Tickspot project budgeting lackluster compared to PDA options |
Loading ...When I first learned of Tickspot my expectation for it was something to help monitor time spent in projects, not be yet another thing that had to be done with an existing project. Tickspot self bills itself as “Hit your budgets—move more inventory. Tick gives you the information you need, when you need it.”
Really? What about when you aren’t connected to the internet?
Tickspot is still in private beta, but signing up, at least in my review, was much faster than normal process. It’s almost like it’s not in beta invite mode at all. A plus.
After filling out the invite request form I received an email almost immediately requesting me to return the following information:
1. Your company name
2. Desired URL (example.tickspot.com)
3. Account owners name
4. Account owners email address
I replied and received another email almost immediately with a password encouraging me to visit my Desired URL.
The first thing to do once entering your Tickspot account is to add clients and projects. For those using Basecamp (we don’t) it will integrate clients/projects created over there with a little additional work.
As shown above, entering in the first project wasn’t an entirely smooth operation (remember, it’s private beta). I received the Apache error while trying to enter in a project with additional created tasks. It didn’t save my data so I had to retype the entire project. Fortunately, the number of input fields for creating new projects isn’t too unwieldy: client name, project name, total project time budgeted, project tasks and email notifications. You can add a client from the same project screen.
Once a project is entered it is declared ‘open’ and you can then see it on the summary screen shown above.
I had hoped Tickspot would include a tool like ActiveTimer (Mac), but for Windows. A widget, FF extension or downloadable program that would automatically record the time with a start/stop type function. The developer could set target applications to track the time so that it was clear how much time was spent on a project.
But Tickspot includes no such helper tools — at least that I’d seen — instead you are required to type in the project timespent manually. We already have a project-based stopwatch-type feature for time spend on projects on our Pocket PC that’s a couple years old, so the omission of this feature is not only puzzling, but downright disappointing.
There is a reporting tab which keeps track of the data you’ve entered in and summarized. I’m sure those screens are handy once you input your data, but then I was distracted by their business model (click on settings and then “upgrade/downgrade plan”):
$39 per month, are you kiddding me? The free model let’s you have one open project at a time, the $39/month plan let’s you have 35 open project and the most expensive plan ($79/month) doesn’t have any project limits. Why wouldn’t a business just pay a programmer to build something like this and then they have no recurring expenses?
I’m not sure exactly who Tickspot is targeting here but it’s definitely not the small developer shop. Perhaps it’s targeting non-developer business types that want to manage many, many projects from the web (only)? The text [see youraccount.tickspot.com/settings/basecamp] boasts about how cool the Basecamp integration is:
If you use Basecamp to manage projects, then you’re going to love this. Tick can automatically integrate with your Basecamp account. This will allow you to set up any clients and projects that you already have in Basecamp in seconds.
Unfortunately, Tickspot seems more like a quickly coded hack/mod to Basecamp than a full featured standalone program. Something you might expect to get from a free Wordpress plugin.
Simple. That’s the word they used to describe Tickspot and that’s another plus. Perhaps too simple, though.
If people asked me for a project solution for staying on budget time-wise, I’d recommend using one of the many excellent PDA project management and productivity apps out there. More features, desktop integration, portability without requiring an internet connection and most require no recurring monthly fees to use them.
The only redeeming Tickspot factors are the simplicity and the smooth almost completely automated beta invite process and perhaps the Basecamp integration if one uses that program. The design is slick, but pay for this? No way. If I were giving it a grade in its current incarnation it would be: D-.
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[…] Slimtimer, a web based timer, is sort of what I was hoping Tick would have included when I reviewed earlier this week. Perhaps the two companies will join forces down the road and make a single project management time tracking tool. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Time your projects while online with web based SlimTimer — July 21, 2006 @ 8:59 am PST
Thanks for taking the time to review the app. Sorry it doesn’t currently fit your needs. We know Tick isn’t for everyone but we’re confident that for some it will prove invaluable.
Comment by Kevin Finn — July 21, 2006 @ 1:54 pm PST
[…] >> Tick » Track time - Hit budgets >> Direct link to screenshots >> makeyougohmmm’s review of Tick […]
Pingback by //engtech » Web 2.0 Time Tracking In a Nutshell (please don’t sue me O’Reilley) — August 18, 2006 @ 12:22 pm PST
If all you want to do is track time in Basecamp, you might consider Sundial, a widget for Mac OS Xs Dashboard environment. Check it out at clearwired.com/sundial
Comment by Andrew Hedges — September 13, 2006 @ 11:14 am PST
This has to be the slackest and least-thought through review that I’ve read in a long time.
“Why wouldn’t a company have their development team build an solution like Tick?”
Because it would cost them roughly what they’d pay for Tick over the course of 2-3 years!
I won’t pick apart the rest of the comments, but they leave much to be desired.
I’ve been picking apart Tick and Harvest with real world project and reporting testing and both of them are excellent!
-cb
Comment by Chad Bishop — December 7, 2006 @ 10:22 pm PST
Assuming you aren’t on the PR payroll and providing your honest opinion, Chad, thank you but as you might figure I’m going to have to disagree unless you take the time to deconstruct my criticisms with some actual detail.
You wrote: “I won’t pick apart the rest of the comments, but they leave much to be desired.”
Why not? Cat got your tongue?
For example the one criticism where you did offer some detail that it would cost a company more than 2-3 years worth of $39/month to produce a Tick clone based on what I saw nearly six months ago? $39 x 12 x 3 years = $1,404 USD.
That buys a fair amount of very skilled programmer time (my third party custom programming rate is $140/hour, so that would get 10 programming hours) or a significant amount of newer/less skilled programmer time. Now do some searching from developers that could produce a clone of what Tick does and I bet $1,400 will entice more than a few interested parties.
Lastly, keep in mind that this review was done in July 2006. This doesn’t cover any changes, upgrades or changes they’ve made since that time. I suspect — hope, in fact — that they’ve made numerous additions.
It isn’t going to do any good telling me how great it is now when there are features I didn’t see or couldn’t test when this review was written almost six months ago.
Comment by TDavid — December 7, 2006 @ 11:00 pm PST
Yes that is my honest opinion after spending about 15 hours comparing Tick and Harvest, again, both great tools.
I assume that you spent about 45 mins testing Tick 6 months ago?
And no “Cat has my Toungue”. I’ve simply got better and more pressing things to spend my time on this evening.
If you have some free time yourself, maybe give Tick another test run, and then write an update to your review?
Just a thought.
-cb
Comment by Chad Bishop — December 8, 2006 @ 12:58 am PST
Chad - lol, free time? What’s that.
I guess you aren’t really that excited about the service if you can’t spend a few minutes writing down the specific features that make Tick so great today. What you found to be so wonderful about the paid service that others couldn’t get for less money elsewhere.
The service was lacking and I gave specific reasons in the review written above six months ago. I don’t go back and write updates to reviews very often unless there is some very compelling reasons to do so. Furthermore, just because somebody I don’t know stops by and suggests I should — without giving any specific reasons or details why — isn’t going to compel me to do something I rarely do.
All you’ve done so far is disagree with a six month old review, capiche? That’s cool, you are entitled to your opinion, but it’s a bit unfair to stop by here and slam me for something that has changed and then not tell me what has changed, don’t you think?
If you or somebody else wants to list specific features and functions that significantly alter the review above please do and I’ll consider re-reviewing Tick (tickspot.com). Otherwise, I bet you can dip into the archives that go back 3.5 years and find other reviews I’ve written here at certain points in time that now are not as relevant as they once were. Reviews for sites/software and things that can be altered and updated, especially when we’re talking beta software and services, are a tricky nut to crack. Tick should be happy that I spent time looking at their service — on my own time and dime — the first time.
This is one reason why the comments are left open so that others can stop by and add/update the information as it changes. And since the search engines (you do SEO according to your link so you should understand how this works) are also looking at these comments as part of the weight of the page, this gives a re-review/update space to compliment the original review.
And you are guessing wrong again in your last comment. I typically spend hours, sometimes even days and weeks, not minutes looking at sites/products/services that I review and grade. Check the Hmm Reviews section. I also buy most of the stuff I review (didn’t pay for Tick though) and do not receive free loaner review copies or special treatment without a clear disclaimer.
I don’t just stop by, sniff a site for less than an hour, write that it sucks and move on. Being that I’m a developer too and appreciate honest, detailed feedback I try and share that with others. As I mentioned above — again, your comments suggest to me that you didn’t read my review very carefully, or that you are some sort of PR plant by Tick (which if that’s the case is very dishonest that you aren’t giving proper disclosure) — there are specific things I think would make Tick more useful like some sort of Active Timer like program. Something that would keep track of time spent in other applications working on the project when not online. People do work in the field, do work in places when they don’t have an internet connection like on airplanes, you know?
Finally, I have used several very good project planning tools that cost less than the price of one month of Tick service and work with both PDA and desktop with no internet required. So, specifically why would a small developer shop like ours want to use Tick? How would it benefit us?
My reviews are all written from a “who would use this, what would it be used for, and are there other software/services that can do the job for less money and/or better?” Tick just didn’t live up to these tests six months ago. Do they now? Maybe they have changed and do, I don’t know. If one looks at your comments there is no compelling evidence that they do is all I’m saying and when I challenged you to backup your comment you basically replied that you had more important things to do. Whatever. This page has been here six months and will be here many more months with the comments open. Make the time if this is that important to you or don’t, it’s up to you.
So if you or somebody at Tick won’t use this comment space or contact me direct to show otherwise, no, I’m not going to make any more time for this service that I felt was way overpriced six months ago. Why should I?
For all I know, Tick will be gone within a year or two and that would just be wasted energy. Some of the sites/services I’ve reviewed have gone out of business/sold so hopefully you can see why I’m reluctant and if you step out of your own biased shoes on the subject, you’ll see what I’m asking for and why.
Don’t want to give me any details, that’s fine, then it’s just your opinion and I respect that as long as you don’t hold some sort of affiliation or business relationship with the Tick folks that you aren’t properly disclosing. If you do have an affiliation of any kind with the Tick folks your credibility just went completely out the window.
Comment by TDavid — December 8, 2006 @ 9:37 am PST