The work log assistant

The work-log assistant makes it easier to log your time and achieve timesheet compliance by providing a semi-automated method for recording time logs.

How does the work log assistant work?

When you open the work log assistant, it presents a list of all cards you opened on a day. By default, the assistant calculates work logs for the current day, but you can select any day up to 30 days back in time.

Every time you launch the assistant, it calculates the elapsed time since you started to work, subtracts all already logged work for the day, and distributes the remaining time across the story cards you opened or edited on that day.

You can define the time when you started to work and the target work you aim to log for that day.

When calculating the suggested work logs, the work log assistant algorithm takes into account when, and how many times you touched a given card.

You can easily adjust the suggested time logs if you don’t find them accurate or add other stories to your list.

Sometimes, you open story cards, but you don’t want to log work on them. If this happens, you can remove the card from the list.

When you’re satisfied with the work log entries, you can record them with a single click.

The work log assistant displays a progress bar, where you can check your actual logged work and compare it with your daily target.

The work log assistant works best for professionals who spend most of their work time in front of a computer and update their tasks in Scrum Mate regularly. If you don’t update your tasks regularly, the work log assistant’s algorythm can’t provide acceptable suggestions. You may want to switch off the automatic suggestions.

Using the work log assistant

To open the work log assistant, click on the timer icon at the top menu.

Modify start time and target work log

The assistant uses the default value of 9:00 am as a starting time for the workday.

To change the default start time, click on the time value, and set a different value with the clock input. Set the hour value first, and the minutes next. Click the [Done] button to set the new time.

You can set the new starting time as a default value for the upcoming days. Click on the ‘Set as default’ button next to the new time to use it as a default value.

The work log assistant detects when you started working earlier than the preset starting time. If you open a story card prior to the default start time, Scrum Mate will take the time of opening the card as the starting time of the day.

You can also change the work log target for a specific day or for all upcoming days. To change the work log target, click on the value, and enter a new time value. Type the ‘h’ or ‘m’ characters after the value to indicate the unit of measure of the value you entered.

For example, if you want to set your target work log to 7h:30m, type ‘7h 30m’ to the input field.

Calculating and adjusting work logs

The work log assistant calculates work log suggestions based on many factors.

The assistant proposes work logs for the story cards you moved to another column, completed at least one of its tasks, or opened it several times over the day, or kept it open on your computer for more than five minutes. The assistant does not propose work logs for story cards that were opened for a few seconds only unless you move the card to another column or complete a task on it.

If you don’t want to use the automatic work log suggestion feature, you can switch it off and enter your work logs from scratch.

You can easily edit the proposed work log. To adjust the work log, simply click on the work log field and modify the value.

The system will parse the information as you enter a value and display the work log calculation on the progress bar above the story list.

The list includes stories that you already logged work for the day, so you can always get a grasp of your timesheet compliance for the day.

There may be stories in the list without work log suggestions. Those stories match the activity criteria, but the assistant could not propose a work log value for it.

You can remove stories from the suggested stories list if you don’t want to log work on them.

To remove a story from the list, move the mouse pointer over the story and click on the red ‘X’ icon next to the list item. You can’t remove stories containing logged work for the actual day from the list.

If you worked on a story that is not included in the list, you can add other stories to the list easily, by pressing the ‘+ Log to another story’ button.

When you adjusted the suggested work logs, you can actually log the prepared values to the stories. Press the [Log --h: --m work] button.