Work time on a project or VI

[Jakob_Pin]

Hello guys,

I would like to check how long have I been working on my last project in LV.

Is this possible to check for VI's or project?

If this is not possible, is there any other ways to approximately evaluate work "effort"?

PS: Files are on my desktop PC, and I am the only one who was working on the project.

BR,

Jakob

[Kyle97330]

Inside each VI there's a "Version" property that adds 1 to itself each time the VI is modified and then saved.  It's not time-stamped or anything so it only qualifies as a rough approximation of effort.  It can also be dishonest if you got some of the VIs from another project and just modified them, or if your entire project recompiled many times because of type definition changes propagating, or other things that cause extra saving.

You could also just check the Windows file system for all of the date and time stamps it has for the files.

[Jakob_Pin]

Hello Kyle,

Thanks for the comment.

I was aware of Revision property inside VI. Yes, it shows how many time the program was modified. But the number gets increased with very small modifications, for ex.: if you change some constants, rewire etc. So this is not really relevant to me.

I was hoping that LV would have some sort of smart time track.

[Bob_Schor]

As far as I know, LabVIEW doesn't come with timers that detect when you are "working on your code", so you'll need to build your own "timing" scheme.

Suppose you put all of your code in a "Locker".  When you want to work on it, you bring it out of the Locker (which creates a "Checked Out" time), work, and then (when you are ready to stop) you put it back in the Locker (which creates a "Checked-back-In" time).  

Hmm.  This sounds a little like a Version Control System.  There are a variety of VCS out there -- I'm not sure if they have automatic "Check In" and "Check Out" timers, but if they do, you should be able to rig up a way to compute how much time your code was "available for Programming".  Of course, you'll need to manually "put the code away" (a Check In) when you aren't working on it.  

Bob Schor

P.S. -- some of my colleagues will probably have better ideas, so be patient ...

[Yamaeda]

All files have a Created property. Compare that with todays date to see how many days you've worked on it. Assuming you've worked.

/Y

[GerdW]

Hi Jakob,

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@Jakob_Pin wrote:

If this is not possible, is there any other ways to approximately evaluate work "effort"?

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Use a sheet of paper (aka calender or diary) to keep notes of your working time per project. (It might help not to switch projects too often: it's much easier to count just days (or halfdays) per project.)

Sometimes the easy stuff works just fine…

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@Jakob_Pin wrote:

PS: Files are on my desktop PC, and I am the only one who was working on the project.

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I hope you also keep backups of your precious work or use any SCC (source code control) system on a dedicated (and also included in a backup routine) server?

[thols]

Code complexity could be one thing to measure, although Its not certain a higher value means more work has been done, as simpler code often is better code: https://www.ni.com/en/shop/labview/estimating-code-complexity-in-labview.html

[thols]

How about creating a VI that keeps track of how long a project has been opened? It could be made as an exe that scans windows as they open and close and keep record of their opened times if its a project or a VI.

But this is probably a very bad way of measuring effort. Much of the effort of work lies in thinking, designing, testing, documenting and lots of other stuff that cannot be measured by checking a VIs opened-time.