Perspectiva FAQ
How To Do Time Tracking with Perspectiva Calendar App on iPad or iPhone
Use Perspectiva calendar app on iPhone and iPad to track time for projects and clients. Export pie chart and bar chart images or PDFs, and export time logs for reports, invoices, spreadsheets, accounting, analysis and more.
NOTE: This first section introduces creating and modified calendars and events. If one is already familiar with these actions, skip directly to Time Tracking in Perspectiva
Introduction to calendars and events
The calendar systems on iPhone and iPad support calendar objects to which event objects are assigned. Each calendar object has a title and color as two primary attributes.
The calendar list in the built-in Calendar app on iPad.
The calendar list in the Perspectiva app on iPad.
Create calendars to organize the time logging and schedules for various projects, activities or clients, with titles such as Home, Office, Travel, Ben's Catering, Jerry's Adventures, Infrastructure, Marketing, Research, Biology, Calculus, River Field Trip, etc..
Adding and modifying calendars in Perspectiva
To add or modify calendars, tap the Filter button (with the magnifying glass icon) in the top toolbar. Then tap Calendars to see the set of available calendars. To add a calendar, tap Edit and then tap New Calendar with the green plus sign (+) at the bottom of the calendar list. To change an existing calendar title or color, tap the Info button (circle i). The title and calendar color may be set in the Edit Calendar view.
Create a new calendar
Tap the Filter button in the top toolbar. The Filter view appears.
To open the Calendars list view, tap the Calendars row in the Filter view. The Calendars list view will appear.
Tap Edit in the top toolbar to switch the Calendars list view to edit mode.
Tap the Add Calendar row at the bottom of the list. A new calendar will be created and the Edit Calendar view will appear.
Customizing the calendar color
The colors may be assigned as desired to help distinguish various calendars in color coded views, such as Month, Week, Day, Year, Bar Chart and Pie Chart views. To customize the color beyond the few basic colors shown in the Edit Calendar view, tap the Custom row in the list of colors in the Edit Calendar view. The Color Picker view will appear.
Use the Color Picker view to customize the color with slider controls. Drag the circular knobs on the slider bars for hue, saturation, brightness to change the color for the calendar.
To choose a color from a table of swatches, tap Swatches at the top of the Color Picker view. The Color Table view will appear.
Use the Color Table view to choose a color from a large set of standard named colors.
Add events to calendars
Once the calendars are set up for the projects to be tracked, events can be added to the calendars to log various activities.
Long press in the Day, Week or Month view to add a new event. The Add Event view appears.
Select one of the Add Event options.
In the Edit Event view, choose the desired calendar for the event. Setting the calendar for events makes the time logging and filtering easier.
Once event attributes have been entered, the Edit Event will look similar to this. Tap Add in the New Event view to add the new event to the calendar.
Time Tracking in Perspectiva
Configure the Filter for a subset of calendar events
Use the Filter view in Perspectiva to select a time range and specific calendar or multiple calendars to be used for calculations, charts and exporting time logs. A search phrase may also be used to filter the events.
The Filter view has three basic elements to configure, the date range, the calendar set, and the search text.
Set the calendar filter date range
The date range has a start and end date, which can be set by tapping on the dates at the top of the Filter view. Easily configure the start and end date for some useful ranges by tapping the This, Previous or Next buttons for the Day, Week, Month or Year rows in the Filter view.Select a subset of calendars in the Filter view
To show the set of selected calendars, tap the Calendars row in the Filter view. The Calendars view appears and shows a list of calendars available on one's device.
Tap the calendars in the Calendars view to select or deselect them. Only the selected set of calendars are visible in the Perspectiva calendar views (List, Day, Week, Month and Year) and in the Pie Chart and Bar Chart views. The selected set of calendars is also use the Calculations view and various export actions in the Actions view.
Pie Chart and Bar Chart views
The information about the calendars and events that satisfy the filter can be viewed in the Pie Chart and Bar Chart views. One can see total hours, hours percentage, event count or event count percentage in the chart views. Time bar charts and time line charts show the distribution of event time over the time range. One can choose the time frame unit for the bars: by day, week, month or year.
Various bar chart view settings help one analyze time usage for a set of calendars.
The Perspectiva Time Bar Chart with the time frame set to Day.
The Perspectiva Time Bar Chart with the time frame set to Week.
The Perspectiva Time Line Chart is another time chart style.
Export pie chart and bar chart images
The chart views can be exported in the Actions view as images or PDF files.
Export time logs for reports, invoices, spreadsheets, and accounting
Export filtered event logs as text, tab-separated values (TSV), or comma-separated values (CSV) files, and include calculations for totals on the filtered set. The calculations can be configured in the Calculations view (with the calculator icon).
Insight into calendar activity
One can study patterns of activity in one's own life or various other situations to understand how time and resources are allocated. Logging and journaling provide a repository of information from which knowledge can be gathered and determined.
Connecting to calendar servers
Note: Calendar systems provide the foundation service provider for the calendar syncing services, such as Apple's iCloud syncing for Calendar on iPhone, iPad and macOS devices, or Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, and other CalDAV type calendars. All of these calendar services are supported by the Perspectiva app, and are configured in the Settings app.
Use the Settings app to configure calendar services
Open the Settings app and go to Settings > Accounts & Passwords to configure which calendar services are to be used with the Perspectiva calendar app or any other calendar app on the iPhone or iPad.
Choose Add Account to create a new calendar account, and choose on the the calendar services such as iCloud, Google
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support@imaja.com
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