TacticSheet - Open Source TimeSheet and ExpenseSheet System Built On .NET 3.5

Last couple of weekends, I started work on an Open Source Timesheet Entry System using .NET 3.5, C# 3.0 and ASP.NET, which, for no particular reason, was named TacticSheet.

In the coming months (depending on the number of free weekends I get :)) TacticSheet will have its own domain domain name, a full blown website and a steady open source life cycle but for now that I seemed to have reached a logical point where I can at-least see the basic functionality of the application taking shape. I could hardly resist the temptation of sharing TacticSheet with fellow developers and my blog readers.

If you care, here’s a quick FAQ of TacticSheet (or a list of few questions that might be going through your head right now as you read this :)):

What is TacticSheet?

It’s a Free and Open Source Timesheet Entry System which in the long run is supposed to provide the the ability to do Timesheets and Expense-sheets within an enterprise.

Can I Use TacticSheet in My Organization Today?

No. It’s far from being production ready yet. It has the basic framework which will allow people to file timesheets and project managers and line managers to approve or reject timesheets. As of Today TacticSheet is not fully stable, not fully tested and may have a lot of breaking changes in the next months as it moves towards a Release 1. Some of the very important features that most organizations would need e.g. Audit trails, email notifications etc. are currently missing. To make things worse, even our database isn’t scripted yet. :)

In the coming couple of months we’ll be working to get these issues ironed out so that you can start using TacticSheet in your organization and upgrade safely to a new version every time a new version comes out. Till then, feel free to play around with TacticSheet Development builds, but please don’t deploy them to production environments.

If it’s not fully ready why are you announcing it live?

Because good software is never complete. :) On a serious note, I’m interested in getting some feedback and contributions from the community, fellow developers and above all - you dear reader! Go to our Source-Forge Home Page, grab the source code from our SVN (or Browse our online SVN), try it out, drop a comment or email and let me know what you think about the application!

We don’t have a lot of documentation on setting up the development environment but we're hoping most folks will find it very straight forward. If you want help setting it up, please drop question(s) in the Product Forum and we’ll be happy to answer them.

If you think you’ve found a bug, please file it here.

Feel like contributing? Read on!

How Can I Contribute?

We’re looking for a few one-man-armies who are thick skinned developers and people who are into shipping good software (not just writing documents and following crazy process!). We really think the world could use one more Timesheet entry system built on .NET, especially if it’s free and open source! Do you?

Besides kick ass developers, we are also looking for UI folks and people who can test the application inside out! Interested?

If you fall in any of the above categories, are fortunate enough to find some free time during weekends and crazy enough to write code during that free time, Email me using the “mail” icon on the left panel of this page and we can discuss how you can contribute.

You can also contribute by Submitting SVN Patches, filing bugs or just participating in the forums.

What’s the Technology Stack?

We’re starting out with .NET 3.5 and Beta 2 Release of Orcas. Of course whenever Orcas RTMs, (end of this year / next year), we will be working to ensure that TacticSheet migrates over to and works with the RTM version. For the enthusiastic and passionate .NET developers here’s the technology stack TacticSheet uses:

1. Orcas Beta 2.
2. .NET 3.5.
3. C# 3.0.
4. LINQ to SQL.
5. XLINQ.
6. ASP.NET Ajax and ASP.NET Ajax Toolkit.
7. SQL Server 2005. (But there’s no Reason why you couldn’t make TacticSheet work in SQL Express!)

How Can I Stay Informed about the Project?

We have 2 different mailing lists – depending on the kind of involvement you want to have to the kind of information you want to stay updated with feel free to join any one of our mailing lists.

1. The General TacticSheet Mailing group – Users who are interested in staying informed about the new features of TacticSheet can sign up for this mailing group.
2. The TacticSheet Technology Mailing Group – We will be discussing most new technologies we use in TacticSheet here whenever we decide to use a new technology. We will also be discussing the design and technical changes that TacticSheet undergoes in the future in this mailing group.

When will TacticSheet Development Complete?

As of now, I don’t think I’ll ever be ‘done’ with this project, which is the whole point! I’m a firm believer of supporting everything I write. I intend on extending and supporting TacticSheet for years to come. Watch out for a lot of new features and version, year after year!

Why are we writing TacticSheet?

This calls for a long post, but for now let’s just say - Because, we can. (You can expect another detailed post on this topic in the near future :))

What’s the TacticSheet License?

The product is currently under GPL. Also, we do not allow or encourage forks of TacticSheet for the time being. I personally feel that the product is too premature for now and forking will add to confusion. As the product grows we plan on moving to a much more liberal license like FreeBSD.

Even though the license is strictly GPL we are fairly liberal towards the use of TacticSheet – it’s primarily written for a hobby and not with an intent of making money – so if you want to do something crazy with the code-base please email me and we’ll see to it that you can do whatever you are trying to do without being charged or sued :).

So, now that TacticSheet has finally been born, wish us luck and growth! Stay tuned for more posts, features and goodness.