Today we wanted to tell you about another great way to log your time in Noko: through your commit messages! That’s right, we’ve built service hooks for Github and Beanstalk. Any commit message with a special time format will log time in Noko, which will include the full commit message and a link to the commit itself. That way, you’ll know exactly what you worked on and won’t have to try to match your Noko time to your code changes. Your commit message can even include Hashtags!
Setup
There are two guides for getting your repository linked with Noko, one for Github and one for Beanstalk.
Here are some important rules that must be followed for the service hook to work:
- The email for your Github or Beanstalk account must match your email in Noko, Otherwise we will be unable to track your time. Thankfully, Changing your email address in Noko is really easy.
- If you are using Github: The Project name you want to use must already exist in Noko. You can create a new project right from the dashboard.
- Time will only be logged in Noko if the committer is already a Noko User. You can now add your entire team to Noko in just a few steps.
Formatting
Add time to your commit message using square brackets containing the key f: followed by the amount of time you’d like to log.
For example:
- [f:5m] will log 5 minutes
- [f:1] will log 1 hour
- [f:1h] will also log 1 hour
- [f:5] will log 5 hours
- [f:10] will log 10 minutes
The [f:xx] syntax provides the same smart time parsing features as the Quick Entry box.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of how you can specify time:
- m, min, mins, minute, minutes – Sets the time in minutes (i.e. 15m)
- h, hr, hrs, hour, hours – Sets the time in hours (i.e. 1h)
- d, day, days – Sets the time in working days (i.e. 1d would be 8 hours)
- 4 – Sets the time in hours
- 4,15 / 4.15 / 4:15 – Sets time in hours and minutes
The rest of your message will be used to create tags and description. The syntax is exactly the same as the TAGS/DESCRIPTION field in the Quick Entry box.
For example:
"fixed some #bugs with our latest feature [f:1.5h]"
The f:xx part will not show up as part of the description in Noko.
We want to hear from you!
Are you a developer who’s using Noko, or someone manages developers? Let us know how we can make your time tracking experience even easier! We’re looking at how to improve the experience of developers are using Noko, so email or tweet with your suggestions!