WakaTimeFreshBooks

A Java-based command line utility to create FreshBooks time entries from WakaTime submissions.

This tool is designed to pull time logs made available through the WakaTime API and create FreshBooks time entries for them. With a little configuration, it can be used to automatically log your time for you daily. In conjunction with what WakaTime does already, this essentially means effortless time logging! If you wish, you can also run this manually and interactively as well.

Getting Started

To use WakaTimeFreshBooks, you'll need to download the latest release from the Releases section. Then, make sure you have the following information handy:

• WakaTime API Key (if you've already configured WakaTime on your machine, WakaTimeFreshBooks can locate it)
• FreshBooks account name (whatever is in {account}.freshbooks.com)
• FreshBooks Authentication Token (Login, Go to Profile > API Access to get this).

Configuring WakaTimeFreshBooks

To get started, simply run the JAR on your command line:

java -jar w2f.jar

You will see a welcome message and be prompted to enter your WakaTime API Key, your FreshBooks account name, and FreshBooks authentication token.

That's all you need to get started.

By default, these configuration options will be stored in ~/.w2f.properties, and a running log of activity will be stored in ~/.w2f.log. See Generated Files section for more details on these files.

Associating Projects

You will be prompted to associate your WakaTime projects with FreshBooks projects in the initialization step, but you can do this at any time by running:

java -jar w2f.jar --add-project

Associating a project is very easy. Run the command above, then make the three necessary selections when prompted:

• Choose a WakaTime project
• Choose a FreshBooks project
• Choose a FreshBooks task

And that's it. Any time recorded in that WakaTime project will be logged to FreshBooks using the project and task specified.

Note: you can remove a project at any time from the association list using:

java -jar w2f.jar --remove-project

Viewing Time Entries

Once you have configured WakaTimeFreshBooks, you can run the utility in view-only mode to see what is available to log:

java -jar w2f.jar --dry-run

You can also run this without any arguments, as view-only is the default mode.

java -jar w2f.jar

The date of the time logs defaults to today, but you can pass a flag to override this:

java -jar w2f.jar -d {yyyy-MM-dd}

Submitting Time Entries

To send your WakaTime entries to FreshBooks, run with the --submit command:

java -jar w2f.jar --submit

All of your time logs for that day that have associated projects will be immediately submitted as time entries to FreshBooks.

Wakatime may split your time logs into many separate logs, especially if you are in and out of files often, or task switching. To merge all logs into a single entry when submitting, use the --merge option:

java -jar w2f.jar --submit --merge

The merge command can also be used in dry run mode as well.

To choose which time entries should be sent, and associate notes with these logs, run in interactive mode:

java -jar w2f.jar --submit --interactive

For each time entry, you will be prompted as to whether or not you want to log it or not, and you'll have the option to enter notes to send along with the time entry.

Running in the background

To really make this automated, you can elect to have this run as a cron job, meaning that your time can be logged automatically for you daily. To set this up, enter a line like so in your crontab:

0	22	*	*	*	java -jar /path/to/w2f.jar --timestamps --submit

This will submit your time entries at the end of the day each day. The --timestamps flag will add start and end timestamps to the log (details below).

You can also throw in the --verbose flag to add more output to the running log file, if you plan to review it later.

Generated Files

Two files are stored on your local machine to make WakaTimeFreshBooks work, a configuration file and a log file. By default, these are both stored in your home directory.

.w2f.properties

The properties file stores your settings about projects as well as your API keys. If you don't like/don't want to use the default location, you can specify the location you prefer:

java -jar w2f.jar -c /my/path/to/w2f.cfg

You should never have to edit this file directly, but it's nice to know where it is.

.w2f.log

The log contains information about what was logged and, when verbose mode is used, what was not logged. Like the config file, you can select the location of this file on a per-run basis:

java -jar w2f.jar -l /my/path/to/w2f.log

By default, this file will only store a maximum of 1000 lines. To change, this, run:

java -jar w2f.jar --set-event-log-size={num_lines}

Output can also be controlled with the --quiet flag or --silent flag. Both options will suppress output from standard output, which is good for background jobs. The --quiet flag will still print output to the log file, while the --silent flag will not print anything anywhere.

Additional Usage Options

You can view all the options available to you by running:

java -jar w2f.jar --usage

Resources

• FreshBooks: https://www.freshbooks.com
• WakaTime: https://wakatime.com

Issue? Suggestion? File a ticket here on GitHub, submit a PR, or tweet me @GoGoCarl.