Rules for automatic time entries

Memtime offers the option to automate the creation of your time entries by creating rules based on your activities.

To set up a rule for automatic time entries or suggestions, you can do the following:

1. Click on the lightbulb symbol in the Time-Tracking tab.



2. This will open the Time Entry Automation window, where you can click on the button "Create a new Rule".

3. When you click on "Create a new Rule" a new window will appear where you can give your rule a name and define the conditions for it.





You can create rules that automatically assign any particular activity you choose to a specific project or customer. The rules can be based on different conditions, such as:

• Activity name
• Program
• URL/Document Path
• Window Title
• Browser Profile
• E-mail Subject
• E-mail Participant

By default, the option to create automatic time entries is turned off, and Memtime will instead provide time entry suggestions for you.

4.  Once you click on “Save”, you will be able to see all of your rules in the Time Entry Automation window, and edit them or delete them.

Since the rules are applied from top to bottom, you can also click and drag on a specific rule to prioritize it.

5. When you create your first rule, and save it, you can quickly switch dates in the Memtime app in order to see your first time entry suggestions.






Depending on the zoom option that you use in Memtime, you will get different time entry suggestions. For example, if you switch your option to a small time increment, like 1 minute, Memtime will give you multiple smaller time entry suggestions.





6. When Memtime suggests a time entry based on the rule you've set up, you have the option to either accept the suggestion, make edits to it, or decline it.





If you decline a time entry suggestion, it won't appear for a while, but in case you want the same suggestion to reappear, you can open the Time Entry Automation settings, and click on the “Clear Cache” button.

Additional ways to create rules for automation

An additional way to create rules is by using the search function in Memtime.

The search option in Memtime allows you to set parameters similar to the rule conditions, enabling you to save your search criteria as a new rule.





After creating rules this way, don't forget to click on “Clear Search” in order to see all of your tracked activities again.

Another way to see or edit any of the rules you've created is to access them through your Memtime settings.

To do that, click on the Memtime menu icon on the top right and select “Preferences”. Then select “Time Entries” on the left side, and you will access the settings for rules.
 

Creating rules that have multiple conditions

With the Memtime 4.4.0 release, our team has added more rule options, allowing users to create rules that have the “OR” statement functionality. You can now use the “contains any” condition and add terms in two ways to ensure both are recognized. Here’s how it works:

• Spaces act as separators between different search terms.
• If you want Memtime to search for something that includes a space, enclose the term in quotation marks.

In this example, Memtime would be able to recognize any activity that contains "e mail" or "email" in its name:

Creating Automatic Time Entries

If your rules are set up correctly, based on your own preferences, you can allow Memtime to create automatic time entries for you.

First, make sure to set the Zoom Level for Rules and Time Entry Minimum Duration based on your preferences. You can do this by opening the Time Entry Automation window.

What exactly do these settings change?

Zoom Level for Rules

Choose how precise your automatic time entries should be. For example:

• If you set it to 1 minute, the rule will recognize activities lasting 1 minute or longer and create individual time entries for each.
• If you set it to 10 minutes, it will recognize activities of 10 minutes or more and round up the entries accordingly.
  
  

Time Entry Minimum Duration 

Define the shortest duration that can be logged as an automatic time entry. Activities shorter than this time will not be recorded.

After making sure that you have set the correct settings for your rule, you can open it to activate the option "Create automatic Time Entries" and save your changes.

In this video, we’ll show how to create a rule in Memtime to automatically assign daily customer success meetings to the customer success project. We’ll do this by setting a rule to assign all calendar events containing "daily customer success" in their name.