Since launching the new version of HourStack back in March, we've been working hard to iterate on the core product based on customer feedback and have been releasing a large number of smaller updates on a weekly basis. Our backlog of these iterative tasks is shrinking quickly and we'll be transitioning into some more significant projects with releases every 2-3 weeks.

We'll be spending half of our time building core features, such as all new reports, budgeting, and checklists with the other half on new integrations including a browser extension and direct integrations with ClickUp, Monday.com, Notion, and many more. Check out our product roadmap to see what we're up to and contact us with any features or integrations you'd like to see.

Asana Integration Updates

Our goal in redesigning our direct integration with Asana was to bring task discovery much more in line with what you experience when using the Asana app. We want finding Asana tasks to schedule and track time against in HourStack to be a quick and simple as possible. To fit all that functionality in our integrations sidebar, we switched from filters to tabbed navigation that gives you a direct path to getting tasks in familiar ways.

Tabs include:

  • My tasks: Lists tasks assigned to you in the same order you've set in Asana. We were disappointed to not be able to include the sections to group each task, but we are told the Asana team is going to add this capability to their API in the future. As soon as it is available, we'll add it and you'll have a 100% representation of your My Tasks page in Asana.
  • Projects: You'll likely spend much of your time working in this tab. You'll see a full list of your projects in the same order they appear in the Asana app. We've included the project colors and icons to make finding them faster. Once you select a project, all the tasks under that project will be shown grouped by section as defined in the project within Asana.
  • Tags: These are a helpful way to find similar tasks across your Asana workspace that you want to schedule at the same time. For example, maybe you have a task tagged billing in Asana where you run the monthly billing for each project. You could go under tags, locate the billing tag, then see a list of all open billing tasks ready to be scheduled and completed.
  • Users: This is the quickest way to find tasks assigned to other team members that you want to schedule for in HourStack. You won't see their My Tasks view–that is private as is yours–but you will have access to all of their public tasks.
  • Search: Quickly find any task by name. We utilize the Asana "Typeahead" API, which is the search you find in the navigation bar of the Asana app. We'll return the exact same results, but it's limited to tasks in this tab. If you'd like to search for projects, tags, or users, select that tab first, and a search input specific to that resource is available.

We've also made a few other improvements like the task assignee icon and name are listed on the card, and subtasks are collapsed by default, just like in Asana. If you think we've missed anything that would be helpful to your Asana x HourStack workflow, let us know!

Todoist Integration Updates

Much like our Asana integration, we've updated our direct integration with Todoist to utilize our new tabbed navigation to significantly reduce the friction involved with locating Todoist tasks to schedule and track time against in HourStack. In addition, we also support sections under every tab and sorting options such as name, priority, due date, created date, or the manual order you've set in Todoist. Just like in the Todoist app, we apply your sort within each section.

Tabs include:

  • Inbox: This is exactly as you left it in Todoist. Find your anytime and most important tasks, grouped by section, get them scheduled, completed, and get to inbox zero!
  • Upcoming: You'll find all tasks with a due date sorted in order with an overdue section at the top of the list for any tasks that are incomplete with a due date that has passed.
  • Projects: We match the order and nesting you have set in the Todoist sidebar to make it quick and easy to find a project you want to schedule tasks from. The project color gives a helpful visual cue, but you can also search by name. Your project's tasks will be in the order you have set and grouped by section.
  • Labels: These are also ordered and colored as you have them set in Todoist, so you can quickly find a label and schedule the tasks under it. Projects and labels assigned to your tasks in Todoist will automatically be copied over to HourStack as well.
  • Filters: This is where the real power users work! Create filters to find the perfect view of your tasks. This is a great way to work with HourStack as you could create an HourStack filter specifically for scheduling tasks in our platform.

Tabs are just the biggest update to our Todoist integration though! Other updates include:

  • Todoist recently release descriptions, and now they are supported in HourStack! We'll map the Todoist description to the entry description when creating an entry in HourStack from a task with a description in Todoist.
  • Recurring tasks now show an icon on the task card in the integration sidebar. Since Todoist reuses the same task by advancing the due date and marking the task as incomplete on each recurrence, it causes an issue in HourStack since we've already associated that task ID with an entry, and the task shows as scheduled. We don't have a good fix for that yet, but based on the scheduled date of the associated entry and the due date of the task, you should be able to infer if this recurrence of the task has been scheduled yet or not.
  • Only priorities 1-3 are shown on the task card - priority 4 is the default so no need to take up space with that label.
  • If you have a task title with Markdown, we'll strip out the Markdown and leave just the text since HourStack doesn't support Markdown in titles. Before the Markdown syntax would be shown as plain text, which wasn't a great look!

More Account Customization

We are really pleased to launch some additional account settings that will let you get HourStack customized to your liking. You can now:

  • Choose a time format; either 12-hour or 24-hour so you can set your entry start times in a format that you prefer. This setting will also apply to start times on template entries and integration tasks as well.
  • Choose a duration format, either timestamp (1:30) or decimal (1.5). This setting will be applied to all time durations within the app from the calendar to reporting. Note that exports will be in decimal format as it's quite difficult to work with timestamp format in Google Sheets and Excel, especially when using the value to create invoices or run payroll.
  • Set any day as your start of the week! Previously we only had options for Sunday and Monday, but now you are free to choose any day of the week. Also, keep in mind that in your calendar preferences you can hide any day of the week, so you can create completely custom calendar views that work perfectly for your schedule.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

  • Added the ability to complete tasks and close issues through all integrations from within the calendar. You could already do this through the integration sidebar or automatically when completing a task, but now there is a convenience method to trigger it manually anytime by right-clicking on the entry or from the options menu when editing the entry.
  • GitHub and Bitbucket integrations received a revamp of the repository list and search functionality. This is a nice usability improvement, especially for those with long owner and repository names! You can also close issues directly from the integration sidebar now.
  • The by-project table in reports now displays the percent of the logged time on a project vs. its total budget so you can quickly see the status of budgets on all your projects at once.
  • We'll no longer show pagination below the member list in the calendar if there's only one page visible. This removes a minor distraction that was visible to smaller teams.
  • Bulk actions are now correctly positioned above the sidebar in the layering system.
  • Duplicate in-app alerts no longer appear if the user has notifications enabled, but does not have the permission granted in the browser.
  • In the notes field, we fixed the link button not consistently allowing you to edit a highlighted link.
  • Fix values in the edit entry screen sometimes being stale when re-opening.
  • Fix entry notifications for other users (that are visible on your calendar) firing for the viewer.
  • Starting a timer for another user no longer locally stops a running timer for the viewer, they are completely independent.
  • Plus several refinements to the design systems in the app.

Updated September 21, 2022 in Product Updates