring up a dialog reminding you of that, and giving you a last chance to change your mind. But once you click the Yes button, all the dates on the time card will be marked as billed and the time card will be erased from the page.
This page lets you clean up your data to remove completed projects, billed dates, or dates that have no significant time. You can select any or all of the three options. The "Delete Completed Projects" option lets you specify how old a project must be in order to be deleted (a project's completion date is the date you clicked the "Done" checkbox on the Projects list); only completed projects whose completion date is older than the specified time period will be deleted. The "Purge Dates" option lets you specify how old a date must be in order to be deleted; only dates older than the specified time period will be deleted.
The preview areas on the right show you exactly which projects and which dates are scheduled to be deleted. Nothing is actually deleted until you click the Run the Purge button. This allows you to be sure that you won't delete something that you wanted to keep. The "Projects to be Deleted" table includes a column for the unbilled time and highlights any non-zero value in red so that you can easily see if you are about to delete a project that still has unbilled time on it.
If you have an Apple iPhone (or iPod Touch, or iPad) and a wireless network, you can synchronize the data between your desktop InerTrak and your iPhone Inertrak. This is a full two-way sync; all the data in your desktop InerTrak (except for flat-rate projects, which are not supported on the iPhone InerTrak) will be mirrored to your iPhone InerTrak, and vice versa.
So, for example, you can use the desktop InerTrak to enter your project and client names, taking advantage of the full-sized keyboard. Then sync to get the projects and clients to your iPhone InerTrak. Take the iPhone on the road and use it to track your time. When you get back to your office or home, sync to get all the information about time worked into your desktop InerTrak where you can more conveniently view the data, see the summary information, print an invoice or time card. etc.
On the desktop, you must have InerTrak (ST or ES) version 3.3 or higher. On the iPhone, you must have InerTrak version 1.3 or higher.
You must have a wireless network, accessible by both your desktop computer and your iPhone. We do realize that this may not be possible or convenient for all users, but unfortunately it is the only means that Apple makes avaiable for third-party apps to move data.
To perform a sync, you need to have your InerTrak desktop running, you need to have your InerTrak iPhone running, and they both need to be on the same wireless network. First, on the desktop InerTrak, go to the "iPhone Sync" page and click the Start iPhone Sync button. In the text area below the buttons you will see "Starting Bonjour" and then "Waiting for iPhone..." Now on the iPhone, go to the "Sync" page and tap the Start button. In a few seconds they should find each other and then you will see the progress of the sync in the desktop InerTrak's text area. You will be informed of every item that is copied in either direction.
When an item (e.g. project name, hourly rate, time on a date) has been changed in both places since the last sync, a dialog will appear on the desktop InerTrak showing both of the changed values so that you can choose the correct one.
In the case of the time on a date, if the time has been changed in both places there will be three values to choose from; the desktop time, the iPhone time, and the combined time. The reason for this is that you may have accrued time in both places that then need to be added together. For example, suppose you sit down at your desk and work for an hour on some project, then you go out into the field and work for two and a half hours on the same project, using your InerTrak iPhone to record the time. Now you come back to the office and perform a sync. Your desktop InerTrak has an hour of time, your iPhone InerTrak has two and a half hours of time, and the correct value that you would like to see in both places is three and a half hours.
| Do not sync any dates earlier than | This option allows you to keep older dates in your desktop InerTrak while not cluttering your iPhone InerTrak. Click the date button to select a date. Date entires older than the specified date will not be synced to the iPhone. If a date entry older than the specified date is deleted on the iPhone, it will not be deleted from the desktop InerTrak. |
| Archive completed projects | This option allows you to keep completed projects in your desktop InerTrak while not cluttering your iPhone InerTrak. Projects marked as completed in the desktop InerTrak will not be synced to the iPhone. In addition, if a project marked as completed in the desktop InerTrak is deleted on the iPhone, it will not be deleted from the desktop InerTrak. |
The synchronization process is designed to sync one desktop InerTrak with one iPhone/iPad InerTrak. If you try to sync a desktop InerTrak with multiple iPhones, or sync one iPhone InerTrak with multiple desktops, you may get unexpected results. In particular, when you delete something, that delete is only "remembered" until the next sync. A subsequent sync with a different InerTrak will likely result in the deleted item reappearing where it was deleted from, rather than being deleted from the InerTrak being synced with.
As powerful as the iPhone is, it's still a small device with limited memory. Large amounts of InerTrak data can overwhelm the available memory and possibly cause InerTrak iPhone to be unable to launch. If you have many years worth of InerTrak data, you are encouraged to use the option on the sync page to limit the data that is uploaded to the iPhone to the most recent year or two.
InerTrak uses the Apple Bonjour protocol for "discovering" your iPhone running InerTrak on your local wireless network. However, on both the desktop InerTrak and the iPhone InerTrak, Bonjour is not active until you specifically click or tap the "Start" button. And when the sync is finished, Bonjour is deactivated. This means that your data cannot be synced or accessed unless you explicitly start the sync on both your computer and your iPhone at the same time.
| Time Format | This menu lets you select from any of five time formats. This effects only the display of values; internally, time values are always kept in seconds. You can freely change this option at any time and it will change what you see but not what is actually stored. |
| Always round up | If this checkbox is checked, time values will be rounded up to the next highest value of the selected time format. If it is not checked, times will be rounded up or down to the nearest value. For example, if the time format is "hours.tenths", each decimal value represents six minutes. An actual time value of one hour and one minute will be rounded up to "1.1" (one hour and a tenth) if this option is on, but will be rounded to nearest of "1.0" if not. An actual time value of one hour and three minues will be "1.1" in either case. Again, this effects only displayed values. |
| Date Format | This menu lets you select from any of six date formats. |
| Use Color | If this option is unchecked, all text will be displayed in black, regardless of any colors assigned on the Client List. If it is checked, project data will be displayed in the color of the project's client. |
| Currency Symbol | Here you can set the symbol used on monetary values to whatever is appropriate for your location. |
| Automatic Timer Stop | This option is useful if you use a laptop computer. If you put your computer to sleep, but forget to stop the InerTrak timer, it will be automatically stopped at the time that the computer went to sleep. |
| Allow Multiple Timers | If you want to ensure that you never have more than one timer running at any time, uncheck this option. |
| One click to stop current timer and start new timer | This option makes it easier to switch from timing one project to timing
another. With this option turned on, and one project being timed, you need
only select the new project and click the Start
Timer button. The timer on the current project will be stopped, and
a timer on the selected project will be started. Note: This option is only enabled if the "Allow Multiple Timers" option is off. |
| Automatic Save | If this option is checked, your data will be automatically written to
the current data file periodically. It is strongly recommended that you leave this option on to protect your data. In the unfortunate event of a system crash or power failure, your "window" of data loss will be limited to, at most, the auto-save interval. The save is done very quickly, in the background, and will rarely interfere with your usage of the program. Note also that a save is only done if needed, i.e. if any part of the data has actually changed since the last save. |
| Allow Nonbillable | If you don't anticipate a need to mark dates as nonbillable, you can
uncheck this option. The major effect of turning off this option is that,
in the details table of the Project List page, the "Billed"
column will use a checkbox rather than a popup menu. This makes it easier
to mark dates as billed/unbilled. |
| Always sort completed Projects to the end | If this option is checked, projects marked as "Done" will always appear at the bottom of the Project List table. |
| Lighten the color of completed Projects | If this option is checked, projects marked as "Done" will appear in a somewhat lighter color in all the tables, making them easier to identify. |
| Hide "Done" column | You can use this to hide the "Done" column in the Project List table. |
By default, the term project is used for the things you work on, and projects are grouped under clients. If your terminology is different, this page lets you change those terms. For example, perhaps you use task for the things you work on, and you group tasks under projects. The default terminology would be very confusing; you would have to continually mentally translate project into task and client into project.
You can enter your preferred terms here, and then you must exit and relaunch the program. Every label, column header, button, etc. will now use your terms rather than the defaults. For example, the tab "Project List" will now read "Task List", the button that had "New Project" will now read "New Task", all table column headers that had "Project" will now have "Task", etc.
You can change the font used to display and print the data. Changes here take effect immediately and do not require that you exit the program. You can choose from any font installed on your system and a pre-defined range of sizes.
If you are a user of Inertron Software's PicoTrak for PalmOS™, you can merge your PicoTrak data into your InerTrak data.
It is important to note that this is not a two-way synchronization (the InerTrak data is not merged onto your Palm device), and it does not happen automatically when you perform a HotSync™ of your Palm handheld. However, you do need to perform a HotSync before attempting to merge the PicoTrak data. The HotSync operation will make a backup of your PicoTrak data into a file on your desktop computer. It is this backup file that InerTrak will use to do the merge.
From the InerTrak File menu, select the Merge PicoTrak Data item. You will be presented with a file selection dialog. You will need to navigate that dialog to the folder that contains your Palm handheld's backup files.
If you are using Windows: There should be a folder named "Palm" on your C drive. Inside the "Palm" folder you will see a folder with the name of your Palm handheld's user name. Finally, inside that folder will be a folder called "Backups". In the InerTrak file selection dialog, you need to navigate to that "Backups" folder. So, for example, if your Palm handheld's user name is "Mary's T2", the folder you need to go to is "C:\Palm\Mary's T2\Backups".
If you are using a Macintosh: There should be a folder named "Palm" in your "Documents" folder. Inside the "Palm" folder you will see a folder called "Users", and inside that folder will be a folder with the name of your Palm handheld's user name. Finally, inside that folder will be a folder called "Backups". In the InerTrak file selection dialog, you need to navigate to that "Backups" folder. So, for example, if your Palm handheld's user name is "Mary's T2", the folder you need to go to is "Documents/Palm/Users/Mary's T2/Backups".
Once you have navigated to the "Backups" folder, there will be only one file that the dialog will allow you to select, a file called "PoTr-Project.pdb". Select and open that file. Your PicoTrak data will immediately be merged with your existing InerTrak data, and the display will update.
At some later time, when you have used PicoTrak to accumulate more time and/or create more Projects and Clients, you will want to merge this new data into InerTrak. As before, first perform a HotSync on your Palm handheld, then from within InerTrak select the Merge PicoTrak Data item from the File menu. This time, however, you do not need to navigate through a file dialog to find the PicoTrak file. InerTrak remembers the file you designated previously, and shows you a dialog asking if you want to use the same file. If you choose the use the same folder, the merge is immediately performed. If, for some reason, you need to change the PicoTrak file that will be merged from, you can choose to select a new folder, in which case you will have to go through the above process again.
Only the PicoTrak data that has changed since the previous merge will be updated. In other words, you will not end up with duplicate entries after every merge. As a simple example, suppose you use PicoTrak to start a new project called "Project Two", then you work on that project on two days as follows: 11/3/05 for 1:30, and 11/4/05 for 3:10.
The first time you merge this data into InerTrak, the client "Client 1" will be created, the project "Project Two" will be created, and the two dates with their times will be added to that project. Now suppose you use PicoTrak to record an additional two hours on 11/4/05 (bringing the total to 5:10). If you perform a HotSync and then do the merge into InerTrak again, the time on 11/3/05 will not be changed, but the time on 11/4/05 will be updated to 5:10.
NOTE: If you delete something (a client, project or date) from PicoTrak, it will not be deleted from the InerTrak data when you merge.
When you do a subsequent merge, it's possible that some of the data will have been changed either on the InerTrak side or the PicoTrak side or both. There are preference settings that let you control which change will take precedence. On the Preferences page, click on the Merge Preferences tab. Under the "Merging PicoTrak Database" section, you can individually set the different data fields so that the local (i.e. InerTrak) or PicoTrak change will be used.
The InerTrak icon will appear in the system tray. Left-clicking this icon will iconify the InerTrak window and hide the task bar icon. Left-clicking again will restore the window. Right-clicking on the icon will bring up a popup menu containing a list of projects. You can start or stop a timer on a project by selecting it from the list. The list will contain up to twenty projects, those most recently selected on the Project List table.
The ES edition of InerTrak can be used as a kind of "central database", accepting and merging the data of many individual users of the InerTrak standard edition on your local network. For example, a manager can use InerTrak ES to see the progress of all employees. Most of the tables in InerTrak ES include another column that shows the owner of the project, and the Client List page of InerTrak ES lets you assign a color to each user, and optionally have the projects on other pages colored according to the owner.
If you are using InerTrak ES to combine the data from multiple users, make sure that on the Preferences/Merge Preferences page, you do not have the checkbox for "Single-user mode" turned on.
IMPORTANT: The computer that is running InerTrak ES must be set up to allow incoming socket connections on port 2357. If there is a filrewall on that computer, you will need to open port 2357. If you are not sure how to do this, please contact your network or system administrator for assistance.
First, it is important to keep in mind that it is a one-way upload, from InerTrak standard to the InerTrak ES; it is not a two-way synchronization of the data between the two. The upload process will push data from the InerTrak standard to the InerTrak ES, and will merge that data with existing data on the InerTrak ES, but no data from the InerTrak ES is ever merged back with that of the InerTrak standard. The idea is that the InerTrak standard is the owner of the data, and is responsible for setting the name, client, rate, etc. as well as tracking the actual time on each date. InerTrak ES, on the other hand, is for combining and viewing the existing data from the various InerTrak standard editions, and under normal conditions shouldn't really be used to edit or change data that originated on an InerTrak standard.
The first time an InerTrak standard does an upload of a project to InerTrak ES, a new project will be created on InerTrak ES (with the same name, client, etc.) and "linked" to the corresponding project on the InerTrak standard. That internal link forever connects the two projects, despite any changes to the client, rate, or even the project name on either side. If the name (or client, or rate, etc.) is changed on the InerTrak standard, those changes will be also be made on the InerTrak ES the next time the InerTrak standard does an upload. Note, however, that due to the one-way nature of the upload, if the name is changed on the InerTrak ES, that change will not be reflected on the InerTrak standard, even after an upload. The link between the projects will remain, even though the names are now different. This could be confusing, so it is not recommended to use InerTrak ES to make changes to a project that came from an InerTrak standard.
If there are multiple users of InerTrak standard who are working on the same project, Each user's project will be listed separately in InerTrak ES. The owner column tells you which project belongs to which user. The project side of the Invoice page of InerTrak ES can combine the projects into one. The sample template file, project_template_es.html, shows how this will look.
Usually, the InerTrak standard will be able to automatically find the InerTrak ES on the local network (for the technically inclined, the InerTrak standard sends a message using the IP multicast protocol, to which the InerTrak ES responds with a message that includes its IP address. The InerTrak standard then opens a unicast socket to the InerTrak ES and uses that for subsequent communication.) This is ideal when the computer on which InerTrak ES is running uses DHCP; if that computer's IP address changes, the InerTrak standard can automatically find it. However, if for some reason this does not work, the user of the InerTrak standard will have to change the radio button setting and then manually enter the InerTrak ES computer's IP address.
If all or most of the InerTrak standard users in the group will be working on the same projects, you can avoid the necessity of each user typing in the same list of projects and clients. You can enter the projects and clients once in InerTrak ES, and each InerTrak standard can then download those names. On the Upload page of InerTrak standard, click the Fetch Client and Project Names button, and the names will be downloaded from the InerTrak ES; you must have previously obtained permission from the InerTrak ES user in order to use this feature.
It is very important to remember that this "fetch" feature is meant to be a convenience solely to avoid having to manually type in the client and project names. It does not do any data synchronization.
On subsequent uploads, it's possible that some of the data will have been changed on both the InerTrak standard and on the InerTrak ES. There are preference settings that let the InerTrak ES user control which change will take precedence. On the Preferences page, click on the Merge Preferences tab. Under the "Merging from Upload" section, you can individually set the different data fields so that the local (i.e. InerTrak ES) or uploaded change will be used.
InerTrak ES can also be used by one person who uses multiple computers (e.g. a desktop in the office and a laptop on the road). In this case, you probably want to have the data from the InerTrak standard merged with that of InerTrak ES on a project basis, rather than seeing one project for the "local" and one for the "remote".
On the Preferences/Merge Preferences page, you would want to turn on the checkbox for "Single-user mode". This will cause InerTrak ES to always match the incoming data by project and client name.