A while ago, I have been researching time tracking applications. While there have been many choices, most have had very limited features. Particularly, most have been lacking support of categorization of tasks into nested categories. Most applications only supported non-nested (i.e. single-level) categories and tags.
For task management, I am familiar with Thunderbird/Lightning, Trello and a couple of issue trackers primarily aimed at software development.
I am looking for an application (or combination of applications) that integrates time tracking and task management and ideally has all of these features:
- Client platform: Web and/or Windows
- Free or costs no more than ca. 10$/month.
- Access to all user data in a structured and documented (or self-explanatory) format. Examples:
- CSV file export
- REST API
- Support of categorization of tasks into at least one nested category. Examples:
- Too simple:
Music/Practice Guitar - OK:
Hobby/Music/Practice Guitar - Ideal: Both
Hobby/Music/Practice GuitarandPractice/Practice Guitar
- Too simple:
- Charts that show me where I have spent my time. A pie chart that you can drill into would probably ideal. Examples:
- Root:
Hobby40%,Work: 60% - Drill into
Hobby:Music50%,Sports: 50% - Drill into
Music:Practice Guitar20%, ...
- Root:
- Support for one-off tasks and recurring tasks. Examples:
Write StackExchange question about time tracking application(one-off)Practice guitar(recurring)
- Task priorities
- Task dependencies
- Task start/due dates and associated notifications
- Goals for minimum and maximum time spent on a task or category per time interval (week, month, user-defined) and associated notifications
- Overview of upcoming tasks depending on priorities, dependencies, start/due dates, estimations and minimum/maximum time goals
Bonuses would be:
- Open source (For a client/server architecture, installing the server on Linux myself would be fine.)
- Suitable for teams
- Task time estimations
- Analysis of estimated time vs. actual spent time
