Automating Toggl With Android Tasker

Overview

This follows on from the first post about time tracking and setting up Toggl. Automating time tracking helps alleviate the burden of remembering to start and stop timers. There maybe situations where it would not be good etiquette to have your phone out to start the timer. Automating this chore should also increase the accuracy of the timers.

Pre-Requisites

This requires a Toggl account and the following apps installed:

1. Tasker – I think this goes without saying
2. AutoWeb – Integration to services that offer API. At the time, it was in beta and added Toggl support

A current limitation with AutoWeb Toggl integration is the lack of support for tags.

API Token

Before going further, the unique Toggl API token is required so that we can make web service calls to Toggl logged in with your credentials. A token is more secure way communication than username and passwords.

To find the API token, log into Toggl. Go to your profile and at the bottom there is a long string in a field labelled API token. Make a copy / note. Now’s the time to reset / generate a new one.

Tasker Example

I have created 2 tasker tasks. 1 to get the project ID so that any start timers can pass a name of the project and get the project ID. 2 the task to start a timer using the project ID.

Get Project ID by Name

See attached.

Start Timer

See attached

Example Uses

Here are a few examples of where I use these timers.

• Location based triggers to start work timer or gym / work out timer.
• Connections such as Bluetooth in the car to start a travel timer or conmected to home WiFi to stop any other existing running timers.
• NFC to trigger chores such as washing, cooking, etc

The profile is downloadable here. You’ll need to change the file from a text file to xml.
Start_Timer_By_Project_Name.tsk

Summary

Minimising the manual time tracking and having a more hands off approach where possible will make time tracking very easy.

The value will be in the data it gathers and demonstrate where your time goes which I hope to cover in the future.

About Danny

I.T software professional always studying and applying the knowledge gained and one way of doing this is to blog. Danny also has participates in a part time project called Energy@Home [http://code.google.com/p/energyathome/] for monitoring energy usage on a premise. Dedicated to I.T since studying pure Information Technology since the age of 16, Danny Tsang working in the field that he has aimed for since leaving school. View all posts by Danny → This entry was posted in Mobile Phone and tagged Android, automation, Tasker. Bookmark the permalink.

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