Hi!

Recently, I argued with a friend of mine about is there any use of Time Tracking tools for TFS, or TFS gives possibilities for time tracking being as is. We ended up in a consensus that we both were right, and while TFS has its own resources, there is nothing negative in specially created TFS time tracking tools.

Today, I’ve been determined to find the proofs for my rightness (for I am not a consensus-loving person, frankly). And, voila, I’ve stumbled upon a blog post at Continuously Integrating blog with clearly formulated statements in favor of me being right.

The question is that Task work items have work remaining and work completed fields, so many people (not only my friend, as appeared) think them to be “a prime candidate for time tracking”

Here are some points explaining why they are wrong:

First and foremost, the goals of Tasks are rather different than being a means for time tracking. Time tracking is something personal, associated with a particular user, while Task means, mostly, a workflow flowing from one user to another as the task is in progress.

Then, “work completed”, being a cumulative value, can’t be associated with a particular date. While time tracking supposes tracking time spent on a particular task on a particular day. Plus, “work completed” may include work of several persons (like developers, for example, working on the same task). While again, time tracking means hours spent by a particular user.

Moreover, for the sake of billing, accounting, and PM’s nerves, it’s more useful to have software integrated with TFS (if a company uses TFS), to track time spent on tasks by each developer or tester, to have the information on billable and unbillable hours, to have, at last the possibility to analyze time spent on different types of tasks, etc. Work items simply can’t provide this.

So, here comes the conclusion. Surely you can crack nuts with a microscope. But why not use some tool designed specially for nuts cracking, while using microscope for exploring the hidden life of bacteria?