The 6 best Visual Studio time tracking tools

Microsoft Visual Studio is likely one of the hottest software program growth platforms on the market. It is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Despite its huge recognition within the software program growth world, the Visual Studio platform lacks a primary mission administration function – native time tracking.

And firms and people utilizing the platform might wish to monitor time for numerous duties and tasks inside it.

After all, tracking time inside Visual Studio will assist enhance productiveness and mission administration effectivity.

So how do you go about Visual Studio time tracking?

In this text, we’ll share six best time tracking options for Visual Studio IDE and three causes you must use one.

Let’s get began.

6 best Visual Studio time tracking options

Together with Microsoft tools like VS Code (code editor), Azure DevOps, and the Visual Studio Code Extension function, Visual Studio presents cutting-edge options to create apps for a number of units and platforms.

But with out native time-tracking, you and your staff gained’t be capable of monitor the time spent on numerous Visual Studio actions. This might result in poor time administration and mission delays and make it troublesome for mission managers to maintain monitor of duties.

Luckily, there are glorious third-party time tracking tools that you need to use to watch the time when working in your code in Visual Studio.

Here are our high 6 picks:

1. Time Doctor

Time Doctor is a superb time tracking and mission administration instrument that may assist streamline your Visual studio workflow. It’s additionally utilized by main firms, like Ericsson, in addition to by smaller companies, like Thrive Market, and freelancers to spice up general productiveness.

Time Doctor’s standalone time tracking extension can account for each second you and your staff spend creating apps and packages on Visual Studio. You’ll get full visibility of the time spent on every activity, individually and as a staff.

What makes it extra handy is that you could additionally use it for different Microsoft tools and providers like Visual Studio Online, Visual Studio Code (a supply code editor), Azure DevOps, and so forth.

In reality, Time Doctor has a strong Chrome extension that may simply combine with Azure DevOps (previously Visual Studio Team Services) — a code growth, collaboration, and launch administration instrument.

To high all of it, customers can leverage Time Doctor’s highly effective functionalities on a number of platforms, comparable to:

Desktop app for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Mobile app for Android.
Google Chrome extension (for supported integrations).

Now let’s take a look at Time Doctor’s helpful options intimately:

Key options

A. Flexible time tracking

Time Doctor options an interactive timer that allows you to monitor time for Visual Studio actions utilizing a begin/cease timer. The timer button provides you higher management over how and while you monitor time.

Here’s how the time tracker works:

Open Time Doctor and enter a activity title.
Click ‘Start’ while you’re prepared to start your work session.
‘Stop’ the timer while you’re accomplished or want a break.

Time Doctor additionally helps computerized time tracking to make the method extra handy. In this mode, the timer begins when the system activates with none enter from the person.

This superior function helps you concentrate on these intense coding periods while not having to function the timer manually.

B. Idle-time alerts

Developers might generally really feel distracted and lose their focus. Time Doctor has a helpful idle-time alert function to reduce such unproductive patterns.

The instrument tracks idle time as seconds/minutes the place there’s no mouse or keyboard exercise on the person’s pc.

After a particular interval (set by the admin), customers get a pop-up alert on their display asking if they’re nonetheless working. If the person doesn’t reply, the timer stops tracking time.

Note: Time Doctor solely checks if the keyboard or mouse is in use and doesn’t file any knowledge.

C. Projects and duties

You can simply add your Visual Studio tasks and duties in Time Doctor to trace the time spent on them. The instrument permits a number of folks to trace their time on a particular activity or mission.

In a staff setting, mission managers can assign a number of tasks and duties to the worker(s). This makes mission tracking and activity administration simpler as managers can add/edit duties and evaluation particular person or staff progress.

Here’s the way it works:

Once you’ve downloaded the Time Doctor app and are signed in, go to Settings / Projects & Tasks.

Note: If you don’t see this selection, go to Settings / Company settings and allow it.

Next, click on the Add Project button on the left pane, enter a mission title, and hit the + button so as to add the mission to your checklist.
To add a activity to a mission, choose a mission and underneath the Tasks tab, click on on Add Task to enter a reputation.
You can choose the People tab within the chosen mission so as to add workers who ought to have entry to the mission and duties underneath it.

D. Productivity rankings

Productivity rankings allow you to categorize web sites and apps primarily based on their relevance to your groups’ workflow and tasks.

The classes are as follows:

Productive.
Unproductive.
Neutral.
Unrated.

You may also customise the rankings for particular groups and workers or globally. For instance, set DevDocs as unproductive for the corporate however productive on your software program growth staff.

E. Comprehensive experiences

Time Doctor’s real-time detailed experiences give very important productiveness and time utilization insights for all of your staff members. This reporting function supplies managers with knowledge to make necessary selections relating to shoppers and activity administration.

The experiences embody:

Hours tracked report: Check what number of hours a programmer has labored per day, per week, or every other date vary you choose.
Projects and duties report: See the entire time spent on totally different VS tasks and their duties.
Activity abstract report: View an in depth account of an worker’s exercise, together with energetic, unproductive, or cell time over a interval of time.
Timeline report: Shows the time a person spends on duties and breaks by means of day by day or weekly sub-reports.
Web and app utilization time report: Track the time your staff spends on totally different web sites and functions.

F. Payroll

In addition to time tracking, Time Doctor presents highly effective payroll administration options for simply paying your workers immediately from the app.

Whether you’re a contract developer or a enterprise proprietor, you need to use the time knowledge to calculate billable hours and precisely cost your shoppers. You may also set hourly charges on your freelance VS builders and add up their complete work hours to keep away from any miscalculations.

You can then combine Time Doctor with a preferred fee gateway, comparable to Gusto, ADP, Wise, and so forth., to pay your staff primarily based on pre-set hourly charges.

Moreover, you can too export your payroll knowledge in a number of codecs (CSV, XLS, PDF, and so forth.).

G. Powerful Chrome extension

Time Doctor has a strong Chrome extension that integrates with over 60+ common enterprise tools, together with a mission administration instrument like Asana, Jira, Zoho Projects, and so forth.

This superior function lets you use highly effective time tracking performance immediately from the third-party instrument’s interface, saving you time and energy in switching apps.

Pricing

Time Doctor presents a 14-day free trial (no bank card particulars required). The primary plan begins at $7/person monthly and contains important options like time tracking and exercise tracking.

Customer rankings

G2: 4.4/5 (320+ evaluations)
Capterra: 4.5/5 (460+ evaluations)

Check out all of Time Doctor’s options right here.

2. TimeCamp

TimeCamp is a straightforward time tracking instrument that you need to use to log time for Visual Studio tasks and monitor your staff’s productiveness.