Re: [O] Display missing/overlapping clock ranges

[Bernt Hansen]

Paul Mead <address@hidden> writes:

> Rainer Stengele <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> I do clock every task I work on during the whole day.
>> At the end of the day or week I have to go over all clock entries in my 
>> agenda
>> and see if there are holes or overlappings in my clock tables.
>> If yes I have to adjust the clocks.
>>
>> I read Bernt Hansen's comments on how he works with clocks
>> (http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Clocking).
>>
>> What about a function showing the lacking clock ranges over
>> the day while being in the agenda with log mode on?
>>
>> The function could even check for overlapping clock ranges and indicate these
>> or jump to these.
>>
>> Maybe it would even be good to be able to configure daily and weekly
>> regular holes in the ranges, for example
>>
>> - daily lunch time from [12:00]--[13:00]
>> - week end days (maybe with diary syntax)
>> - working days (Monday to Friday for example)
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> -- Rainer
>
> I'd defintely use something which identified the gaps and overlaps as
> they're taking some time to find now that I have to account more closely
> for my time! I've been considering whether to raise this for a
> while. The 'regular holes' idea is good to, although not as important
> for me.
>
> Paul

Hi Rainer and Paul,

Locating gaps would be useful.  I've been meaning to investigate this
but haven't spent any time on it yet.  With my current clocking setup
I've found I get very few holes.  Checking the times is a task I do
manually just before billing for my time.  I currently just use a visual
scan of the daily agenda(s) including clocking lines displayed ensuring
that the start and end times match over the clocking period.

It should be possible to automate the check.  How should a filtered
agenda be handled?  I expect you'd want to see the gaps for the entries
that are filtered away otherwise it's only really meaningful when you
look at the entire clocking data.

The major problem I used to have was clocks that would be opened and
never closed.  These were bad because they count as 0 minutes and
without fixing those entries I don't bill for that time.  Since the
invention of M-x org-resolve-clocks (which runs everytime I clock in) I
now find these open clocks quickly and don't need to reconstruct the
data a week later.  I haven't had this problem in a long time.

Maybe something like the following mock up?

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Day-agenda (W15):
Wednesday  13 April 2011
  todo:        7:09- 7:11 Clocked:   (0:02) Organization                        
           :PERSONAL::
               7:11- 8:00 - Gap ->   (0:49)
  org:         8:00- 8:12 Clocked:   (0:12) DONE Try to fix this bug            
    :ORG:WORK:tuning::
  todo:        8:12- 8:26 Clocked:   (0:14) Organization                        
           :PERSONAL::
  diary:       8:26- 9:06 Clocked:   (0:40) Breakfast
  todo:        9:06- 9:30 Clocked:   (0:24) Task A                              
           :PERSONAL::
               9:30-10:58 - Gap ->   (1:28)
              10:00...... ----------------
  todo:       10:58-11:11 Clocked:   (0:13) Organization                        
           :PERSONAL::
              vvv ------ Overlap ------ vvv
  todo:       11:11-11:12 Clocked:   (0:01) Read Mail and News                  
           :PERSONAL::
  todo:       11:10-11:14 Clocked:   (0:01) Organization                        
           :PERSONAL::
              ^^^ ------ Overlap ------ ^^^
  todo:       11:14-11:15 Clocked:   (0:01) Read Mail and News                  
           :PERSONAL::
  todo:       11:15-11:16 Clocked:   (0:01) Organization                        
           :PERSONAL::
              12:00...... ----------------
              14:00...... ----------------
              16:00...... ----------------
              11:16-16:33 - Gap ->   (5:17)
  todo:       16:33...... Clocked:   (-) Read Mail and News                     
           :PERSONAL::
              16:43...... now - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
              18:00...... ----------------
              20:00...... ----------------
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Regards,
Bernt