Your Opinion: Time out of Mind...

[DefStatic]

Title is for any Steely Dan fans out there.

Seeing as this is a technical forum of sort, and I am sure most of us are in the IT field someway, shape, or form. I have been pondering something as my company takes on a new project/time/ticket tracking system. And it directly involves tracking time through a project/incident.

If you are tracking your time through the day for completing tasks (whether it be an Onsite task, Helpdesk task, Engineering, etc) would you count the time you spent downloading a large file, downloading updates, running a virus scan, etc towards your time in a ticket?

There are two sides being heard. One that feels it is simple... You track time for working, not waiting. The other arguement is you track the time from start to finish of a ticket with no stopping the time (as long as something is still happening with the incident).

For example, we have a reimage process for computers. It is extremely automated and typically takes about two hours, requiring nothing from the tech to do except start the computer. One tech thinks the client should be charged for two hours of work. Another tech feels only the actual amount of time (roughly 25-30 mins) worked should be charged. That 25 - 30 mins being starting the process, checking on it once in a while, and verifying it finished correctly.

Keeping in mind this is not time tracked to bill the client. The client has already paid for services. This is simply to track a techs actual work done throughout a day.

Any thoughts?

 

[johnlgalt]

Depends - if I have to spend 2 hours collating and then downloading everything, then obviously, yes, I would - but I am a packrat, and always keep the latest versions of numerous anti-Malware and other 'fixit' types of apps handy in the first place, so even though I may spend 1-2 hours of my own time keeping that package on my USB updated every couple of weeks or so, I won't charge all of my clients the 1-2 hours each - that, to me, would be wrong.

I work with a number of local clients, all of whom usually come to me when they need services ranging from an OS reload to thorough cleaning (of the malware variety) to actual spring cleaning (of the dust bunny variety). If I have to spend 2 hours researching how they have a certain driver installed and / or how they are making X OS owrk on Y hardware when it was made for Z OS, then, yeah, I may charge them for the time involved in he research. Malware cleaning, however, I charge a flat rate, unless it takes me far longer than I anticipate - if I expect to do a job in an hour, I won't complain about 2 or even 3, but 11? You bet yer arse I am charging more.

The way that this makes sense is that I report all hours worked to the client, regardless of whether I charge them or not. If I spend any time researching / downloading software that is directly pertinent to their case, I log it. But that is me, I am meticulous about how I go about solving end user issues.

 

[DefStatic]

I get researching, researching is work. i have to do research all the time.

But waiting for a 2 hour scan or 2 hour download? I cannot see tracking that as time worked. The parts of a download or scan that require interaction sure.

But if a process requires something to start where you can go Facebook or YouTube while you wait, I don't think it is right to claim that as time worked.

Now I would also count any time to keeping troubleshooting hardware/software up to date, you legitimately spend time on it, I would track that as well. I keep a couple specific USB drives with me, I prob should update them LOL.

Again, this is just for the purpose of tracking an Onsite Desktop techs time spent working, not charging the client or anything like that. If this were for charging actual clients, I think there would be diff arguments.

Thank you for the input.

 

[johnlgalt]

I can see where you're coming from in that case - but, we're IT. If we can't multi-task, then what's the point?

if the DL is going ot take 2 hours, that is two hours of my time that I have to spend - even if I can go do something else, more than likely I'll be working on another client's machine, so the 2 hours will not be wasted.

But, you can bet your bottom dollar that I am not charging the both of them. Again, that would be shady in my book, even though many auto repair shops do it all the time....

 

[sptsailing]

Depends - if I have to spend 2 hours collating and then downloading everything, then obviously, yes, I would - but I am a packrat, and always keep the latest versions of numerous anti-Malware and other 'fixit' types of apps handy in the first place, so even though I may spend 1-2 hours of my own time keeping that package on my USB updated every couple of weeks or so, I won't charge all of my clients the 1-2 hours each - that, to me, would be wrong.

I work with a number of local clients, all of whom usually come to me when they need services ranging from an OS reload to thorough cleaning (of the malware variety) to actual spring cleaning (of the dust bunny variety). If I have to spend 2 hours researching how they have a certain driver installed and / or how they are making X OS owrk on Y hardware when it was made for Z OS, then, yeah, I may charge them for the time involved in he research. Malware cleaning, however, I charge a flat rate, unless it takes me far longer than I anticipate - if I expect to do a job in an hour, I won't complain about 2 or even 3, but 11? You bet yer arse I am charging more.

The way that this makes sense is that I report all hours worked to the client, regardless of whether I charge them or not. If I spend any time researching / downloading software that is directly pertinent to their case, I log it. But that is me, I am meticulous about how I go about solving end user issues.

I work in IT and am now being asked for detailed weekly reports as to how I have spent my working time each week. Do you have any recommended Droid apps? I was thinking how it would be good to be reminded every half hour or hour or so to easily enter what cost center I have been supporting and a brief mention of how. There has to be something out there to address this. What might it be?

 

[Isthmus]

You guys looking for time racking software should look into software used by the Law industry. Large law firms use fairly specialized software designed to specifically track time in predifiend units which they then use to bill clients. In most cases, though, law firms do not charge for actual time worked, but rather for blocks of time (15 minute or 10 minute blocks are common). In other words, If I'm an attorney and a client calls about something and we are on the phone for 5 minutes, I charge them for a block of time (ie 10 minutes).

The idea is that while such time keeping can be abused, it tends to average out to something reflecting reality. So long as you and your client agree to this form of billing i advance there is usually not much of a problem.