Track time

Time tracking in dotby is built around one idea: logging time should cost you less effort than not logging it. There are no modes to pick and no tabs to switch before you can type.

Log time in one line

Type a duration and press Enter:

3h 20m

That’s logged. Leave the same box empty and press Enter instead, and it starts a live timer.

The same editor works everywhere — on the task, in the timer popover, and on your timesheet. One box, one grammar, no “which screen am I on” tax.

The duration grammar

Unit	Means	Aliases
m	minutes	min
h	hours	hr
d	days	—
w	weeks	wk
mo	months	mon
y	years	yr

Combine them freely: 1h30m, 2w, 1mo 2w. 1:30 works too.

Two rules worth knowing:

• m is always minutes and mo is always months. 1mo never reads as 1m plus junk.
• A day and a week are your team’s, not the calendar’s. They come from the project’s rates — 8 hours a day and 5 days a week by default — so 2w is 80 hours, not 336. Months and years are fixed multiples on top of that: 1 month is 4 weeks, 1 year is 12 months.

While the timer runs

Forgot to start it? Click the “Started 1:13 pm” label while it is still running and drag the start time backwards. No stopping, no re-logging.

Pause and resume as often as you like. Each stretch is recorded separately and the total is the sum of them — a pause never inflates your hours.

The timer pill opens your recent days in place: per-day totals, one-tap resume, and inline editing of any entry without leaving the page.

If a new entry would overlap one you already logged, dotby warns you instead of quietly double-counting.

What one entry actually is

An entry is a block of time carrying one activity tag. That matters, because the tag is what determines the rate.

A single block can span several tasks — useful when one stretch of work touched three things. It can also have no task at all, if an admin has turned that on for the workspace. Meetings and admin time are real work; they just don’t live on a board.

Estimates vs actual

Give a task an estimate in the same grammar (4h, 2w), and the task shows estimated against tracked side by side. Points and t-shirt scales work too, if your team sizes that way instead.

This is where the number earns its keep: after a few sprints you stop arguing about whether estimates are accurate and start reading how far off they usually are.

Activity types

An activity type is a named, colored tag — Development, Design, Meeting, Support. Every workspace has one marked as the default, so logging time never blocks on a decision.

Their real job is money.

Rates and pay

A rate is set per person, per activity. The same person can be billed at one rate for development and another for support.

Two things that surprise people:

• No rate means unrated, not free. If a person-activity pair has no rate, time is still tracked — it just never becomes payable. That’s the setting for control-only tracking.
• Rates are frozen onto the entry when it’s logged. Changing someone’s rate today does not rewrite last month’s report.

Each member is paid in one currency. The pay report subtotals by currency and does not convert between them — no invented exchange rates.

Running timers never enter payable totals. Time counts once it’s stopped.

Who sees money

This is the part worth reading carefully, because the defaults are opinionated.

• Admins always see money. This can’t be switched off.
• Managers never see it by default — being able to run the team is not the same job as seeing what everyone costs.
• Members see their own pay, unless the workspace default says otherwise. Any individual can be excepted either way: inherit the workspace setting, or be explicitly shown or hidden.

Handing over one right

When someone genuinely needs more, you grant the one thing — not admin.

Capability	What it opens
See everyone’s hours	Every member’s timesheet: hours, tags, tasks. No money.
Edit everyone’s time	Correct or delete another member’s stopped entries.
See pay	The pay report, money on timesheets, CSV export.

Hours and money are deliberately separate keys. “HR sees hours, finance sees money” is the common split, and bundling them would re-create the problem this is meant to solve.

These can only be held by managers and admins, and every grant is written to the audit log.

There is also a workspace-wide switch letting managers edit other people’s stopped entries. It’s off until an admin turns it on, and it adds to the per-person capability rather than replacing it.

Next

• Core concepts — where estimates sit among a task’s other properties.
• Invite your team — roles, and granting one ability without promoting anyone.