Agenda clock report - adding new columns

Agenda clock report - adding new columns

[Bernt Hansen]

Hi Carsten,

I use the daily agenda clock report to see how much time I've spent on
tasks for today (C-c a a R).  Is there a way to add a column to this
report?  I get a daily clock report like this:

| File       | L | Headline    |   Time |      |      |
|------------+---+-------------+--------+------+------|
| tasks.org  | 1 | Do Stuff    | 0:30   |      |      |
| tasks.org  | 2 | Subtask 1   |        | 0:15 |      |
| tasks.org  | 2 | Subtask 2   |        | 0:15 |      |
| tasks.org  | 3 | Subtask 2.1 |        |      | 0:15 |

where Time is the clocked time.  I'd like to be able to add a column
based on a property (MINMAX) of the task so the report would look like
this:

| File       | L | Headline    | MinMax |  Time |      |      |
|------------+---+-------------+--------|-------+------+------|
| tasks.org  | 1 | Do Stuff    | 1:00   | 0:30  |      |      |
| tasks.org  | 2 | Subtask 1   |        |       | 0:15 |      |
| tasks.org  | 2 | Subtask 2   |        |       | 0:15 |      |
| tasks.org  | 3 | Subtask 2.1 |        |       |      | 0:15 |

I don't care if the MinMax column is before or after the Time data but
it would be nice to display it somewhere along with the tasks.

What I'm trying to accomplish is an easy way to see where I'm spending
too little or too much of my day.  Some tasks I want an upper bound on
time spent (like playing around with org mode for instance) and others I
want a minimum amount of time spent (such as actually working on paid
projects).  For these tasks I would have daily repeaters so they can go
TODO -> STARTED -> DONE and I'll just mark them DONE when enough work
for the day is complete.  The tasks would automatically reschedule for
the next day when they are marked as DONE.

I'm just looking for a quick reminder of
  - don't spend more than this amount of time on task X
  - spend at least this amount of time on tasks Y and Z
each day.

I know other people (including you) have limits on the amount of time
they spend on a task in a day but I haven't really found a good working
solution for this yet that fits my needs.  For a single task this is
easy but I'd like to not have to remember the limits for multiple tasks
-- that's what I use org for ;) to get all these details out of my head.

Is something like this doable?  Does anyone have a better idea for how
to deal with this?

-Bernt

Re: Agenda clock report - adding new columns

[Bernt Hansen]

(replying to my own post)

Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> writes:

> I know other people (including you) have limits on the amount of time
> they spend on a task in a day but I haven't really found a good working
> solution for this yet that fits my needs.  For a single task this is
> easy but I'd like to not have to remember the limits for multiple tasks
> -- that's what I use org for ;) to get all these details out of my head.
>
> Is something like this doable?  Does anyone have a better idea for how
> to deal with this?

Maybe I'm over-engineering this... Just putting the limit in the
headline text works for me...

I just added [MAX xxx] and [MIN yyy] to my headline and that'll work.
It's probably not a pretty as a property could be but it's _lots_ less
work to implement :)

| File       | L | Headline                                                                  |   Time |      |      |
|------------+---+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+------+------|
| org.org    |   | *File time*                                                               | *0:15* |      |      |
| org.org    | 1 | Documentation                                                             |   0:15 |      |      |
| org.org    | 2 | STARTED Writeup on my use of org-mode                 [MAX 1h]            |        | 0:15 |      |
|------------+---+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+------+------|

-Bernt

Re: Re: Agenda clock report - adding new columns

[David Bremner]

At Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:02:03 -0400,
Bernt Hansen wrote:
> 
> (replying to my own post)
> 
> Bernt Hansen <bernt@norang.ca> writes:
> 
> Maybe I'm over-engineering this... Just putting the limit in the
> headline text works for me...
> 
> I just added [MAX xxx] and [MIN yyy] to my headline and that'll work.
> It's probably not a pretty as a property could be but it's _lots_ less
> work to implement :)

There is the possibility of :formula parameter for clocktable's, which
can be added to the agenda clocktable with
org-agenda-clockreport-parameter-plist.

Re: Re: Agenda clock report - adding new columns

[Bernt Hansen]

David Bremner <bremner@unb.ca> writes:

> At Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:02:03 -0400,
> Bernt Hansen wrote:
>>
>> I just added [MAX xxx] and [MIN yyy] to my headline and that'll work.
>> It's probably not a pretty as a property could be but it's _lots_ less
>> work to implement :)
>
> There is the possibility of :formula parameter for clocktable's, which
> can be added to the agenda clocktable with
> org-agenda-clockreport-parameter-plist.

Cool - I've never used that yet :).  Is there a way to get at property
values from a :formula entry?  I haven't figured out how to do that yet
-- all I want to do is display some user entered property value (or
blank if it doesn't exist).

-Bernt

Re: Re: Agenda clock report - adding new columns

[Carsten Dominik]

On Apr 16, 2009, at 8:05 PM, Bernt Hansen wrote:

> David Bremner <bremner@unb.ca> writes:
>
>> At Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:02:03 -0400,
>> Bernt Hansen wrote:
>>>
>>> I just added [MAX xxx] and [MIN yyy] to my headline and that'll  
>>> work.
>>> It's probably not a pretty as a property could be but it's _lots_  
>>> less
>>> work to implement :)
>>
>> There is the possibility of :formula parameter for clocktable's,  
>> which
>> can be added to the agenda clocktable with
>> org-agenda-clockreport-parameter-plist.
>
> Cool - I've never used that yet :).  Is there a way to get at property
> values from a :formula entry?  I haven't figured out how to do that  
> yet
> -- all I want to do is display some user entered property value (or
> blank if it doesn't exist).

Not easily.
In principle, the headings in the clock table are links.  I could  
actually give them markers.  Then, an elisp formula could go back to  
the original buffer and the the property from there.

The question is: is it worth it.

- Carsten

Re: Re: Agenda clock report - adding new columns

[Bernt Hansen]

Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> writes:

> On Apr 16, 2009, at 8:05 PM, Bernt Hansen wrote:
>
>> David Bremner <bremner@unb.ca> writes:
>>
>>> There is the possibility of :formula parameter for clocktable's,
>>> which
>>> can be added to the agenda clocktable with
>>> org-agenda-clockreport-parameter-plist.
>>
>> Cool - I've never used that yet :).  Is there a way to get at property
>> values from a :formula entry?  I haven't figured out how to do that
>> yet
>> -- all I want to do is display some user entered property value (or
>> blank if it doesn't exist).
>
> Not easily.
> In principle, the headings in the clock table are links.  I could
> actually give them markers.  Then, an elisp formula could go back to
> the original buffer and the the property from there.
>
> The question is: is it worth it.

No it's not -- at least not just for this mini-application.  I can
accomplish what I want easily enough with just changing the task heading
text a bit.  That's fine for what I want.

Thanks for thinking about out :)

-Bernt