Toggldesktop: Prevent time overlaps automatically

[stuartcryan]

I use the OSX version of Toggl Desktop.

I have often noticed if I have switched tasks and forgotten to tell Toggl of this, I go back in, stop the previous task, start a new one and change the start time.

However Toggl doesn't automatically look at the last task and prevent overlap, ideally it should offer a couple of options if an overlapping start time is entered:

1. Trim time off earlier task
2. Start new task at the end of the earlier task time
3. Override and accept overlap.

It seems minor but this is something that then requires me to go in and manually edit the existing entry time and time again. Would be a great feature to have just to prevent accidental overlap and make it easier to trim an existing entry when you have forgotten to switch tasks.
Cheers,
Stuart

[re8us]

+1

[chrihech]

+1

[allanlaal]

massive +1, I've spent/wasted a total of 6 hours and 54 minutes doing this work manually this year thus far

[GregPeden]

+1, though really this should be enforced on the website/API end, and less so by the various apps which use it. It should be an option on the Workspace (admin-controlled) to not allow overlaps, with the default behavior being to truncate any existing records which are being overwritten. If desired, they could be held in limbo to allow the user to resolve the conflict within the day, or otherwise automatically accept the default (overwrite).

[svyatoslav-toder]

+1, There is another issue caused by this: if you use Toggl for billing and log part of the time automatically and part of the time manually you are risking to bill the same time twice, so you have to manually recheck for this situation. It would be much better to see at least a warning when overlapping happens.

[IndrekV]

Thank you for showing interest in this feature. This is indeed something that should be handled by the backend and that should be available across all the Toggl apps. I'll forward this info to the backend team.

[allanlaal]

@IndrekV any news on this? my tally is at 12h thus far and its impossible to fix these entries in the new web app Beta

[GregPeden]

You can edit the entries, you are looking at collapsed/combined entries for a common task. Just expand it.

[allanlaal]

@SirLamer yes you can still edit the start and end times in the new webapp, but you have to hover over each duration to see them and thus can only see 1 start and end time at the same time.
Considering I have 10..20 entries (I track every minute) to fix per day that have overlaps, having that data hidden by default slows down my fixing workflow to the point that it can be considered impossible.

But that is besides the point. When I fix these entries 99.9% of the time the only error they have (beside parallel overlaps) is that the old entry has been stopped by (me or android sync issues) after the new entry started. This always has the same fix: copy the start time of the next entry as the end time of the previous entry.

A good fix for this would be to list these "end time overlaps" and offer the user to check some or all of the rows to be fixed by setting the end time of the older entry the same as the start time of the entry its collapsing into. These entries will always have different start times, but might have the same end times (when an entry is stopped in webapp and that stops a unsynced entry originating from the Android app)

Another case would be parallel entries, where you have the same start times, but different end times - these will need more careful review by the user

A third fringe case is caused by the sync issues between the mobile and web app and these entries will have the exact same start and end times and one of them will have no title. These nonames could be safely autodeleted or atleast prefilled for deletion in the overlap user review page

[GregPeden]

In general I agree with above:

• Allow data overlaps, at least as far as recording them so that they exist and can be reviewed/verified
• Provide a side UI to quickly navigate and resolve them
• Provide a default operation which is affected on a regular interval for conflicts which are not resolved beforehand, ie. midnight each day. In my case it would be "the older time entry gets truncated to make space for the newer one". This is meant to be based on the time at which the entry was created, not the work time/duration being reported in the entry.

If you get really fancy, you could use the JSON API to pull entries to your own server/software and process them there per your own rules, then save back the results. That's pretty hardcore, though.

[IndrekV]

Hi guys.

Loving the heated discussion here. The time overlap issue is something that if implemented will be done in backend and not in Desktop app. Currently this feature is on hold. Our backend team has discussed this feature multiple times but has not decided on clear plans.

tl;dr
If done will be done in backend. No info if and when it will be done.

Thank you for sharing all the ideas and feedback.

[dasjo]

Could you please link to the respective backend issue so that we can keep track of this?

[IndrekV]

Sadly our backend does not keep a public issue tracker.

[GregPeden]

As a stop-gap, the desktop software could communicate to the user with a status graphic or something cases where entries are overlapping. It can do this client-side without communicating to the server. Same thing is possible with the mobile app and website app.

[vousk]

+1 (*1000)

I previously used many different time tracker apps and they always allow user to choose if entries can overlap. When overlapping is disabled, a change in any start time asks user if previous time entries has to be consequently cropped (if new duration is longer than previous task, this previous task is deleted or marked as 0:00 time spent - to keep the info - and the one before is cropped...).

In my opinion this feature is critical to have for a time tracker (because it's really common to start working on something and remember to change tracking only after some time spent, and tasks overlapping is pretty uncommon, particularly when billing is activated).

[allanlaal]

@IndrekV any progress?
Toggl has spoiled me with its excellent UX (aside from the current issue), so every replacement I have tried hasn't even come close for me to quit using Toggl. However I've downgraded my package until this is issue is fixed, since I can't even use the reporting feature anymore lest I manually fix 10 000 entries myself.

[IndrekV]

I've forwarded the request to the back end ages ago but I'm not aware of any progress. Sorry there is no date or even a decision if this feature to be added.

[femans]

I still see the issue that was noted by Allanlaal nearly 2 years ago; for some reason the start and end time are only visible when hovered, so it is very difficult to see what overlaps with what, it took me a while to find out that stuff is overlapping. Is there in the meanwhile an option or anything for this?

[allanlaal]

I think the main reason why this has gone unfixed is that we (or atleast I) might be the only ones tracking 24/7, thus making it easy to see something is wrong when you have tracked 1200..1500 hours of time each month and you live on a planet where a month is max 744 hours.

I guess if you use Toggl for only tracking billable time, then the "bonus" time tracked is welcome for some users ;)

[vousk]

Even while not tracking 24/7, this is a real issue for us. By the way, and for Toggl's team info, months ago my company planned to go for Toggl but canceled that mainly because of stuff like this. I still think Toggl could be a good tool, but this "avoid overlap" option has to be implemented, it is a basic time tracker functionnality.

[nathaniel-holder]

Yes, at the bare minimum, front-end needs to be able to flag to user any overlapping time entries.

[lptr]

Shaving time off the previous task does not have to happen automatically. Instead, there could be an explicit feature for this. Like you right click on the currently running task, and select "Split off time..." or something. This way there's no issue with compatibility, no existing workflows are broken, and it can all be implemented on the client side. WIN-WIN.

[adrianboimvaser]

It's been more than 2 years. Has anything been done in this regard?

[IndrekV]

Things are moving. In our last meeting we discussed ideas about how to implement this kind of feature. The feature is officially in our todo list. No clear plan on dates but this is in the works guys. Thank you all for keeping this discussion alive.

[vousk]

That is great news!

[jondcoleman]

Any update on this?

[abhijit86k]

Hoping to see a fix soon for this.

[footcha]

My one coin to this discussion. It would be really heplful to have this essential feauture for time tracker.

[vousk]

Three years after I'm starting to guess they don't really care providing us with such a feature 😝

[VeljkoTN]

Hello everyone,

Thanks again for following on up this. One of you asked for an update on Twitter yesterday as well and I personally promised to post an update here as soon as more info is available. I had the chance to discuss this with our developers and the decision makers at Toggl and I'm sorry to say that this is no longer on the to-do list, which doesn't mean it will never happen, allow me to explain:

We've been rolling out UX and stability updates across all of our platforms. We've started to roll out new versions of reports available in the web app, a new version of Android was released as well as a fresh version with numerous updates of the iOS app. All three of the desktop apps have had several performance and functionality updates etc. - rolling out new features, search algorithms and brand new apps introduces new issues as all of you are most likely aware.

Developing the overall Toggl experience made us change our priorities and focus on stability and unifying the experience across all platforms which will bring all of us a better user experience in the future.

When I say this issue is no longer on the to-do list, that means that we do have this in mind, but it will not be something we will be focusing on in the near future. That said, user feedback is what shapes the Toggl experience. All of you guys discussing, criticizing or praising certain aspects of the experience is what steers the focus of development at Toggl.

We do hope that we will be able to meet the needs of all of our users better and encourage you to keep sharing your feedback and suggestions so that we can make the best time tracking app together as a community.

Kind regards,
Veljko
Toggl Support

[GregPeden]

What a silly argument, this is baby town stuff. As one approach, if you were to perform this check server-side then push changed timestamps via your API to the client it would instantly magically work on all platforms. But, you do you.

[VeljkoTN]

Hey there, I wish we could agree with you and resolve this as quickly as you described. Trust me, we have some really skilled developers and if things were that simple we would probably not be having this discussion. 😃

Then again, just in case, I'll be sharing your comment with the rest of the team.

[swat32exe]

The problem with this is that it makes system look broken. It's hard to see a valid case where you'd actually want to count same time twice with toggl (multiple users under same account or some weird stuff like that are the only things that comes to mind).
To me it feels like this is basically a "known issue" that stayed unfixed for 3 years by now (you could argue it's a UX improvement, which it technically is). Together with other less critical issues/bugs (like the one when you quickly switch between records in desktop client those sometimes get same time range set, becoming essentially 2 copies of same record) it really gets annoying when used for billing.
While it's not always easy to fix simple things (I can imagine many implications of simply rejecting such records) that's not something to ignore for years, because it allows creating impossible reports.

[jondcoleman]

I created my own solution to address this using the API. It finds overlapping times and sets the end time of the previous entry to the start time of the next. It's designed to run as an Azure Function (which is nice since it's free for the amount of execution time I need it for) every minute. It's been working well for me for the last couple of months.

https://github.com/jondcoleman/toggl-fix-overlapping-time-azure-function

[GregPeden]

@jondcoleman yes I did the same thing on my end of the API read but I understand from @VeljkoTN that their programming group is not skilled enough to implement this within their own code base even though it'd be much simpler. I currently perform this check on my end and push back to Toggl edits on time entries which needed it. They only need to perform a validation check on save events but that's over their heads.

[missmatsuko]

It doesn't need to be a backend change. I'd be happy if there was a warning on the frontend if I entered overlapping entries. Currently I have to inspect my entries pretty thoroughly to make sure they don't overlap.

[eamesyi]

how is this not fixed!!!!

[IndrekV]

Thank you for picking up this issue.

We are actually currently working on a new visual view that will help identify overlapping entries with ease. The macos version of this will be released in a couple of months so there is a light in the end of the tunnel.

[allanlaal]

any chance of getting this fixed this year?

..so I can finally start using Toggl's reports and other features that rely on CORRECT data, which will mean upgrading to a paid package.

[IndrekV]

The Mac app has gotten a new timeline view that visually shows the overlaps and can help to fix invalid data. The same feature is planned for Windows in Q2 2020. We have no plans for automatic overlap prevention.

[eamesyi]

"We have no plans for automatic overlap prevention." - you can't be
serious!!!!!!

On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 11:33 PM Indrek V [e-mail] wrote:

The Mac app has gotten a new timeline view that visually shows the
overlaps and can help to fix invalid data. The same feature is planned for
Windows in Q2 2020. We have no plans for automatic overlap prevention.

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