Ding.io
ding.io
ding.io
Suggestion: add text below the green signup button saying, "Free 45 day trial, no credit card required". I think that would also help increase signup rates.
We're fans of Bootstrap and jQuery ourselves, but believe in giving Ding the custom treatment. Time tracking is a crowded space after all.
One note: I'm interested in just using for time tracking for personal productivity, but it feels more like it's built around use cases for consultants / free lancers (eg, client name being required when creating project). Not sure if my use case is your target, but if it is might be nice to have a global setting to turn off the 'client / freelancing' features so i get something a little more streamlined and limited to better capture how I want to use it. Might diverge from what you're going for, but wanted to pass along how I planned on using.
You're right: Ding is built for freelancers and small teams who do consulting. Preferably those who operate with an hourly rate, so you can keep track of the money earned. To maintain the simplicity of Ding, we try to avoid different modes and settings whenever we can, but sometimes they prove necessary. Your use case seems like something that's not quite core to our product, but it's certainly an interesting perspective that we'll brainstorm around. Would you be willing to pay for something you only use for personal needs?
Nowadays, I simply plan out my day in my calendar, adjust as necessary, and take that as the data. I don't get to do any crunching of the data like I used to (like graphs and quantitative analysis of where my time is going), but it does serve the purpose of making me aware of what exactly I did during the day.
I'm working on something that will do this quantified-self-esque time tracking built specifically for QS (instead of for freelancers) when I have free time, because this awareness of how I spend my days has quite literally changed my life.
[0] https://github.com/markbao/vestige [1] http://toggl.com [2] http://timelyapp.com
Also totally agree re: quantified-self time tracking and its usefulness.
Gjermund, Co-founder / Designer
1) Please, PLEASE make sure it's quick/easy to enter time with the keyboard. Right now the main log time interface doesn't let you tab to select the project drop down. I feel like I should be able to tab to this field after the optional comment field. Enter anywhere in the form (except maybe the optional comment) should save the entry and get me ready to enter a new one. For your target audience (devs), I think good keyboard-only support is key.
2) There should be an easy way to see the total time for each day, maybe just next to the date on the Activity page. In any case, I shouldn't have to run a query to see how much I've worked today.
3) Have queries (via the Overview tab) alter the URL so a query can be bookmarked. Ideally this would be with relative dates so I could bookmark https://ding.io/overview?user=1&project=x&client=y&time=this....
This looks really good. Harvest is the de facto for time tracking with good UX, but even their UX could use some refinement (my 3 comments above all apply to Harvest also, I think). You're definitely giving them a run for their money.
BTW, I really like having the client and project in one searchable drop down. Separating these was one of my biggest annoyances with Harvest.
1) Agreed. This has been up for discussion several times, and it's high on the list. We'll post these kind of smaller tweaks on Twitter, so if you stick to using Ding, keep an eye out there [0].
2) We've tried to get the most essential stats within the statistics panel on the top, and let you quickly tab through these. The hours of the day is usually pretty visible within the top of the activity feed, but I guess it is less clear if there's several short intervals rather than two-three big ones. I'll take a close look at it and see if there's a way to tweak this.
3) Another great idea – we'll see if we can move it further up the list.
We really appreciate all the great input, so thanks again. Our biggest challenge is time as we're a small team, but we'll keep on truckin' :)
The pricing model is a discussion in and of itself, but it boils down to us wanting Ding to be as simple and straightforward as possible. If you think the product is worth paying for after 45 free days, you either sign up for the Solo or the Team plan, and that's it. No annoying 'project limits' or anything like that.
There's a lot of theory on this subject matter, but we prefer to stick with what we think is a clean approach. At least for the time being.
From the work so far, I look forward to what they could do to simplify invoicing.
There's been quite a few requests regarding invoicing, and while I won't promise anything in the short term, we'll work hard to make Ding better in the future. People requested a start/stop-timer which we just implemented, so we do listen and take your feedback seriously.
Money earned gets most space however is never the truth because of taxes, expenses etc. I rather use my accounting software for seeing my actual earnings.
Time logged is OK however Active projects for me isn't really necessary information.
The activity stream and log time form should be of highest priority. Put the activity stream in focus with better one-click-filtering on clients/project/tags(?) would be great to quickly answer the clients questions on what I did. :-)
In summary I think the design is great and looking at features I think when comparing with freckle, which is relevant in my case, I feel like half the price equals half the functions. Nothing wrong with that and your product will of course mature with time. I'll keep an eye on it.
Great job!
You can export to both CSV and PDF. So you can still get reports for your clients, although you'll have to do it manually. We have a pretty limited API right now, built mostly to support our iOS app. As the API grows you should be able to get the reports from it.
Money earned let's you see how much you can bill in a given period, so you can quickly see if you're reaching your goal. We think it's useful despite not accounting for taxes and expenses, and it's a nice moral boost to see the money coming in.
You can filter on projects, clients, date etc. on the Overview page. It's really fast to get filter out exactly the data you need.
As for the price, I guess it's higher than some, and cheaper than others. We've tried to set a price we thought was fair, and we continuously keep making the product better to make sure you'll get more bang for your buck.
Anders, Co-founder / Developer
What API features are you thinking about? We have a pretty limited API that we built for the iPhone app, but it's growing as we work on the next version of the app. So over time it'll get more of the same features as the website.
All in all its a great introduction to the service, really well put together.
I agree that a "get started" page could be a neat thing, and the onboarding experience is something we're planning to overhaul. Ding should however be quite simple: create a project and log time. As you log your hours, you can easily see the time spent and the money made.
If you want to filter out and export your time entries, it's possible in the Overview section.
I hope you'll give it a shot. If you're stuck, shoot me an email at gjermund@ding.io and I'll get to you asap.