What is a work unit?
A work unit represents the time you worked. Each work unit consists of a start and an end time and a task that the work unit is associated with (the task that you worked on). You can add a description and details to each work unit to add more context and make grouping work units easier when exporting the data.
What is a task?
With tasks you can categorize the work you are doing. This usually would be the top-level-project you are working on or the type of work you are doing (like "Mails" or "Meeting"). If a task alone isn't sufficient for you in order to filter or log several sub-projects, you can use tags or work unit descriptions to achieve this.
What is a tag?
A tag is a label that you can set on individual work units. In its simplest form, this can be helpful when you want to give a work unit more context, categorize it and make them filterable. But you can also do a lot more with tags, you find a detailed description for each tag type here.
How can I see my overtime?
You can create an tag with the type "standard working hours", choose how long you work in a given time interval (daily/weekly/yearly/total) and attach it to every work unit that should be considered. Once you added a work unit to the specified time interval this time interval will then be included in the calculation. In the tag overview you then see your negative or positive overtime.
How can I set up breaks?
You can set up a break in the settings. This break is automatically subtracted from your logged time when the timer is stopped. In case you have multiple pauses or different pause times, you might want to use a special tag with the type set to "adjust working time" that you use on work units that contain a pause.
How can bulk delete work units?
If you want to delete old work units but keep the tasks/tags that you've set up, you can switch to "group work units by months/years" in the app settings and then delete the whole month/year with just 2 clicks using the context menu when right-clicking (press & hold on the phone) a work unit in the time tracking view.
Why is data missing in the Excel export?
If you expect data to be exported but it isn't present in the Excel file, these are possible reasons:
- You have specified a work unit filter that excludes data
- You have specified a date filter that excludes data
- You have specified a "Work unit grouping" that prevents exporting the work unit details (as they cannot be grouped)
What is the filter for and how do I use it?
With the filter, you can select a subset of all work units for the purpose of viewing them in the analytics section or exporting them to an Excel sheet.
On Android, clicking on the filter button shows a dialog in which you can select the tasks and tags that should be considered. On Windows, the filter button is located in the "time tracking" page. Using it will show additional controls that you can use to filter work units by tag, task or search term. Both the tags and tasks filter you can invert to exclude tags or tasks from the result instead of including them. For tags, you can even choose from an AND-operator (show work units that contain tags A and B) or OR-operator (show work units that contain tags A or B).
Why is the workplace detection unreliable? [Android]
Unfortunately, it is possible, that the workplace arrival and departure detection can be unreliable on Android. Depending on the individual situation and device, the timer might not be started/stopped right away when entering/leaving the geofence. The reason for this is because WorkingHours is dependent on an Android service (Google Play Services) which is notifying about these location changes upon which WorkingHours can start/stop the timer. Unfortunately, that service might be limited in its execution or blocked entirely because of battery-saving reasons. You might want to visit this website in order to see if there are any options for your device in order to remove those restrictions to make the workplace detection more reliable.
Google also lists additional possible reasons for unreliable geofences here: https://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing#Troubleshooting
If you have followed the recommendations above but still find the geofencing to be unreliable, please note that the geofencing recognition is improving over time as you have it enabled.
The unreliability of geofences is a problem that affects all Android apps. According to Google, this is a known issue that is being worked on: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/218335535
Where is the data stored?
By default, WorkingHours stores the database offline and on the device you are using it on only. If you switch your device or need to reinstall the app, make sure to create a backup in the app settings so your data doesn't get lost - those backups can be imported in the app settings on your new installation. If you choose to use the Cloud sync in order to work on the same database on multiple devices or to have an automatic backup, the database is additionally stored online, in your personal cloud storage.
On Windows, accessing the WorkingHours database directly can be useful if your PC crashed and you want to recover the database from a disk backup or if you want to programmatically access it with your own program to conduct additional analysis or write your own export script. WorkingHours works on a SQLite database file which is called data.db and is located under this path:
%localappdata%\Packages\49297T.Partl.ClockOut_jr9bq2af9farr\LocalState
On macOS, the database data.db is located under this path:
~/Library/Containers/mac.partl.workinghours/Data
Can I get the app in an older version or for an older operating system?
No, this is not possible. WorkingHours currently requires at least Windows 10 Build 17763, Android 7, iOS 15 or macOS 12. The minimum required OS version will rise over time, in order to add features that are supported by newer OS versions only.
