DSF

I used to use a manual T-Card system but really need something on the PC now to speed things up, allow for future reference etc.

Can anyone recommend something? Only needs to be very simple, I even thought about throwing a quick database together with drop down options as the job status changes. Thought I'd ask on this wonderful forum if anyone had any clever ideas?

I've seen this which looks ideal but even the lite version is £95, might be worth the investment though.

http://www.teecard.co.uk/t-cards.htm

I don't know about clever ideas but would it be possible to create a workbook in excel for your needs? Then if your needs grow you would be able to export to access?

If you go with a proprietary system you are stuck with it forever. or face a long job transfering the data to the next system of choice

I may well just end up using Excel yes, just playing around to see if I can get it to do what I need.....I know it will, it's just whether I CAN DO IT! lol.

What do you use the system for? To keep track of jobs, budgets, status of jobs, etc, I use Task Coach. Is that kind of thing any use to you?

Just looking to keep track of jobs really, something very simple. Looking at Task Coach it seems similar to Swift To Do List and other programs I have, really need something separate with drop down options to show job status at a glance....hence the T-Card reference. Perhaps Excel would be the best option.

You're probably right.

For Job Status, I use the category feature of TaskCoach. These appear as subjects at the side of the screen which you can check and uncheck depending on which you wish to display/print. Each category can be assigned different colours (and you can override that to assign different colours to tasks). You could probably use categories as statuses.

As you work on tasks, you add "efforts" to them which work with the budget to keep an ongoing cost of the project if you're charging by time. There's also a "percentage complete" slider for partially completed projects. Tasks can also be assigned dependencies/pre-requisites (i.e., they're dependent on other tasks).

I don't use half the features on it, I just use it to keep track of my consultancy work (because most projects have a "due date" and it's important to keep organised). I just use it because it's free and portable.