Why I'm Nuts About Time Manager!

Company Secretary Daphne Butler finds herself with little to do with Project-based work, but still finds herself using our innovative Time Manager software on a daily basis. In this blog article she writes about how she's found the solution incredibly useful, despite some initial concerns...

Atlas Time Manager is a very handy bit of Business Software. I never used to think this but I’ve had a dramatic change of mind.

Atlas first developed Time Manager as Project Management Software to keep track of time spent by individuals on jobs and this is the version we have installed in-house. There are other modules though with different functionality like managing rostering, or integrating time worked to Access Payroll.

Since I rarely work on projects, my time being generally split between admin, accounting and marketing, there was never really anything that I could enter that anyone was remotely interested in knowing about. So it wasn’t really worth my while putting anything in there. In fact it was a complete turn off.

But recently I’ve moved to a four day week and in advance of this was asked the question ‘how much of your time is spent on what exactly?’ In anticipation I began to use Time Manager ... ... ... in great detail ... ... ... and quickly began to realise that this was a grand way of managing my time and my jobs list. The discipline of tracking what I was doing was making me even more effective at what I did.

At the beginning of the day, I select the broad areas of work that I need (from the tasks box bottom right) and I drag them to the column under the day of the week (big box in the middle). The box bottom left is free text and relates to the task highlighted. So I make a note of the time and type in a brief description of the job I am about to begin ... ... ... like so:

•  12.00 - Create blog about timesheets.

When I finish the job I enter the end time. If my next job falls into the same category, I simply scroll down, put in the start time and description for the new task. If it is a different kind of task, then I highlight the appropriate box, or pull a new task across from the tasks list.

At the end of the day I count up the hours spent for each task, and adjust the figure in the quantity box for that task (little box above the free text box). The software automatically totals the time for all the tasks selected on each day by each person and displays it in the box top left.

This is just one example of using Time Manager to great effect. The Business Software is fully configurable to satisfy your work flow processes and it integrates with both Access Dimensions and Access Payroll. If you think Time Manager could do something for you why not explore further by calling one of our Consultants on 0333 666 3330 or email customerservice@atlasbiz.com.