Keeping Time Help

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FAQ

• Download and Installation
• How is Keeping Time installed?
• How do I uninstall Keeping Time?
• My browser warns of "possibly malicious software" when downloading. What gives?
• Usage
• What file format does Keeping Time use?
• Does Keeping Time support (insert some accounting law here)?
• Can the tracked times be imported into other applications?
• Security
• Does Keeping Time phone home?
• Is Keeping Time safe? What data does it store?
• How can I make sure no one reads the saved times?
• Feedback and Issues
• How can I give feedback or report issues?

• Download and Installation
• How is Keeping Time installed?
  Download the installer from the Download page and follow it through, then start Keeping Time from the Start Menu.
  
  For the portable version, simply download the compressed file from the Download page, extract it to any empty folder and start the .exe contained. There is no installation necessary.
• How do I uninstall Keeping Time?
  Installer: You can uninstall Keeping Time from "Add or remove programs" in Windows.
  
  Portable: Keeping Time writes no information to any place but its own folder, so to remove it fully, simply delete the whole folder that contains the .exe.
• My browser warns of "possibly malicious software" when downloading. What gives?
  This is a (to me) questionable security feature in a lot of browsers. They will mark any unsigned downloads that are not an installer as possibly malicious.
  Keeping Time is distributed as a simple zip file containing the application. I chose to not get an official signing certificate because it is very expensive if purchased from a reputable place and complicates the process a lot. All a signed application does is tell you "yeah, it comes from XY". You already know where it comes from. If Keeping Time really contained malicious code, I could still purchase a signing certificate for it and no one would be any wiser…
  Feel free to run the download by any virus scanner of your choosing. You might also want to use a sandboxing tool like Sandboxie (free!) to be on the safe side. I understand these security concerns and I take them seriously, but signing Keeping Time is prohibitively expensive for me and serves no purpose.
• Usage
• What file format does Keeping Time use?
  Keeping Time uses an XML-based data table that is human-readable. You can just open any of the saved files and pretty much read them fluently.
  The file format corresponds to a normal .NET data set. So if you want to read a Keeping Time file with your own application, simply bind a saved file as a source to a standard data set and show it in a grid view or so. It will just work :) That is by design!
• Does Keeping Time support (insert some accounting law here)?
  Keeping Time is designed to help you track your (over)time at work and to also track when you get rid of that time.
  It is by no means a replacement for professional time tracking and employee management in a big corporation. There are tons of applications that do this perfectly.
  Keeping Time aims to be as simple as possible. Essentially, if you are a boss and do not trust your employees; or if you are the employee and know your boss is mortally afraid you'll cheat them of 5 minutes toilet break, please do all of us a favour and use one of the big brand employee tracking suites.
• Can the tracked times be imported into other applications?
  Keeping Time can export a CSV file of a timelist.
  Most applications should be able to load that file. It is also super easy to "teach" your own software to natively read KT's file format! By all means reach out if you have questions.
• Security
• Does Keeping Time phone home?
  Pure and simple: No.
  Keeping Time has an optional online update check, which is disabled by default, but can be used manually or when starting the software to check for new versions. But all this does it call up a small text file on this website with a number and changelog. You can view this file yourself, it is called versioninfo.ini and will be in the KT folder when checking for updates.
  A half-automatic updater is planned for a future version, but it will be opt-in (meaning, disabled by default) and will not send any personal data.
  Feel free to use a network monitoring tool :)
• Is Keeping Time safe? What data does it store?
  The basic tenet of Keeping Time is that it is fully offline, only on your machine and only uses plain readable data. It will only save your data into the location you choose to save it to. It creates no registry entries and no data outside of the folder where the executable is located.
  No one can read any of your data unless you give them access to the files.
• How can I make sure no one reads the saved times?
  You can't - by design.
  Keeping Time is intended as a helper to easily track time (and time off!), giving you (as an employee, or as a manager/boss looking at your employees) a good overview of how much (over) time you/your people have worked, and how well (or not so well) they are able to take off in exchange.
  It is the whole point that the files can be easily read, easily shared and easily edited.
  If you need forgery-proof time tracking, most likely there's a ton of legal and HR implications behind it, and I strongly urge you to look at an enterprise-level time employee tracking solution.
• Feedback and Issues
• How can I give feedback or report issues?
  Keeping Time is a labour of love!
  Any feedback, feature requests and of course issue reports are very much appreciated via the contact form!