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-   -   Feature Request: Status Reporting (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=15276)

signal15 2010-02-10 11:38 AM

Feature Request: Status Reporting
 
I have to fill out weekly status reports for the projects I'm working on. I would LOVE to see a status reporting capability added to OF, preferably with the ability to assign a list of email addresses that the report should go to and scheduling so it can sent it off every monday morning automatically.

It should -
- Have the ability to turn status reporting on or off for individual projects
- Only look at Active projects, or be configurable
- Show a list of tasks added in the previous week
- Show a list of tasks completed in the previous week
- Show all open tasks
- Show all completed tasks
- Stats:
- Number of tasks added vs. number completed in the week
- Total percentage of tasks completed for the entire project
- any other interesting stats

I've been trying to code something that would do this. If I export each project to CSV, I would be able to do this no problem using a spreadsheet program. Except, OF doesn't export the "Date Added" field. My add date and start date are almost always the same. Does anyone ever go in and actually use the Start Date field? There should be an option to make the start date the same as the add date by default.

The other thing that's annoying is there is no direct XML export function. I can export to .ofocus format, but then I have to go into the directory, unzip some randomly named file, and then grab the XML. Except the XML is for everything under the sun, instead of just the project I had selected when doing the export.

Doing my status reports can sometimes take me *HOURS*. Having this would simplify my life greatly. I know others have made the reporting feature request before, including me. It's been two years. Is it even on the roadmap? When are we going to see something? I love this program, but this is a huge missing feature.

Lucas 2010-02-10 11:54 AM

Isn't there a way to run queries against the sqlite database? I thought that was how people were getting statistics on their open projects and stuff. If you opened that database, I would think you could get the information you're looking for pretty easily.

Toadling 2010-02-10 12:02 PM

In my view, this idea sounds very specific to a particular use case. Such a reporting mechanism wouldn't work for me and I suspect it'd be the same for many other users. But who knows, I might be off in the weeds on this one. :-)

The cool thing is that you should be able to do all of this now using AppleScript. It's perfect for adding your custom features that suit your needs specifically.

[QUOTE=signal15;73077]Does anyone ever go in and actually use the Start Date field?[/QUOTE]

Heck yeah! I use the start date field more than any other date field. It's one of OmniFocus' best features!

-Dennis

Toadling 2010-02-10 12:07 PM

[QUOTE=Lucas;73081]Isn't there a way to run queries against the sqlite database? I thought that was how people were getting statistics on their open projects and stuff.[/QUOTE]

My [URL="http://baofug.googlegroups.com/web/Count+Database+Items+Script+v1.0.zip?gda=fvNYO1cAAABi_N8LSTyCZiIfqbA6yJsMnwBplwXDQ-etaQyRyv1uqtnIPCTO9PzBJivhJdPCcdoSedvGM9RqmTj048uKEpheG8x3vO1EnYqE_bjYgOzx2nleHbr-qQzBoYYWXY0JTQM"]Count Database Items[/URL] script gets most of its information using the AppleScript API. Only the total number of actions is retrieved with an sqlite query.

There may well be more information that can be garnered from the sqlite database cache, but it's undocumented and unsupported as far as I know. The SQL query I use for the number of actions was originally posted by Ken Case on these forums a couple years ago -- still seems to work though.

-Dennis

signal15 2010-02-10 12:11 PM

Where is the sqlite DB held? I just see a ton of zip files in the Application Support directory, and I assume these are just filled with xml.

If I'm querying the sqlite for this data, I'm going to have to do a ton of merging or additional queries to replace unique ID's with the names associated. Does anyone have examples?

Toadling 2010-02-10 01:04 PM

The sqlite lite database can be found at:

[CODE]~/Library/Caches/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus/OmniFocusDatabase2[/CODE]

The core database (~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus/OmniFocus.ofocus) is stored as XML in all those zip files you mentioned. But an sqlite database cache is generated on a regular basis (every launch?). Presumably, it's used to help with searching and sorting performance.

Also keep in mind that accessing that sqlite db directly is probably unsupported and undocumented. Proceed at your own risk.

-Dennis

Lucas 2010-02-10 03:17 PM

I think that this information might be interesting, but I think that the problem is that for it to have meaning (most particularly the percentages), you would have to fill in all of the actions for any project before you start. To me, if the point of looking in OF is to save time doing these reports, you don't want to spend all the time filling in every possible action so that your percentages will have a reasonable amount of meaning.

I would think that you would get nearly the same accuracy just using project view to review all of the completed projects completed in the past week and the uncompleted projects modified in the past week and just take your own guess as to how completed they are.

MacG5 2010-02-10 09:54 PM

How Do you want to make the report, based on what? Numbers of task to complete? Remaining time to spend on these tasks?
I'm just wondering why you spent so much with reporting "...status reports can sometimes take me *HOURS* ..." instead of DOING the work. OK, you mentioned that you have to do this reporting - hopefully for someone else. But the problem here, generally for projects, that the more precise you want to calculate the remaining time the more divergence you will have with the actual result.
Make a weekly review, and a good estimate. YES, make a guess, it will be as good as the best scientific calculation plus the resulting deviation. No one will see a difference, but you, having more time remaining.
Still in doubt? Here's an example: Project with 4 task, you add another one, just phone call task; a report as you mentioned above will show an increase of 20%. Doing the task will show a progress in the project of 20% - what? it will take you just 2 minutes to make the call. That would mean the whole project is equally built out of equal task. To avoid that, you must give each task a specific estimated duration, that may (no, certainly) vary with time. So you have to adjust these parameters EACH time you review, so it is still the same as you do the estimation.
I would agree that it would be fine in OF if the "duration-column" would be calculate the sum, just as omnioutliner.
Then the rest of your requirement would be just to define proper perspectives and make a weekly review for the report.


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