A flextime calculation tool implemented with Erlang/OTP
Start the tool with the command
eflex
or see its usage with
eflex --usage
Here follows a users guide.
By default the Eflex files are stored in a directory called .eflex on your home directory. Data for each calendar year will be stored in a separate file containing calculation properties, holidays as well as data for each individual week of the year.
If the .eflex directory is missing at startup, Eflex will parse old Ericsson Flextool data files (located in your .Flextool directory on your home directory) and generate corresponding Eflex year files. You can bypass this behavior by creating the .eflex directory manually on beforehand. A data file for the current year will automatically be generated if it does not exist.
When processing the old Flextool data files, absence all day will be coded as Flex and work will not be assigned to any particular project. But this can be controlled by using some options:
- start the Erlang shell with "eflex --debug"
eflex:start([{absence_all_day, "Absence"}]).eflex:start([{absence_all_day, "Vacation"}]).eflex:start([{absence_all_day, "my code"}, {unspecified_work, "my project"}]).
Once the tool is started, one week at the time will be displayed in the main window. By default the current week is displayed. You can navigate to other weeks in several ways:
- press the page up key to go to previous week (<)
- press shift (or control) and the page up key to go to previous month (<<)
- press shift and control and the page up key to go to previous year (<<<)
- press the page down key to go to next week (>)
- press shift (or control) and the page down key to go to next month (>>)
- press shift and control and the page down key to go to next year (>>>)
- press the home key to go to the current week (Today)
- press the left mouse button in the week column to select a week from the popup menu
- press the left mouse button in the year column to select a year from the popup menu
The dates for holidays are displayed in red, while dates for working days and free days are displayed in black. The dates for free days are enclosed in parenthesis. A normal working day can be set to be a holiday and vice versa by first pressing the left mouse key in a date cell and then select the desired action in the popup menu. Holidays can also be altered in a similar manner in the separate holiday editor window.
The numerical values in the cells can either be displayed as hours and minutes or hours and decimals. The hours and minutes are separated with a colon (e.g. 7.45) while hours and decimals are separated with a dot (e.g. 7,75). The display format (decimal/minutes) and lots of other properties can be customized. The values can however be ented in either unit regardless of the choosen display unit. By default a work day is 7 hours and 45 minutes, a lunch break is 40 minutes, a normal break is 30 minutes and you must have a break after 4 hours work on work days and 5 hours of work on free days.
Whenever a value is edited in the tool, at least the current week is recalculated. But all earlier weeks for the current year, may possibly also be recalculated if needed. After the calculation, the data for the entire year (including holidays and other calculation properties) is automatically stored on disk.
Values in numerical and empty cells may be copied by pressing the left mouse key and pasted by pressing the middle or right mouse key. If the value is negative it vill will be converted to a positive value. The value can also be pasted in other tools using the native paste mechanism.
For each week day the arrival time and the leave time can be edited. Based on these values the mandatory breaks are calculated. It is possible to adjust this computed value by entering an adjust value. The adjust value may either be positive or negative. Based on all these values the actual working time and flex time will be calculated.
The adjust value can be automatically updated when you need a break. When the away a while button is pressed you have two minutes to prepare your absence by for example locking the screen. That means that you may move the mouse the first two minutes, but after that the first mouse move will be interpreted as the break is over and the adjust value will be updated accordingly. If you for some reason want to cancel the break, you can press the cancel button.
The values in the week column are the accumulated values for the current week and the values in the year column are the accumulated values for the entire year (up to the displayed week). The cells in the year and week columns cannot be edited.
The leftmost column is called activity. The black activities are editable while the red ones are not. Each activity (type) has an inital value which is used as start value for calculations of that year. The initial value will affect the accumulated year value.
Further activites may be added by selecting an activity type from a menu that pops up when the left mouse button is pressed in the activity column. There are two categories of activites. The first category is about activites that regards attendance. They are displayed in the upper part of the popup menu as well as the upper part of the main window. The values of these activities affects the calculation of the flex time (it becomes blank when it reaches zero).
The second category is about project related activities. They are displayed in the lower part of the popup menu as well as the lower part of the main window. The unspecified activity defaults to the actual working time. When a value is entered for a project related activity, that value is automatically subtracted from the unspecified activity. When you are done with specifying working time for all projects, there should be no value left in the unspecified activity.
The auto code function automatically sets unspecified work to your favorite project(s) and absence all day to your favorite attendance related activity. The function can either be activated by pressing the auto code button or the end key. The auto code function only updates days up to the current date. Use the configuration editor window to specify four favorite activities.
When a project activity is selected for unspecified work, it implies that 100% of the unspecified work will be auto coded for that project. It is however possible to code parts of the work to one project and parts to another. This is achieved by entering clever share settings in the activity type editor. If you want 100% of the work to be coded for a project, the share is 1 for that project and 0 for all other. If you instead want 1/3 to be coded for one project and 2/3 to another project, you enter the shares 1 and 2 respectively for those projects and 0 for all others.
All activity types that are configured to be visible are shown in the activity popup menu. New activity types may be added and existing ones may be customized in the activity type editor.
The arrival and leave times for the current day are by default updated automatically each minute, as long as the mouse pointer has been moved since the last update. For each day, the first time that the mouse was moved is noted as arrival time and the last move is noted as leave time.
The first mouse move in a new year will cause a new year file to be created. The initial activity type values for the new year will be set to the accumulated values of the year before. The activity types, calculation properties and holidays will also be copied from the old year. If the old year is updated further this will not be reflected in the new year file.
In the activity type editor window you can manage activity types. When a property of an activity type is changed, it directly affects the activities for that year. All changes are as always immediately stored on disk.
New activity types are created by cloning existing ones and then customizing them. When the name of an activity type is changed, all activities (instances) of that types are also renamed. An activity type can only be deleted if there are no activites (instances) of that type. The activities must be deleted manually. It is however possible to obtain a summary for which weeks that have activities of that partcular type. When viewing the summary it is possible to click on a week in order to display that week in the main window.
The display unit for activities can either be decimal or minutes. The value of entered values can either be used in calculations as they are (positive) or their values can be negated (negative). For example when working overtime the value added to the flex should be negative while the value for abcence should be added as a positive value. Most activity values should be kept as they are (positive). The visible/hidden property controls whether the activity type should be visible in the activity type menu or not.
As a last resort you can to manually edit the year file with your favourite editor. The data is stored in XML format. Most of the data should be rather staightforward to edit. But please have these two things in mind when you edit the file:
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Do only edit the file if you are sure that the tool is not running as the tool will continously update the file on its own behalf.
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The order of activities and activity types are significant. The predefined mandatory activities must be first, followed by the optional abcence/overtime related activites, followed by the unspecified activity, followed the project related activities. In other words, the order should be the same as displayed in the GUI with the exception of the unspecified activity that serves as a delimeter between abcence/overtime related activites and project related activites.
Enjoy!
Håkan Mattsson